I love to board a cruise ship and offer my stressfully tight body to a massage therapist, so my muscles and mind are ready for relaxing days at sea. For this privilege, I’ve paid $80-$200, and it was money well spent. Massage tables for couples on the Royal Princess Still, all ship spas are not…
Santa met us at the embarkation gangway. He was five days early for gift-giving, but he set the tone for a two-week holiday cruise to the Caribbean. Behind him on Oceania’s Riviera, docked last December in Miami, four carolers, dressed in English style from the Dickens era, sang for each new group of passengers checking…
When you pay extra to cruise a bit upscale, you get roominess, unlimited lobster tails, sushi, lamb chops Relaxing on Oceania's Riviera (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com) Cruise ships have a reputation for encouraging a measure of gluttony. On nearly every modern ship, you may start eating before the sun comes up and maintain…
Cruise lines normally shy away from mentioning “rocks” when talking about their ships and where they are sailing. Five water slides on Norwegian Breakaway (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com) But Norwegian, perhaps the most innovative of all the modern cruise companies, is not shy. And neither is the world’s newest cruise ship, the 4,028-passenger…
The cruise industry image is floundering again, with more bad news and big pictures about ships losing power (and the subsequent much-feared inability to flush toilets). If history is any guide, cruise lines will fight back by throwing money at the image problem, lowering their prices until customers start buying again. So if you are…
Cruise lines from mass-market to luxury increasingly are designing shorter voyages, both to introduce their ships to vacationers who have not been to sea and to provide getaways for busy world travelers who may have only a few leisure days to spare. Tea time in Palm Court on Crystal Serenity (Picture from Crystal Cruises)…
Cruise line executives and industry leaders meet annually in March at Cruise Shipping Miami. This week, for the second year in a row, their conference and trade show, designed to talk about past profits and show off innovative products, was marred by a recent international black eye. In January 2012, the Costa Concordia rollover at…
Some intriguing new cruise ships are on the way, including Norwegian Breakaway, which will breakout with a major party in New York in May. Peter Max painted the hull for Norwegian Breakaway, which will be sailing out of New York In England in June, Royal Princess is due to debut with a long-awaited new design…
On its weekly winter cruises out of St. Maarten, the 310-passenger sailing ship, Wind Surf, often docks for a day at Les Saintes, a small island in the French West Indies, and at Roseau, Dominica. Boats bobbing near the dock on Les Saintes, French West Indies (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com)