This Blog is for New to Cruise and the well Traveled , on this site we will publish information about Cruise and Holiday information, with some insider stories in the travel press.
Marella Expands Drinks Range with 18 Non-Alcoholic Options
Marella Cruises has announced that it is offering 18 new alcohol-free cocktails, six 0 percent ABV spirits, four 0 percent wines, as well as non-alcoholic beer and cider alternatives.
Luke Saunders, food and drink development manager at Marella Cruises, said: “We are pleased to be expanding our non-alcoholic drinks menus onboard across our ships.”
“After listening to customer feedback and reviewing the gaps in our menu, we want to enhance a customer’s experience onboard and cater to those who would prefer a non-alcoholic alternative,” added Saunders.
“We are looking forward to our new and returning customers trying out 0 percent cocktails for when they are next onboard.”
From August 2026, all guests sailing on Marella Cruises will be able to enjoy an expanded range of non-alcoholic drinks as part of the line’s All-Inclusive offering, the company said, while guests upgrading to Premium All-Inclusive will also have access to a selection of 0 percent ABV spirits and alcohol-free cocktails.
Photo credit Dave Jones, Norwegian Sky departing the Port of Miami.
Norwegian Cruise Line will further extend its offering of weekly roundtrip cruises from Miami to Cuba through 2018, with 33 new voyages.
This year's Norwegian Sky sailings are scheduled through December 2017, and cruises will resume March 26, 2018.
Thirty-two of the 33 new voyages will include an overnight in Havana and a call at Great Stirrup Cay, Norwegian’s private island in the Bahamas.
The format on the Sky will continue to include alcoholic beverages in the cruise fare.
Norwegian will offer a selection of 15 half- and full-day shore excursions that are compliant with the U.S.'s rules about people-to-people travel in Cuba.
I have now personally sailed aboard the new Seven Seas Explorer and toured the Seven Seas Navigator from Regent Seven Seas Cruises, and I can better outline what is special about the luxury line and sets it apart from the competition.
The Seven Seas Explorer
The Seven Seas Explorer itself is such an incredible ship that its mere inclusion in the fleet is a differentiator for the entire Regent brand. Its attention to detail is unparalleled at sea, and the palatial Regent Suite is unlike any other accommodations.
Its passenger space ratio ensures ample space for each guest with no crowding, and altogether the ship feels much larger than it is. The atrium soars through all the public decks, the Constellation Theater is an impressive two stories in height and private balconies are massive.
Genuinely All-Inclusive
Despite what it says, all-inclusive as a description is often not accurately applied to cruise lines. There are many cases where others are nearly all-inclusive or an all-inclusive experience can be purchased for an extra fee, but Regent is easily the most genuinely all-inclusive cruise line there is.
Understandably, things like the casino, retail shops and spa services are excluded, and likely always will be, but just about everything else is complimentary including unlimited shore excursions, premium drinks and specialty dining, 24-hour room service, pre-paid gratuities, WiFi internet access, airport transfers, a pre-cruise hotel night and even airfare.
Seamless Service
Other cruise lines may have a very friendly crew, but not all of them exhibit the best in actual service. Regent’s crew tirelessly provide guests with everything they need, and passengers are seldom in a position to ask or request. The crew does not hover but rather blends in such that the service seems effortless, which means plenty of effort is made behind the scenes to make it appear so.
L’Occitane Bath Products and Teddy Bears
Accommodations onboard are extremely comfortable and well configured, but it's the extra touches that especially make them stand out to guests. L’Occitane has long been my favorite purveyor of fine soaps and shampoos, and it’s a delight to see that Regent exclusively features its excellent Mer & Mistral line of bath products on its ships. Similarly, as a collector of teddy bears, I was overjoyed to see that a welcoming Regent bear greets guests in top-tier suites as a lovely touch of home.
Extending elegant flourishes throughout the public areas of the ship as well as private suites is a beautiful collection of artwork. The breadth of paintings, mixed-media pieces and sculpture is very intriguing without ever being too bold or offensive. Several pieces speak to guests on different levels emotionally and literally across different decks. There are even plans in the works to showcase the collection with a detailed book.
