Tag Archives: MONFALCONE

P&O floats out Britannia in Italy

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By Jane Archer 

P&O floats out Britannia in ItalyP&O Cruises took more pre-registrations in one day last week for new ship Britannia than in a whole week for Azura before it launched in 2010.

Marketing director Christopher Edgington said pre-registrations, targeted at past passengers only, allowed clients to put their name down for specific cruises but not cabins.

The maiden voyage, a 14-night Mediterranean cruise departing March 14 2015, was in high demand, as was a 12-night round-Britain cruise in July. They open for sale on March 27.

Speaking at Britannia’s float out – the moment when the dry-dock is flooded and water hits the hull for the first time – Edgington said: “Our past passengers are really excited about Britannia. We have created a ship that is right for them and for people who have never cruised by enhancing our signature features and adding exciting new ones.”

They include a new cookery school devised by TV chef James Martin, the Limelight dining and cabaret club, and a Mediterranean-style Market Café serving charcuterie and sweet treats from TV’s Cake Boy Eric Lanlard.

Michelin-starred chef Atul Kochhar and wine expert Olly Smith, who have venues on other P&O ships, are also part of Britannia’s culinary line-up. Instead of a restaurant, Marco Pierre White is creating dishes for gala nights in the dining rooms,

Hebden Bridge-based agent Louise Hunt, who works for Travel Councillors, won a P&O competition to be Madrina, or godmother, for the float out, at the Fincantieri shipyard in Monfalcone, Italy. A bank worker until last year, Hunt admitted she was both nervous and excited. She said: “This is quite surreal, quite incredible.”

Carnival Sunshine metamorphosis was ambitious and complicated

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Carnival Sunshine metamorphosis was ambitious and complicated

By Tom Stieghorst
Carnival Sunshine VeniceThe teens are such an awkward age.

Cruise lines, having gone on a building spree in the 1990s, now find themselves with a generation of ships that are too young to scrap but too old to be fully competitive with the latest newbuilds.

One solution to that dilemma emerged last month from the Fincantieri shipyard in Italy, where Carnival Cruise Lines sent its 17-year-old Carnival Destiny to be rejuvenated.

After more than two months in drydock, what emerged was a ship so transformed that it had to be given a new name: Carnival Sunshine.

Since May 5, the freshly scrubbed 101,000-ton ship has been doing nine- and 12-day cruises in the Mediterranean. In November, it will transition to its year-round home in New Orleans.

The $155 million makeover was the industry’s most ambitious in more than a decade. It involved 3,000 workers putting in 2 million hours of round-the-clock labor, first to demolish much of the old ship, then to fit it with all the features of Carnival’s Funship 2.0 package.

“This is the most aggressive refit ever attempted in our industry,” Christian Compton, Carnival’s project director for conversion, said in a video documenting the 73-day project.

Complicating the agenda and extending the length of the drydock was Carnival’s decision in March to add $300 million of contingent power and other upgrades fleetwide to make its ships more reliable. Because it was already in drydock, Sunshine was one of the first two ships to get the upgrade.

That added 24 days to its stay in Monfalcone, Italy, and required Carnival to cancel two initial cruises. The Sunshine also came out of the drydock with several of its signature features incomplete and a group of cabins that needed further work to be ready.

On the June 7 cruise, a small number of passengers were bumped and their cabins turned over to contractors who were still finishing parts of the ship. Carnival gave the displaced passengers full refunds and an additional free cruise.

Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen said the enhancements complicated what was an already ambitious time frame.

“Needless to say, there were some start-up issues which have largely been resolved,” Gulliksen said.

The Carnival Sunshine is not entirely new. The hull and much of the technical equipment are left over from the Destiny, the world’s largest cruise ship when it was delivered in 1996. But its public spaces have been brought into the 21st century.

Since the Destiny debuted, alternate dining venues have mushroomed on cruise ships everywhere. A notable change to Sunshine is the lineup of new bars and restaurants.

Full-service alternates to the main dining room include Asian, Mexican, Italian and steakhouse offerings. Passengers can also visit a shake shack, a 24-hour pizzeria, a burger joint and a coffee-and-pastries shop.

Dinner at the Fahrenheit 555 steakhouse is $35. Charges at the other venues vary, with some charging for dinner but not for lunch.

The expanded bar lineup includes the RedFrog Pub and its poolside adaptation, the RedFrog Rum Bar; the Blue Iguana tequila bar; the Latin-themed Havana Bar; the EA Sports Bar; the cozy Library Bar; and the Alchemy Bar, which specializes in trendy “molecular” cocktails.

Many of these have been retrofitted onto other, older Carnival ships, but the Sunshine is the first vessel to have all of them together.

The Sunshine also boasts Carnival’s first three-deck version of the adults-only Serenity area, which offers parents and childless guests a place to retreat to for a break from the kids. Carnival introduced the Serenity area to its ships in 2007, 10 years after Carnival Destiny’s debut.

