A Sanctuary For Human Wild Life

Sydney Morning Herald

Lounging back, eyes closed, sweet peace and quiet. There's just the gentle rocking of the waves to remind you that about 1900 other passengers also inhabit this cruising superliner, Dawn Princess.

I'm in a special zone where the usual din of the sun-drenched upper decks and the bustle and buzz of holidaymakers at play are absent. There are no kids screaming and splashing in the pool.

No live band belting out classic rock tunes. No cacophony generated by dozens of different conversations carried on simultaneously. No thirsty throng milling three-deep around the bar.

Instead, a cool drink is just a request away. Nearby passengers are as interested in preserving the peace as I am. An extra touch of ostentatious luxury is provided by a "serenity steward" who will come around to spray you with a mist of chilled Evian water if the sun gets too hot.

Aptly named the Sanctuary, this lounging area is Princess Cruises' bid to deliver one of the few luxuries of busy shipboard life found in preciously short supply - solitude.

Unveiled aboard the Crown Princess in the Caribbean in 2006, the Sanctuary concept is being unrolled throughout the cruise line's worldwide fleet, which is part of the Carnival group.

Dawn Princess, which went into dry-dock for a multimillion-dollar refurbishment in June, is the first of its two Australian ships to get the Sanctuary-branded upgrade.

The Sanctuary is on the forward-most section of the top deck, where a combination of distance and headwinds isolates it from much of the noise and activity of the pool deck.

The oasis-inspired space, child-free and partially sheltered by a sunshade, is kitted out with about two dozen plush lounge chairs around a private splash pool. A small army of staff is always on hand to serve complimentary snacks or fill bar orders. At sunset, there are yoga classes.

Access to the Sanctuary isn't part of the standard inclusive cruising package - patrons are charged $20 a half-day - but there's been no shortage of passengers eager for splendid isolation.

"It's been about creating a niche area, a big ship with a small ship feel," says the director of corporate affairs for Carnival Australia, Sandy Olsen. It's only a short stroll back to the party - and Dawn Princess' other new attraction, a massive LED TV above the pool deck, measuring eight metres by 4.5 metres and with a picture powerful enough to be seen in blazing sunlight.

During the day there's a changing schedule of family-friendly films and concert videos. At night, passengers rug up for movies under the stars, with fresh popcorn and bar service.

Last week, Dawn Princess embarked on a two night repositioning cruise from Sydney to Melbourne, where it will be based from November to March. The ship has since departed on a 28-day circumnavigation of Australia, one of the eight itineraries it will sail in Australia and New Zealand in the 2009-10 summer season.

It's expected to be a bumper year. Cruising has had a surge in popularity in recent years, making it one of the few consistently strong and growing sectors of the domestic tourism industry, particularly during the global financial crisis.

The number of passengers for Australia cruises grew by 26 per cent last year, according to the International Cruise Council Australasia. By comparison, the US cruising market - the largest in the world - grew by just 5 per cent and the British market by 12 per cent.

A recent survey by marketing group Cruise Down Under found there are more ships visiting more Australian ports and spending more money than ever before.

A professor of tourism at Edith Cowan University, Ross Dowling, says the Asia-Pacific region has become the fastest growing for cruising. "[Cruising gives] Australians a holiday that's close to home and it's now a lot more affordable in terms of value for money compared to a lot of domestic and international holidays," he says. "There's a real attraction to a holiday that's pretty much all-inclusive.

"They've [ships] become like massive floating resorts, with everything you can think of onboard to cater to all age groups and interests." Carnival Cruises Australia, which represents P&O Cruises and Princess Cruises locally, had just two ships plying Australian waters a few years ago. It will have six by the end of next year.

The Dawn Princess, launched in 1997 and built for $400 million, has a passenger-to-crew ratio of about three to one, with an emphasis on service. Its sister ship, Sun Princess, is due to be fitted with a Sanctuary and LED screen during its scheduled dry dock in April next year.

Are Cruisers Ready For Sexual Chocolate?

USA Today

Remember Sexual Chocolate, the fictional band in Eddie Murphy's 1988 comedy Coming to America?

It's making a comeback next month on, off all places, a cruise ship.

AOL music blog Spinner.com reports the faux band, fronted by Randy Watson (aka Eddie Murphy), will make an appearance on MSC Cruises' Poesia in early January as the ship hosts the eighth annual Jam Cruise in the Caribbean - another in a popular series of themed cruises.

