Cruise in Brief

A new online fact file of various cruise ships has been launched by CLIA UK & Ireland. More than 260 ocean cruise ships are featured in ‘Meet the Fleet’ which lists the speciality restaurants and theatres available on each as well as other facilities for families. Agents are able to search for information by company, ship, size and passenger capacity.

Further afield CLIA’s Asia bodies have now been split into two, covering Southeast Asia and North Asia. CLIA Southeast Asia will be now be chaired by Carnival Australia CEO, Ann Sherry, while CLIA North Asia will be chaired by Royal Caribbean’s managing director for Asia & China, Dr Zinan Liu.

MSC Cruises announced a series of cinema events to further its engagement with the travel trade. The first of seven will take place on 24 November and run in various locations throughout the UK. Around 75 agents are expected to attend each event, which will include a short presentation and the screening of one of the latest cinema releases.

Celebrity Cruises has announced a total of 207 overnights in ports as part of its 2016/17 programme. The overnights are available in 48 cities including the Caribbean, with eight double overnight ports in Bangkok, Beijing, Dubai, St Petersburg and New Orleans. Seven new ports have been added in New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland, Japan, Thailand, Oman and the UAE with a total of 286 experiences on offer. Ninety-seven European destinations are included, with eight sailings cover events such as Mardi Gras, Rio Carnival and Cannes Film Festival. Celebrity will also be the only cruise line to offer round-trip sailings from Abu Dhabi.

Two travel agents have won iPad minis in The River Cruise Line’s September competition. Dawn Tompkins from Thomson Sittingbourne and Karen Colley from Wordsworth Travel won the prizes after making a River Cruise Line booking for 2015. Here Colley receives her prize from Clare Smith.

Port Everglades has reached four million passengers for its full-year 2014 due to more ships visiting the port. A record number of 3.88 million multi-day moves and 121, 321 daily moves have been reported, boosted by more cruise lines offering more four and five-night sailings.

Kim Wilde is to perform on Hapag-Lloyd’s EUROPA 2 on a western European cruise next June. An acoustic concert will take place on the five-star ship when it joins EUROPA in Bordeaux. The itinerary with the concert included departs on 29 May 2015 from Hamburg to Lisbon.

Holland America Line unveiled some of the features for its new ship MS Koningsdam. The new ship will mark a new design era for the cruise line as its first under the Pinnacle class. HAL’s UK team marked the announcement with a cake, pictured here.

Several new retail outlets have been announced for P&O Cruises’ new ship Britannia. Crew Clothing, The White Company, Beaverbrooks, Desigual, Rituals and Chopard will all feature on the new ship, which debuts in March.

Cruise & Maritime Voyages has revealed ‘brisk’ trading since adding Magellan to its fleet. The cruise line said online and phone reservations had been busy since the recent announcement ahead of its maiden voyage on 15 March.

Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines has announced a partnership with the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) to offer accredited training for supervisors and managers. Under the Supervisor and Management Development Programme staff will be trained to build upon their leaderships skills and prepare for promotions or challenges.

MSC Cruises has reached the three million milestone on Facebook. The cruise line is the first in the world to reach the figure, which has come three years after the page was set up. Aside from Facebook the cruise line also has pages on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.

Back to Asia, where cruise ships movements are changing and being reintroduced. Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas returned to Singapore this week for its second season of sailings up to March 2015. Meanwhile Star Cruises’ SuperStar Aquarius has made its maiden call at the Philippine port of Puerta Princesa.