Celebrity to add overnight port stays on long Caribbean cruises

Posted on 21 May, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

Celebrity Cruises said it will add an overnight stay to the itinerary of Caribbean cruises of 10 days or longer, starting in January 2016. The decision affects 43 cruises, said Dondra Ritzenthaler, senior vice president of sales, trade support and services.

Ritzenthaler stressed that overnights are typically a feature of cruises outside the Caribbean, so Celebrity is breaking ground with the move.

“This gives us the ability to say we have more overnights in the Caribbean than any cruise line in the industry,” Ritzenthaler said. “While overnights have been a trend in the marketplace in Europe and in Asia, there really hasn’t been a movement and we believe we are a leader in this initiative.”

The destinations where overnights are planned include Aruba, Barbados, Cartagena, Cozumel, Curacao and St. Maarten. Ritzenthaler said they are among the highest-rated destinations in the Caribbean by guests.

“Consumer and trade research indicates this is something they desire,” Ritzenthaler said.

Of Celebrity’s 10 ships, five are scheduled to be in the Caribbean in the first quarter of 2016, but not all do itineraries of 10 days or longer.

Celebrity has been selling the 2016 Caribbean winter season since the fall of 2014 and cruises have been booking well, Ritzenthaler said. Now booked guests will get the bonus of an overnight stay. “This will be a really wonderful gift for these folks,” she said. “This will be something that will be a really nice opportunity for them. We think it will be a differentiator.”

Celebrity Introduces “World Class Bar”

Posted on 19 May, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

by: cruiseindustrynews.com

Celebrity Cruises has introduced what it calls the world’s first permanent World Class Bar. According to the cruise line, the bar space onboard Celebrity Eclipse provides “interactive and luxurious” drinks experiences created by world class-certified mixologists.

Celebrity said it is renowned for its highly skilled and engaging bartenders, and partnering with a premium drinks company provides the cruise lines’ mixologists with exclusive menus that feature cutting-edge cocktails, promising to deliver the ultimate high-end drinks experience for vacationers. The World Class Bar debuted on the Celebrity Eclipse and will soon be followed by bars onboard Celebrity’s four remaining Solstice Class ships.

“Our award-winning culinary program gives guests the opportunity to indulge in new tastes and experiences during their vacation, and the World Class Bar will do this by offering the very best of mixology, custom-created craft cocktails and expert bartenders,” said Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, President and CEO, Celebrity Cruises. “World Class is at the forefront of contemporary cocktail culture, which is a perfect fit for Celebrity as we continue to bring modern luxury to affluent vacationers.”

Extending a river cruise at sea

Posted on 1 May, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

By Tom Stieghorst

Many of the passengers I shared a voyage with recently on the new Viking Star ocean cruise ship were past passengers on Viking’s river cruise vessels.

I was surprised to hear from more than one of them that river cruises in general are too short.

Unlike on the ocean, where one can find world cruises of more than 100 days, river cruises are limited by the length of the river they sail on and rarely span more than two weeks.

One woman said that to justify the trouble of packing, taking an overseas flight with all of the security and customs procedures that involves, and adjusting to jet lag in Europe, she wanted to vacation for longer than a typical river cruise allows.

This woman had enjoyed a 15-day river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, and said she wouldn’t mind doing the reverse cruise back-to-back in order to get more mileage from her overseas trip.

Mind you, nearly one third of the passengers on my cruise from Istanbul had signed on for a full 50-night, 33-port grand ocean tour of Europe that will finish in Stockholm at the end of May.

So clearly, while there is some overlap between ocean and river cruise customers, there’s a certain contingent that prefers a longer voyage than is possible on the average river itinerary.

One solution is to combine the two, a concept that first launched last fall when Celebrity Cruises linked up with river operator Amras Cruises to create ocean-and-river cruise packages.

Viking could take that idea to the next level by being one company that offers both types of cruises.

There is already a lot of conversation about the topic at Viking’s headquarters in Los Angeles, according to Sara Conley, Viking’s director of public relations and social media, who added that it is logistically more difficult than it might appear.

Ocean and river cruises do not share many homeports, so there might be land transfers involved between one ship and the other. And the schedules of the two sides of the cruise business were not designed with coordination in mind, so they don’t necessarily match up in convenient ways.

At this point, Viking has just one ocean ship, the 930-passenger Star. Next year it expects to have another delivered, with a third to follow either late in 2016 or early 2017.

By that time Viking may have figured out a solution to offering the combo cruise that would give some passengers both a river cruise and a more extended cruise vacation in Europe.