Carnival Sunshine SerenityAnother big change in cruise ship design since then has been extra emphasis on sports. The upper deck of Carnival Sunshine is crowded with courts, courses and table games, including pool, ping-pong and foosball.

The water entertainment is also more highly engineered than it was back in the Destiny’s early days. The Sunshine includes an expansive water park with 40 interactive features, a gigantic drenching bucket, five different slides including the new racing-themed Speedway Splash, and a 334-foot-long Twister slide, the longest on any Carnival ship.

In addition to the public spaces, Carnival also raised the capacity of Sunshine, bumping it from 2,642 to 3,006 by putting another 182 cabins onto the ship.

By making the Destiny over, Carnival not only brought many of its newbuild features to an older ship but did so at about a quarter of the price it would have paid to build a new, 3,000-passenger ship.

One unanswered question is whether this is a model for the future or a one-off project. The largest previous refit in recent times was the 2005 stretching of Royal Caribbean International’s Enchantment of the Seas, which added a 74-foot segment and 151 staterooms to its midsection, after cutting the ship in half. Although the $60 million project was seen as successful, Royal did not repeat it.

Carnival has several ships in the Destiny class, including the Victory and Triumph, which received much unfavorable publicity after its February engine fire. Several cruise observers, including social media commentator Lin Humphries, have suggested that an overhaul and renaming of the Triumph could retire a “tarnished name.”

Asked about a possible overhaul of other Destiny-class ships, Gulliksen said, “At this point, there have been no announcements of any large-scale refurb projects.”

Travel agents in New Orleans, where the ship will take up residence in November, said they are seeing interest in the ship.

Bob Wall, owner of Vacations at Sea, said he had not done much in the past month to promote the Sunshine because of the issues surrounding the Carnival Triumph, but he has nonetheless sold one or two cruises.
“We think it will do well here,” he said.

Pat Daly of Cruise & Vacation Specialists in Metairie, La., said, “Most of the people here are very familiar with Carnival. They’re pretty excited that we’ll have a new ship.”

On first ship in five years, Princess Cruises builds on trends

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On first ship in five years, Princess Cruises builds on trends

By Tom Stieghorst
RoyalPrincess-Construction-TSMONFALCONE, Italy — The $760 million Royal Princess, nearing completion here, is a pivotal vessel for Princess Cruises that will give it an entrant into the megaship class of vessels now being delivered to the industry.

Five years in the making, the Royal Princess will be 25% larger than the last ship Princess launched, the Ruby Princess in 2008.

Since then, ships like the Norwegian Epic and Allure of the Seas have raised expectations for what passengers can find on the most modern ships in the cruise fleet.

Like those ships, Royal Princess will have space for more features, bigger venues and greater variety in onboard experience.

Some of the features are Princess versions of ideas that have been seen elsewhere.

The “over the edge of the ship” concept, embodied in the Allure’s cantilevered hot tubs, shows up on the Royal Princess as a transparent SeaWalk over the ocean. Its newly expanded buffet area keeps pace with a similarly innovative example on the Solstice-class ships of Celebrity Cruises.

Other features let Princess leap ahead of the pack. These include a huge, dedicated pastry kitchen for the buffet restaurant.

“This is not a gimmick,” said Jonathan Wilson, vice president for hotel operations at Princess. “It’s not just one of a kind to Princess, it’s one of a kind anywhere [at sea],” he said.

Princess executives led an at-sea tour of the partly outfitted ship this week, detailing many of the new features passengers can expect onboard and outlining some of the strategies behind them.

Even from a distance, Royal Princess will have an unusual profile, shaped by the SeaWalk, a promenade that extends 28 feet over the side of the ship and offers a “Fear Factor”-style view through a see-through glass floor to the ocean 16 decks below.

On the tour, Stuart Hawkins, Princess’ vice president of newbuild, said shipbuilder Fincantieri engineered the first-of-a-kind platform with remarkable fidelity to a rendering the cruise line presented.

“We were surprised that they could make it as free-standing as they did,” he said.

The Royal Princess’ top decks feature several other innovations, although none had been completed in time for the tour.

A dancing-waters fountain with nearly 100 fountain jets is the centerpiece of the pool deck. It will be illuminated at night and will be a lounge-chair area during the day. Hawkins said sensors will monitor wind speed and conditions to determine how high the water jets will shoot, so that excess spray doesn’t carry beyond the fountain area.

Looming over the pool area is an enormous steel frame for the Movies Under the Stars outdoor video screen, which at 35 feet by 21 feet will be 30% bigger than the screens on previous Princess ships.
RoyalPrincess-SeaWalk-Floor-TS
Adjacent to the pool deck will be the buffet dining room, Horizon Court, which will seat nearly 1,500. That is substantially larger than on other Princess vessels, and officials said they think it will solve the chronic crowding that plagues such restaurants.