Best Main Dining Room at Sea
Often it's the specialty restaurants that most impress from a culinary perspective on ships, but Regent’s equivalent of a main dining room, Compass Rose, actually makes a bigger statement by offering a menu that is beyond extensive.
There are still a dozen or so options offered daily on a rotating basis, but when combining that with the dozens more of always-available choices, the combinations of courses to order are seemingly endless. Guests can pick their favorite proteins, sauces and sides to craft a customized meal as well as experiment with new flavors in a single evening.
Culinary Arts Kitchen
Regent’s Culinary Arts Kitchen is the cherry on top of the sundae for allowing guests the opportunity to learn how to cook gourmet cuisine in a hands-on setting in addition to enjoying world-class cuisine. Individual cooking stations ensure each participant can fully prepare several dishes during a single course of instruction and then be able to sample it on the spot before taking their newfound knowledge home with them.
Royal Caribbean International is the latest cruise line to develop a suite class, extending the privileges that come with upper-level stateroom bookings beyond the four walls of the suite itself.
Suite guests now constitute a special class on brands ranging from deluxe Cunard Line and Celebrity Cruises to mass-market players such as Norwegian Cruise Line, MSC Cruises and, soon, Royal Caribbean.
Royal Caribbean president Michael Bayley told travel agents attending the Vacation.com annual conference onboard Oasis of the Seas that Royal is working on a Suite Class package of amenities and will roll it out sometime in 2016.
Bayley said the general idea was to make it an all-inclusive product, though Royal spokesman Harrison Liu said the exact list of all-inclusive elements is still being determined.
Bayley was president of Celebrity Cruises when that line conceived its suite class. The category became operational last month on all Celebrity ships except the Xpedition.
Suites have always been larger, nicer and more expensive than ordinary cruise staterooms. What is new is the effort to make areas outside the suite itself exclusive to suite guests and to generally raise the level of service, value and privilege that go with suites.
Celebrity’s new suite class, for example, includes a 120-seat restaurant, Luminae, reserved exclusively for suite guests.
Those in higher category suites, such as Celebrity suites and above, have exclusive access to Michael’s Club, a lounge that was originally a pub-style venue on Celebrity ships.
And in top quarters — Royal, Penthouse, and Reflection suites — guests get more perks including a free premium beverage package, unlimited specialty dining, free unlimited Internet access and a minibar restocked daily with beer, soda and water.
Suite class on some brands, including Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises, includes segregation from the rest of the ship in an enclave of cabins behind a key-card access point.
The top suites on Celebrity Cruises’ newest ship, the Reflection, also have this feature.
Beth Butzlaff, managing director of cruise at the Virtuoso luxury consortium, said that the spread of suite class is mainly a result of non-luxury cruise lines trying to retain their top-shelf customers.
“I think it’s a trend because all these premium [lines] aren’t trying to pretend to be luxury, but they all have luxury travelers,” Butzlaff said, referring to passengers who are susceptible to pitches from lines higher on the luxury food chain.
Keeping guests loyal by carving out areas of the ship where they can congregate with other luxury customers is an attempt to forestall such defections.
“It’s been successful, from what we can see,” Butzlaff said.
Another factor has been the growing recognition of the revenue brought in by the highest-value passengers on a ship.
The Loft Suite on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas.
“The premiums are finding this type of client is more loyal, they spend more onboard, they obviously book the higher suites and they take more shore excursions, so the investment they’re making is going to pay off,” Butzlaff said.
A third wrinkle is the growth of multi-generational travel and the desire of some customers who would typically go on small, luxury ships to travel with extended families.
Suite classes respond to that. Butzlaff said The Haven or SeaPass, a gold-colored version of a key card now used by Royal Caribbean for suite guests, “accommodates that luxury client [who] is wanting to travel with their families and still have a luxury experience.”
As to whether the addition of suite class perks gives cruise lines cover for raising suite prices, Butzlaff said it wasn’t clear.
“There’s different models for different lines,” she said. “With these suites, there is some comparison with the luxury lines as far as price, but the value is still very strong.”