The annual music festival at sea also will see performances by more than a dozen real bands including Sound Tribe Sector 9 (STS9), Galactic, Jeff Coffin (Dave Matthews Band), Toubab Krewe, the Mother Hips, Maceo Parker, Zappa Plays Zappa and Lotus.

The five-night voyage to the Western Caribbean sets sail Jan. 3 out of Ft. Lauderdale and includes stops in Ocho Rios, Jamaica and Grand Cayman Island.

Results Are In For Princess Cruises' 'Sea The World' Photo Competition

eTravel Blackboard

Princess Cruises passengers have revealed a talent for amateur photography in a recent competition held onboard Dawn Princess’ first world cruise from Sydney.

The cruise line’s “Sea the World” competition was designed to encourage passengers to capture the heart of each of the 42 ports Dawn Princess visited during her three-month long voyage.

Lake Macquarie resident Ron Bender, who sailed the full 104-night world cruise with his wife Cheryle Bender, won first prize of a new digital camera valued at with a touching photograph of a tiny monkey, a Barbary Macaque, inspecting a fellow passenger’s fingernail in Gibraltar. [Right]

Jenny Lourey, Senior Vice President of Carnival Australia, which represents Princess Cruises in Australia, said the competition was a hit with passengers keen to share some of their fantastic experiences on the cruise.

“We were amazed by the creativity of our passengers and their enthusiasm to share their unique experiences around the world with their newfound friends on the cruise,” Ms Lourey said.

“There were so many stunning entries in the competition, the crew said picking a winner was one of the hardest decisions they had to make,” she said.

The 77,000-tonne Dawn Princess is based in Australian waters year-round offering premium cruise holidays.

Dawn Princess’ 2010 world cruise has been selling strongly, with the voyage departing Sydney on May 21 and taking passengers through Asia and the Middle East to Europe, then to the Americas before returning to Sydney. Fares for the full 104-night world cruise start from $30,259 per person twin share for an outside cabin.

The superliner carries 1998 passengers and features close to 1000 staterooms, almost half with private balconies. Ship features include a massive new poolside movie screen to enable passengers to watch movies under the stars and a new child-free Sanctuary retreat, as well as a four-storey atrium, eight restaurants and cafes, seven lounges and bars, four pools and a 550-seat theatre.

Azamara Cruises To Be Reborn As Azamara Club Cruises

USA Today

The recently appointed CEO of Azamara Cruises today announced some big changes for the line, including a new name: Azamara Club Cruises.

In a teleconference with cruise writers, Azamara President and CEO Larry Pimentel said the already upscale brand would become more all-inclusive with everything from wine with dinner to gratuities included in the price of voyages.

Pimentel also said the line will focus much more on the destinations its two ships visit by adding longer port calls and more overnight stays to itineraries.

"We are slowing down the ships rather significantly," says Pimentel, a well-known cruise industry veteran who took over Azamara in July after running SeaDream Yacht Club -- a boutique line known for leisurely paced, port-intensive itineraries. 

Pimentel says the changes will coincide with a notable increase in prices for Azamara's voyages, which he argues have been far too low given the quality of the product.

"Rates already have come up about 20% (in recent weeks), and they will be coming up a lot more," Pimentel told cruise writers, noting the line planned a big price increase to take effect on Dec. 14.

“We’re going to ... allow our guests to not just see the destination, but to live it,” says Pimentel. “Consider destinations like St. Tropez or St. Petersburg, Russia. If you’ve experienced them only by day, you haven’t really experienced them. With Azamara, through more overnight stays and late-night stays, you can.” 

Owned by industry giant Royal Caribbean Cruises, Azamara has struggled to gain traction since it was launched in 2007 as a "deluxe" line designed as a step up from sister brand Celebrity Cruises. The line operates just two 694-passenger ships that formerly belonged to the now defunct Renaissance Cruises, and it's still a relatively unknown quantity to many vacationers. 

Pimentel, who also has served as CEO of Cunard Line and The Yachts of Seabourn Cruises says he spent weeks talking with travel agents, past passengers and cruise writers about how to take the line to a new level and has come up with a new focus for the brand based on four pillars: Destination immersion; extraordinary service; cuisine and wine; and wellness and vigor.

Pimental, notably, also has been allowed to hire his own dedicated management team for the brand, which until now was run on the side by executives at the much larger Celebrity. 

