We’ve got several stories in our cruise news show this week.  Oceania celebrates their fourth birthday, Princess and Cunard both get new Commodores, and Queen Victoria gets ready to float out of dry dock.  Max Mayfield from the National Hurricane Center will be sailing on Regent Sven Seas this year, Celebrity announces the name of their third planned Solstice class ship, Costa Serena’s naming to be held in Marseilles, and NCL America introduces a new hula program on their ships.

This week’s Deal of The Week can better be described as a Deal for The Year because it’s good throughout 2007.  Check out the details here.

As always you can find the show up on iTunes, on Digg or click on one of the links below to play the show right in your browser window or to download it to your computer.

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 News for the Week of January 15 [28:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (40)

Captain Michael Fatchen, a 40-year veteran of Princess and P&O Cruises, has been named commodore of the company’s 15-ship fleet. He becomes the senior master of the fleet and will represent the interests of all ships and their captains.The title of commodore is an honor that is traditionally bestowed upon the most senior captain of a fleet of ships, and the position represents the highest rank attainable to a Princess mariner.

“We’re delighted that Mike Fatchen will serve as commodore of the Princess fleet,” said Peter Ratcliffe, Princess’ chief executive officer. “This honor is a well-deserved recognition of his long career of service and contributions to Princess over the years.”

Most recently serving as master of Pacific Princess during the past three years, Commodore Fatchen will take command of the new Royal Princess when it debuts in April. Throughout his career at sea he has commanded many of the ships in the Princess and P&O Cruises fleet.

Fatchen, 62, who hails from Gawler, South Australia, studied at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He began his career at sea with a cadetship with the Adelaide Steamship Company in 1962, winning the Australian Company of Master Mariners Annual Prize in 1965. He joined P&O Orient Lines as a fourth officer in 1966 and rose through the ranks, reaching the title of chief officer in 1976, sailing on the original Oriana. Fatchen was promoted to deputy captain in 1986 when he sailed aboard the original Sea Princess and Canberra.

His first appointment as captain was aboard the original Sea Princess in 1993, and has also commanded the original Pacific Princess and Sky Princess. In recent years, he has served as master of many of the ships in the P&O Cruises and Princess fleets, including Oriana, Victoria, Aurora, Pacific Sky and Pacific Princess.

When not at sea, Fatchen lives near Wrexham in North Wales, where his interests include steam locomotives, model soldiers and country pursuits. He has three children and five grandchildren.

Back to our normal routine of two episodes a week.  First up is our traditional cruise news show, although the week was a bit slow.  This week we have some news from Crystal, Princess, Silversea, Cunard, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean.

Don’t forget to check on the Deal of the Week  featuring a fantastic sailing to the Eastern Mediterranean onboard Royal Caribbean’s Legend of The Seas.

As always you can find the show in iTunes and you can always download the show or play it right in your browser window by clicking on the links below.  Are you a fan of Digg?  We’re now listed in the podcast section on Digg, head over there and give us a Digg, plus feel free to Digg your favorite episodes too.

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 News For January 8, 2007 [31:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (39)

Lorraine Arzt, Princess’ most-traveled passenger, last week reached a record-breaking 4,000 days at sea - the most time ever spent by a passenger aboard Princess ships. Arzt, who is currently sailing on Sea Princess, celebrated the occasion onboard, marking a milestone that in total represents more than 10 years spent at sea.Arzt, who has been a regular resident aboard Princess ships, particularly the original Royal Princess and now Sea Princess, began cruising with her late husband, Joe, in the early 1970s aboard P&O’s Spirit of London - which later became the original Sun Princess. That first Mexico voyage sparked a life-long love of cruising, which became increasingly frequent over the years. The Arzts spent 17 years as regular passengers aboard Royal Princess. Following the 2005 transfer of Royal Princess to P&O, Lorraine Arzt now spends approximately 10 months each year aboard Sea Princess. She plans to transfer to the new Royal Princess when it debuts in April.

To mark Arzt’s cruising milestone, Sea Princess hosted a celebration on the vessel’s bridge with many shipboard personnel in attendance. Captain William Kent presented her with a special invitation to be the guest of honor at the inaugural festivities for the new Royal Princess in Santorini, Greece on May 12, 2007.

“We are thrilled to celebrate this milestone with Lorraine,” said Jan Swartz, Princess’ senior vice president of customer service and sales. “She has continually been our most steadfast Princess supporter, and has become a part of the family on the ships she has called home.”

“I don’t know how it all happened … I just love cruising,” said Arzt, who recently celebrated her 80th birthday. She noted that she chose Princess for a variety of reasons, including the crew (”they are unbelievable”), the diverse itineraries (”fantastic”), the cuisine (”the Italian kitchen is a great attraction”) and the accommodations (’the suites are wonderful”).