Travel agents can make lucrative bookings from suite products, so the spread of the suite class concept is a boon for agent commissions. Butzlaff said the suite class idea goes back at least as far as the 2004 introduction of Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2, which resurrected the liner concept and its formal class structure.
Cunard offers Grill Class on its ships, which gives suite customers access or priority seating at its Queen’s Grill and Princess Grill restaurants and associated lounges. On Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, Cunard offers suite guests an outdoor courtyard area for exclusive al fresco dining.
Around the same time, Norwegian began building a separate suite section on its ships that eventually came to be called the Haven. The concept has been picked up by MSC as the MSC Yacht Club starting in 2008 with the launch of its four Fantasia-class ships.
On MSC, the concept includes a separate lounge, pool area, bar, concierge reception area and restaurant, as well as a private entrance to the ship’s spa. Royal Caribbean has built increasingly elaborate suites as its new ships bulked up and passenger counts rose.
The 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Sea and Allure of the Sea offer Royal Loft Suites, duplex accommodations that are a feature of Cunard and some other luxury lines. Already, Royal offers an exclusive concierge lounge to senior-suite guests on most ships and a private area of the pool deck to suite guests beginning with Voyager-class ships and those built afterward.
It also provides private breakfast and lunch seating in specialty restaurants on Voyager- and Freedom-class ships, as well as a separate restaurant on Quantum-class ships, with plans to add them to Oasis-class ships.
Carnival Cruise Lines has resumed charging a single price for its beverage package, after experimenting with a variable price system.
Starting Oct. 25, the price for the "Cheers!" package became $49.95 per person, per day, for cruises of all lengths.
In August, Carnival began testing a system in which Cheers! cost more on short cruises. Earlier this year, Carnival expanded the package to three-day cruises, for which it hadn’t previously been available.
Under that concept, Cheers! cost $55 per person, per day on a three-day cruise, $45 on a four-day cruise, $42.50 on a five- or six-day cruise and $37.50 on a seven or eight-day cruises.
The package provides flat-rate daily pricing for alcoholic drinks, nonalcoholic frozen drinks, wine by the glass and soda. Drinks $10 or less are covered and there is a limit of 15 alcoholic drinks per day.
Carnival resumes single price for Beverage package
Norwegian's new amenities package draws agent interest
By Tom Stieghorst
Going all in
Norwegian Cruise Line has created an all-inclusive package of cruise amenities. Here’s how a passenger could come out, using one set of assumptions about what it might cost to buy all the items in the package a la carte during a seven-night cruise.
A la carte: Beverage: $448 (eight drinks per day at average cost of $8 each) Dining: $140 (seven specialty restaurant meals averaging $20 per person) Prepaid gratuities: $84 ($12 a day) Shore excursions: $320 (four excursions at $80 per person) Internet: $100 (250-minute package) Photos: $274 (15 small photos at $12 each; five 8-by-10 photos at $20 each) Bingo: $39 Wine: $29 Water: $21.95 (six large bottles) Chocolate-covered strawberries: $12
• A la carte total = $1,467.95 • Package $899 + $120 (shore excursion in excess of $200) = $1,019 • Savings = $448.95
Andy Stuart, Norwegian Cruise Line’s executive vice president of global sales, said some 3,000 agents joined a webinar about its new all-in-one amenities package, about a third more than the typical audience for a Norwegian webinar.
Called the All-Inclusive, the new product is a package of packages, bundling Norwegian’s Ultimate Dining and Ultimate Beverage packages with Internet minutes, plus a bevy of other items not included in the cruise fare.
“We got a ton of positive feedback,” Stuart said.
The All-Inclusive package is offered on cruises of three to 14 days in 2015. For a seven-day cruise, it is priced at $899 per person, with higher or lower prices for shorter or longer cruise lengths.
Norwegian will pay commission on the package at the same rate as the cruise fare, with the exception of the gratuities that are included in the package.
“There’s absolutely no way to make a big promotion and offer a package that for a seven-night cruise is $899 and ask the travel agents to support it without paying commission,” said Stuart.
Norwegian ran numerous examples to test the idea that selling the package could double an agent’s commission and feels that is a valid claim, he added.