"We have been looking at everything you could possibly imagine (to change), and we are in a very fast-paced mode," Pimentel says of the new team. 

Many of the changes Pimentel announced, including some itinerary changes, will be in effect by April, he says. April also will mark the beginning of included-in-the-price wine being served at lunch and dinner.

Among other items the line will begin including in the price are specialty coffees, sodas and bottled water; self-service laundry machines; and shuttles in port towns -- a nod, says Pimentel, to feedback from customers who have said they don't want to be nickel-and-dimed on a high-end ship.

Pimentel says that by slowing down the ships and spending more time in each port the line will be able to carve out niche cruises offering a more in-depth experience than others. As part of the new focus on ports, the line will be launching more elaborate shore excursions, including two-day packages tailored to overnight calls in places such as Dubrovnik, Croatia and Sorrento, Italy.

“We’re going to ... allow our guests to not just see the destination, but to live it,” says Pimentel. “Consider destinations like St. Tropez or St. Petersburg, Russia. If you’ve experienced them only by day, you haven’t really experienced them. With Azamara Cruise Lines, through more overnight stays and late-night stays, you can.”

Among multi-day packages Pimentel says the line is adding are an overnight tour from Hiroshima to Osaka via bullet train; a three-night experience from Mumbai that includes a visit to the Taj Mahal; and a Grand Egypt tour featuring both the ruins of Luxor and Cairo.

Other unusual themed cruises the line announced today include a Ferrari driving tour in Civitavecchia, Italy; an “In the steps of The Beatles” tour in Liverpool; and an Imperial Russian Court evening at Tsarskoye Selo in St. Petersburg.

As for service, Pimentel says Azamara will be retraining its on-board suite butlers to be true English-style butlers who will "offer that fine balance of anticipatory, pampering, yet non-intrusive service to guests."

Azamara executives also announced the line will launch a loyalty program, “Le Club Voyage,” with specific features and benefits yet to be announced.

Mahogany Bay Cruise Center Officially Opens To Caribbean Cruises

Breaking Travel News

The $62 million Mahogany Bay Cruise Center at Roatan in the Bay Islands officially opened this week and began welcoming cruise ships. The Yachts of Seabourn’s’ 208-passenger Seabourn Legend arrived on Saturday, Nov. 28, followed by discount Princess Cruises’ 3,070-passenger Crown Princess yesterday. Carnival Cruises’ 2,974-passenger Carnival Valor is in port today. Reaction from cruise guests to the new facility has been outstanding.

More than five years in development, and two years under construction, Mahogany Bay Cruise Center encompasses 20 acres of waterfront property and includes a two-berth cruise terminal which can accommodate up to 8,000 passengers daily.  It is a joint project of Carnival Corporation and Roatan businessman Jerry Hynds.

This week’s ship visits are the first of 200 annual ship calls at the new facility, which is expected to host more than 500,000 passengers each year.  In addition to the Yachts of Seabourn, Carnival Cruise Lines, and Princess Cruises, vessels from Holland America Cruises, Costa Cruises, and P&O Cruises, as well as non-Carnival Corporation brands, are expected to call at the new facility, as well.

In addition to a two-ship cruise pier, the Mahogany Bay Cruise Center offers a welcome center along with a variety of retail outlets, including two themed bars, a restaurant and several shops. A transportation hub with the ability to accommodate taxis, rental cars and tour buses, along with a wide range of shore excursion opportunities, which can be purchased on board the cruise vessels, are also available.

Unique to Mahogany Bay is a new chair lift system that takes cruise ship guests from the welcome center to beautiful Mahogany Beach, a 10-acre private island featuring an 825-foot-long white-sand beach with a beach volleyball court and myriad watersports opportunities.  Eight exclusive cabanas are also available for rent.

The “Magical Flying Beach Chair” takes guests on a six-minute ride across nearly 1,200 feet of suspended cables, providing not only convenient beach access but views of the lush countryside as well.  All-day passes for the beach chair lift are $5 per person.  An elevated path is also available for those who prefer to walk.

“The Mahogany Bay Cruise Center not only serves as a gateway to one of the Caribbean’s most beautiful islands but is also a destination unto itself, with a magnificent white-sand beach and a wide range of shops, restaurants and shore excursion opportunities,” said Giora Israel, senior vice president of port and destination development for discount Carnival Cruises.

