MSC Offers Baseball, Big Band Theme Cruises out of Fort Lauderdale

Orlando Sentinel

MSC Cruises is featuring baseball themed Caribbean cruises aboard the MSC Poesia departing from Fort Lauderdale.

The Baseball Greats voyages that include free interactive guest/player activities, player-hosted trivia game, question-and-answer sessions with the players, autograph session, and a guest pitching contest.

Players also host. Player lineup will be announced at a later date. Among the Baseball Greats cruises is a Nov. 14, seven-night Eastern Caribbean sailing to St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Nassau.

MSC Cruises will also feature Big Band cruises that showcase the 16-piece Les DeMerle Big Band with vocalist Bonnie Eisele. In addition to performances, the band will present a Big Band Jazz Concert and DeMerle will give a lecture on the Big Band Era.

The Big Band theme will be featured during a nine-night Canada/New England voyage from Quebec City to Fort Lauderdale on Oct. 23.

MSC Cruises’ MSC Poesia will host five “Baseball Greats” Fort Lauderdale cruises during its 2010-2011 Caribbean season.

The cruises include free interactive guest/player activities. Guests can participate in a player-hosted trivia game, question-and-answer sessions with the players, and a pitching contest. In story-telling sessions players some candid revelations about “characters” of the game. Players will also host pitching, hitting, fielding and base running clinics.

The free autograph session at the end of the baseball themed cruises is extremely popular. The player line-up on these itineraries will be announced at a later date.

Baseball theme cruises depart Nov. 14, Dec. 5, Jan. 9 and 23, and Feb. 6.

Cruise Industry Bucking the Recession

The Montreal Gazette

Despite the credit crunch, rising unemployment and swine flu, the cruise industry had a banner year in 2009 and the trend is expected to continue this year as younger travelers take to the high seas.

More than 13 million people took a cruise, an increase of 3.3. percent from the previous year, and the number is expected to hit 14.3 million in 2010.

"We are not recession proof but we are recession resistant," Richard Sasso, the chairman of the marketing committee of of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) and the president and CEO of MSC Cruises USA, told a news conference.

"We keep reinventing in the industry."

CLIA, which represents 25 members ranging from riverboats carrying less than 100 passengers to a supership that can accommodate more than 5,400 guests, predicts demand will remain high in the United States and increase overseas.

Nearly 24 percent of cruise guests were from abroad and Sasso believes that number will rise as cruising becomes more popular with European consumers.

There is also an untapped market in the United States where only a fraction of the population has taken a cruise.

"Eighty percent of the people (in the US) haven’t tried us," said Sasso.

The Mediterranean, Caribbean, Mexico and Alaska cruises are still the most popular, but more people are opting for river cruises, according to Terry Dale, the president and CEO of CLIA.

Couples are the biggest demographic group traveling on the high seas but baby boomers, repeat cruisers and multi-generational bookings are seen as the biggest growth areas.

"Multi-generational travel will continue to be a strong part of our foundation in 2010," he explained.

And like most other industries, cruise lines are using Facebook and Twitter to advertise their services.

"It is an integral part of how we communicate with our customers," said Dale, adding that the average age of a cruise passenger has dropped to about 47.

He attributed the decrease, which is about 10 years younger than a decade or more ago, to an increase in family cruises and the popularity of themed cruises based around music, wine and food.

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.