Vicky Garcia, COO of Cruise Planners in Coral Springs, Fla., called the package an “extraordinary” value and said it would help agents get customers focused on 2015.
“Also, this all-inclusive offer is combinable with other sales or promotions that are currently in the market,” Garcia said.
Norwegian said the package represents more than $2,400 of value per stateroom. Although the exact value will vary according to an individual’s choices, Travel Weekly found a seven-night guest paying a la carte could spend about $1,350 for what’s in the package (see breakdown, above left).
Inclusive packages are also valued because they create certainty about costs.
“A lot of people like to be done with it before the cruise starts,” Stuart said. “They like to have that element done, and they get on their vacation, and they’re not thinking about … should I do this or should I not do that because there’s a cost attached to it.”
Beyond the dining, beverage and Internet packages, the All-Inclusive package includes a $200-per-person credit toward shore excursions, prepaid gratuities, 20 photos of any size, three bingo cards, a bottle of wine, chocolate-covered strawberries and six large bottles of water. For cruises from three to five days, the shore excursion credit is $100 per person; and for sailings from nine to 14 days, the package includes 12 bottles of water.
“We felt very comfortable presenting this as an all-inclusive package,” Stuart said, adding that it will help Norwegian compete with all-inclusive resorts as well as with other cruise lines.
On select cruises, buying the All-Inclusive package also qualifies a guest for a 10% discount on the cruise fare.
At least initially, All-Inclusive will be available only from Aug. 4 through 29 on all 2015 cruises except those on the Pride of America. Stuart said there will be discussion later of how long to continue the package.
“It’s the first time the industry has ever done this, so we want to get a sense of whether it resonates with travel agents,” he said.
Stuart said Norwegian has seen a growing interest in inclusivity among its guests, and did research about what elements to include in the package. It found the most valued benefit was prepaid service charges, followed by the Ultimate Dining package and then the Ultimate Beverage package.
One unexpected result of the research was that first-time cruisers expressed as much or more interest as past cruisers in buying the package.
“That took us by surprise, I must say,” Stuart said. “But it encouraged us, because it really showed there was a broad audience for this promotion.”
MSC Cruises will be making a splash in Asia for the first time ever, when MSC Orchestra sets sail on an all-inclusive voyage from Dubai to Perth next year.
In 2015, the company's 33-night cruise – departing in February – will stop off in Mumbai and Cochin, India; Colombo in Sri Lanka; Langkawi in Malaysia; Singapore; and Bali, according to Travel Weekly.
The colourful schedule will also take in the best of Australia in the final leg of the month-long cruise, with stops scheduled in Cairns Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle.
Highlighting the emphasis placed on Asia during the voyage, Singapore represents one of two scheduled overnight stops, with Sydney making up the other.
According to the company, there has already been keen interest among passengers in the new itinerary.
Giles Hawke, MSC's managing director for UK and Ireland, told the news provider: "We have had a number of our past passengers asking for an itinerary which will take them to the Far East and Australia and this gives them exactly what they are looking for."
NEW BEVERAGE PACKAGES - LAUNCHING ONBOARD FROM 15th NOVEMBER 2013 Royal Caribbean International is furthering its commitment to total guest satisfaction by expanding its existing all-inclusive beverage package program to include two new packages as well as enhancing its current offerings.
Our all-inclusive beverage packages allow guests to pay one price and enjoy a wide selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages at greater savings and convenience for the duration of their voyage.
· New packages will be available onboard starting November 15 for North American cruises. · New packages will be available for purchase online and on all International cruises in December 2013
IT’S NOW MORE CONVENIENT THAN EVER
· Previously if one guest wanted to purchase a Beverage package all guests over the legal age limit, in the same stateroom, were also required to purchase the same package. This is no longer a requirement.
· Beverage Packages will be available for purchase throughout the cruise as long as there are four (4) remaining days left on the sailing. Guests will only be charged according to the number of days remaining on the sailing.
· Guests may bring personal wine and champagne onboard only on the day of embarkation, limited to two (2) 750 ml bottles per stateroom. When consumed in any public area, each bottle shall be subject to a corkage fee of $25.00.