“Buffets on cruise ships tend to be an Achilles’ heel because of the heavy traffic,” said Rai Caluori, Princess’ executive vice president of fleet operations and head of the newbuild team.

In another innovation, Princess has eliminated beverage stations in Horizon Court and will hire additional wait staff to serve drinks.

Adjacent to Horizon Court will be the 1,200-square-foot pastry kitchen, the Horizon Bistro, which will offer a more casual atmosphere.

“Action stations” in Horizon Court, including hibachi grills, rotisseries and a sandwich bar, cut down on the cafeteria-like queues found in older ships.

“We wanted to avoid a canteen-style, cafeteria-style ambience and make it more of a premium experience,” Wilson said.

In the evening, Horizon Court will transform into one of two alternate dining venues: Crab Shack or Fondues.

A sports well has been created above Horizon Bistro, with a basketball court, batting cages and an indoor laser shooting range. The gym has been doubled in size and moved from Deck 5, adjacent to the spa, to Deck 17 to provide light and ocean views. That also puts it over a public area instead of over cabins, so it can open earlier in the morning, Caluori said.

The expanded spa will have 18 treatment rooms. One eye-popping option will be a pair of Lotus Spa cabana rentals in the adults-only Sanctuary area on Deck 17, which will offer up to four people a daylong session of treatments and pampering for $3,000 per group.

The Sanctuary will have a total of six cabanas, the first time they have been offered on a Princess ship.

The corridors of the Royal Princess will be decorated with cruise photos taken by past passengers. A contest solicited 57,000 photos from which Caluori and his team picked 1,000 of the best submissions to be displayed with a plaque noting the photographer’s name, plus when and where the photo was taken.

“We hope all of the winners will book a cruise to take a photograph of their photograph,” Caluori joked.

Princess-SeaWalk-renderOf the 1,780 cabins on the Royal Princess, 81% will have balconies. Nearly half of those will be suites, mini-suites or deluxe cabins with room for a sofa in addition to the balcony.

Three main dining areas

The ship will continue the Princess tradition of having three main dining venues, with lots of nooks and banquettes. “We’ve never wanted to be the cruise line with one massive, open, noisy dining room,” Wilson said.

But the feature room, a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired restaurant called Concerto, will sport a different look from the other two, and will include an enhanced version of the chef’s table concept.

The circular Chef’s Table Lumiere, private dining area, positioned in the middle of the ship’s traditional dining room, will be encircled by a fiber optic-illuminated curtain.

The 12-seat dining area will feature a table with a 6-foot Murano glass sculpture rising through it. When diners arrive, the floor-to-ceiling curtain will move on an automatic track, closing around them and illuminating vertically at the same time, Caluori said.

There are less showy chef’s tables in the ship’s other two main dining rooms. On previous Princess ships, they were only available on some nights of a cruise, but on the Royal Princess they will be used every night, Caluori said.

The current cover charge for the chef’s table is $90 per person, which includes wine and other features. “We may leave it, we may move it up a bit,” Caluori said of the price. “We haven’t decided.”

Several dining areas have been moved adjacent to complementary bar areas. The steakhouse, called Crown Grill, will be next to the Wheelhouse Bar, a lounge designed to male tastes.

RoyalPrincess-SeaWalk-Ocean-TSSabatini’s, an Italian specialty restaurant, will be situated adjacent to Vines, a wine bar that will include what Princess claims will be the largest selection of super-Tuscan wines at sea. They will be displayed in a wine tower decorated with vertical strands of crystal.

There will also be tastings of so-called super-Tuscan wines — a high-powered version of Italy’s friendly Chiantis — with more than 20 choices available.
“Wine is a focus, but it’s not superficial,” Wilson said. “There’s a lot of thought that’s gone into it.”

The midship area where passengers board will be called the Piazza, a three-story space that will be filled with eating, shopping and entertainment options.

A new gelato shop, free fresh pizza and the Bellini Bar, named for a peach-flavored Italian cocktail, will be some of the attractions.

The goal, Caluori said, is to provide enough to keep a passenger in that part of the ship for a whole evening.

If not, the ship features a main theater seating 1,000 and a second lounge/stage area with room for 320.

Princess Live will be another option. Set up like a TV production studio, the 200-seat space will offer live entertainment between 8 a.m. and midnight.

The entertainment will require little or no staging or setup time, so that there will be no more than 15 minutes between shows.

“We don’t want to have people waiting to see something set up,” said Caluori, who noted that the acts might include a quiz show, a guest lecturer, an interview with the captain or a solo entertainer of some sort.

The shows will also be part of the programming for a new, in-cabin TV service that will offer on-demand access to hundreds of movies. Viewers will be able to pause the movie so they can, for example, go to eat and resume watching after dinner, Caluori said.

Princess has been looking for awhile to upgrade its scheduled movie system to make it more appealing. Caluori said focus groups revealed that the average time passengers viewed a scheduled movie on existing ships is 11 minutes.