Untested Waters For Gigantic Cruise Ships

Wall Street Journal

PORT EVERGLADES, Fla. — Oasis of the Seas will make quite a splash Saturday when it embarks on its inaugural seven-day cruise in the Caribbean with some 5,400 passengers aboard.

Towering 20 stories above the sea and nearly as long as four football fields, discount Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.'s newest vessel cost $1.4 billion to build and is about a third larger than any other cruise ship now plying the seas.

And, with its 13 retail shops, 21 pools and 24 restaurants, the ship offers the most outsized example of the cruise industry's bet that huge ships with amenities like multistory cabins and 300-foot water slides will help buck slack demand for cheap Europe cruises.

But Oasis, and several other super-sized ships that will launch soon, face stiff head winds. Cruise lines have been able to fill their ships during the recession, but only by offering steep discount mexico cruises. Yields—the amount they make on each passenger—are down about 15% this year amid a broad drop in consumer spending. Travel agents say they see signs of a turnaround in 2010 cruise bookings, but fourth-quarter demand has remained very soft. And while big cruise-ship companies are still booking profits this year, helped in part by lower fuel costs, their margins have shrunk.

Even some competitors say Royal Caribbean may have gone too far in the size race. Micky Arison, chief executive of Carnival Corp., the world's largest cruise company, says his company looked at building a similarly sized ship earlier this decade but decided the profit margins weren't sufficient. There's a market for bigger ships, he says, but one as large as the 225,000-gross-ton Oasis risks having the feel of "a huge mall."

Still, discount Carnival cruises is also bulking up. It launched the 3,650-passenger, 130,000-gross-ton Carnival Dream in September, and it announced this week that it has ordered another similarly sized ship costing $750 million. And the No. 3 player, NCL Corp.'s Norwegian Cruise Line, is spending $1.2 billion for the 4,200-guest, 150,000-gross-ton Norwegian Epic, which is slated to start service in the summer.

But Norwegian is hedging its bets. While it's going ahead with the 4,200-passenger Epic, it canceled an order last year for a similarly sized sister ship. "You have to be on the cutting edge, not the bleeding edge, of innovation," says Kevin Sheehan, NCL's chief executive. He believes cruise prices won't climb back to 2008 levels for another three years.

As more big ships are launched, the Cruise Lines International Association estimates North American capacity will grow 8% in 2010 and an additional 5% in 2011. Even Italian-owned Silversea Cruises, which specializes in small, ultra-luxury ships, is launching one later this month that can handle 540 passengers on discount Europe cruises, or nearly a third more than its next-largest vessel.

Consumers' wallets were thicker in late 2005, when Royal Carribean, the world's second-largest cruise company by market share, decided to take the plunge with Oasis, and, a year later, to add Allure of the Seas, an identically sized sister ship, which will join the company's rapidly expanding fleet late next year.

But industry executives say they have to take the long view: Ships take about three years to build and have life spans of 30 years or more. "At some stage in [Oasis's] life we're going to have big ups and big downs. This is probably a bigger down than we ever imagined," says Richard Fain, Royal Caribbean's chief executive, but, he adds, he has no regrets. "I think Oasis of the Seas will be one of the highest returns on investment our industry has ever seen," he says.

Indeed, Oasis has had strong early bookings for cheap Royal Caribbean cruises and initial double-digit percentage-price premiums over smaller rivals, according to industry trackers. Room rates for Oasis's inaugural voyage ranged from $1,649 a person based on double occupancy for a 149-square-foot interior stateroom to $16,659 for the 1,524- square-foot Royal Loft Suite with an 843-square-foot balcony.

The ship offers a casino with gaming tables and nearly 500 slot machines, a 1,380-seat theater for Broadway-style productions, an exercise center with nearly 200 machines and twin 40-foot-high rock-climbing walls, a skating rink, and seven "neighborhoods," including one called Central Park that has more than 12,000 plants and trees. "This is as close as the industry has gotten to a Las Vegas resort," says cruise-industry consultant Rod McLeod of McLeod.Applebaum & Partners.

But the sheer size of Oasis also poses logistical challenges. Few ports are equipped to handle it, restricting its itinerary. If Oasis were to ferry passengers to land by smaller boats, "it would look like Normandy at D-Day," Mr. McLeod says.

CNBC Special -- Cruise Inc. - Big Money on the High Seas

A Behind The Scenes Look at the Cruise Industry