A load of cruise specials

Clogging my email intray are a heap of great cruise specials!! But my goodness you'd have to be quick to get some of them...

• Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises Earlybird savings! Bookings have to be in by Thursday for savings of up $900*pp.
  Plus if you book on local South Pacific, Australian and New Zealand Celebrity Century sailings by 31 March 2011 you will receive up to US$150 Onboard Credit*
  Also Azamara’s 2011 Europe Offer of US$500 OBC* or A$500 air credit* also ends 31 March 2011
  


• Receive a $1,000* Onboard Spending Credit with any of these SilverSeas 2011 sailings!
  Reserve your ocean-view suite and receive a $1,000 "Passport to Luxury" Onboard Spending Credit. Customise your Silversea cruise exactly as you wish.
  Options include: spa treatments, speciality restaurants, Silver Shore excursions, Boutique purchases, Internet packages, laundry service, personal training and more.
  
  More than 50 voyages to choose from starting at AU$4,258.
  Featured Voyages Include:
  15 Apr 2011 Hong Kong to Tokyo
  27 Apr 2011 Tokyo to Shanghai
  7 May 2011 Shanghai to Tokyo
  19 May - Southampton to Barcelona
  18 June - Lisbon to Barcelona
  REQUEST a QUOTE - martin@travelchoice.com.au - don't forget to put the voyage you are interested in the subject line.

• Holland America have a book by April 8, 2011 and save up to 50% on 2011 Europe Cruises such as the following ...
  --Mediterranean 7 to 24 day cruises starting at $699*
  --Northern Europe, 12 to 35 day cruises starting at $1,399*
  --MS Prinsendam 14 to 28 day cruises starting at $2,249*

* Conditions apply of course - just ask me.... and there's more... but you can see that if you are free to cruise and it takes your fancy there's plenty to choose from if you are quick. You can call me at work 9968 1600 or email me...martin@travelchoice.com.au

Cruise ships and the Japan earthquake

We left the Queen Mary on Thursday in Osaka, Japan. It was only a short cruise for us and we were sorry to say goodbye to our new friends - and the glorious Queen, but we were looking forward to a couple of days in Osaka and Kyoto before returning home to Sydney. We were in Kyoto, in a Japanese restaurant when the earthquake struck. The building shook and we knew that we had just experienced a tremor, but it was not enough to stop anyone. Very different to the horror and destruction that was taking place elsewhere on the Japanese coast as the massive earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc. It was not until we reached the airport in Osaka that we began to be aware of the size of what had happened.
The only cruise ship we saw was the Asuka II in Guam (picture). The Queen Mary 2 docked in Osaka the day before the earthquake but was at sea when it struck and cancelled a port call to Nagasaki as a result.
Another ship that has altered her itinerary is Oceania which will visit Okinawa but not Hiroshima or Kobe this week. It will be necessary for cruise lines to re-assess their itineraries in the light of the Japanese disaster.
We are home now and like everyone else listening and watching as events unfold in Japan. While we were on board Queen Mary 2, one of the highlights was, ironically, the fascinating lectures by oceanographer Prof. Denny Pritchard on earthquakes, tsunamis and rogue waves!
One of the things we learnt during the lectures on the Queen Mary 2 is that one of the safest places to be during a tsunami is on a large ship at sea. The sea rises and takes the ship with it, often without those on board being aware that anything has changed , but a tsunami is not a rogue wave which is a completely different event. One of the other things we learnt from Denny Pritchard was that the wave that featured in the destruction movie Poseidon was a total fabrication and could not possibly have happened!

A day on the Queen Mary

Cruising for Good Health... Well here we are on Day 6 of our cruise from Auckland to Osaka aboard QM2 and now feeling the benefits of a good holiday: we're easy-going, relaxed, and a few kilos heavier! No - I'm just kidding, but with food available at all hours you really need to be disciplined about diet and health... And of course we were (!) but then... another superb meal - Gloucestershire Old Spot pork - in The Carvery last night and our good resolutions were blown to smithereens! But what the heck- we're on holiday and in good, like-minded, food and drink-loving company!

Thank goodness for Deck 7, whose handsome teak promenade we stride each morning in a kind of penance for the night(s!) before. Three laps and you've covered well over a mile - QM2 is 1132 feet, just under 350 metres, long!

The big decisions - we have learned - must be taken early. Boarding in Auckland we found excursions in Guam (we arrive there Monday 7th at 0700) already fully booked. And some acquisitive blackheart has purloined the only Guam guidebook, to the librarian's great annoyance. But we are Aussies, resourceful travelers, so we are confident we will find our own way about - and wary of being gleefully fleeced by predatory taxi drivers and "guides" of the second rank. Such must be the lot of the last-minute traveller!

But at the end of our day ashore we'll scurry back on board to enjoy the real reason for our trip: the QM2 and all the facilities on offer. The Mark Hodginson Trip will serenade us as we try another cocktail in the Chart Room, and our conversation will be about nothing weightier than our next meal and whether to see the show or the movie or just stay put. Holidays are such hard work...

On the good ship... Queen Mary

Here we are on day 3 of our cruise from Auckland to Osaka, Japan on the Queen Mary. Within 48 hours we had made the decision to take this last minute offer from the cruise company, packed our bags, deposited the cats in the kennels and told most of our friends and family that we were taking this much longed-for cruise. (Our last cruise was cancelled for family reasons which made going on this one so much more important).
We have a balcony cabin which is excellent - very comfortable with a sitting area both inside and out (we'll put up a photo gallery on the side when we get back).
We are taking advantage of these 7 days at sea to learn some new ballroom dances, sample the food in all of the restaurants, watch a few movies, tonight we will go to a performance of classical music, listen to some superb jazz bands, walk the promenade deck for at least a mile a day, visit the beauty parlour, and lean on the railings watching the flat blue sea go by - in fact fill our days with shipboard life.
Perhaps the least exciting of everything we have done so far is eat... the food is good - better in some restaurants on board than others - but not of the standard we are used to at the better restaurants at home (Sydney) and somehow reminiscent of English restaurants in the 1970s! But it is a small niggle.
I am posting this just before I join my partner for a drink - as we watch the sun sink over the yardarm (well we would if there was one) and then dinner - before a little more dancing, and then the performance.
Life on the ocean waves is indeed grand!