When not at sea, Arzt resides in Beverly Hills, Calif. She traces her love of the sea to her childhood days fishing with her father in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Together with her husband, Joe, Arzt was an accomplished professional ballroom dancer for many years. The Arzts, who have a son and a daughter, later enjoyed a successful real estate business.

Arzt, who has traveled around the world with Princess, rates Chile as her favorite destination. Despite numerous world-wide voyages, she has yet to visit the Holy Land, but looks forward to visiting there aboard the new Royal Princess next year.

She continues to be an ardent cruise enthusiast. “How can you not like a cruise — you hang your hat and you’re there. Everyone is there to entertain and serve you — you’re waited on hand and foot. Where else can you go to completely escape and have so much fun?”

Princess Cruises is rolling out some important changes to their loyalty program known as the Captain’s Circle.

The biggest changes involve how you progress through the three tiers in the program, previously members advanced through program tiers based on cruises completed.  The new revisions also take into account the number of cruise days a passenger has completed.
The first tier is Gold, as before all US and Canadian passengers over 18 are automatically enrolled in the Captain’s Circle at the completion of their first cruise, and the onboard benefits begin on the second cruise.

The next tier is Platinum, which is achieved upon completion of a member’s 5th cruise with on board benefits beginning on the 6th cruise.  Now however the Platinum level can also be achieved by completing 50 cruise days with on board benefits beginning after the completion of the 50th cruise day.

The top tier of the Captain’s Circle is the Elite level which is achieved upon completion of a member’s 15th cruise with the on board benefits beginning on the 16th cruise.  Under the revised program a member can also become an Elite member by completing 150 cruise days with on board benefits beginning upon completion of a member’s  150th cruise day.

With these changes, Princess is now rewarding both passengers who enjoy taking short cruises frequently and also passengers who prefer taking longer cruises less frequently.

One of the most popular benefits of the Captain’s Circle is being changed as well.  Platinum members used to enjoy unlimited complementary internet access in the on board computer centers, however as of April 1, 2007 that benefit will be changing.  After April 1, Platinum and higher members will be given credit towards internet packages with the credit amount based on the length of the voyage.

• $75 for 7 day or shorter sailings.
• $100 for 8 to 20 day sailings.
• $200 for 21 day or longer sailings.

While the loss of unlimited internet access is disappointing, we believe that the new policy will apply to wireless internet access which the old program did not include.

We’re still reviewing the revised program, but it looks like the rest of the Captain’s Circle program is unchanged.

Just a quick update, reports are coming in that approximately 100 people onboard Princess Cruises’ Sun Princess were diagnosed with Norovirus during the ship’s most recent cruise which ended on Sunday in Fort Lauderdale.  In addition to taking further actions to sanitize possible areas of infection, the ship also stopped self service buffets onboard.  Sun Princess carries 1,950 passengers.

Meanwhile in Miami, 97 passengers and 11 crew members came down with Norovirus onboard Freedom of The Seas during it’s latest cruise that ended on Sunday.  This is the second itinerary where passengers came down with the gastrointestinal illness, however the numbers are dramatically lower than last week when over 300 passengers became ill.  The ship’s departure from Miami was delayed as efforts continued to sanitize the ship in order to eliminate all traces of the disease.

There’s not much more we can say about this that we haven’t already in the last several weeks.  All we can do is offer the reminder that you should wash your hands before eating and also immediately upon returning to the ship from a port call.

We also want to remind you not to fall for the hype that this is some sort of “cruise ship disease” this past weekend residents of a care facility in Berkley CA were quarantined after several tenants came down with Norovirus.

Not a whole lot of news again this week, so we just did one show.  The few things that did happen:

• Celebrity kicks off their Savor the Caribbean series onboard Millennium on January 7.
• Princess launches a scrapbooking program.
• Norwegian Gem sailings opening.

Since the traditional way most people observe Thanksgiving is to eat, this week we talking about onboard dining.  Everybody knows that lots of food is available on a cruise ship, that’s the easy part.  ;)  We talk some of the other things that you should know, like making arrangements for special meals, the differences between early seating and late seatings, and alternative dining options.

Since we’re talking about food, it only makes sense to have a Deal of the Week that’s food related.  We’ve got a great deal on one of the Savor the Caribbean sailings onboard Celebrity’s Millennium.  Check it out here.

As always you can find the show in iTunes or click below to download it or listen right in your browser window.

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 Dining Onboard [41:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (51)

One of the country’s fastest-growing pastimes is coming aboard the Princess fleet with a new way for scrapbooking fans to take their hobby to sea. The recently launched Princess Scrapbooking@Sea program is designed to encourage passengers to preserve their cruise memories in a fun and creative way. The first such program hosted by a cruise line, the new activity offers a social atmosphere where passengers can learn helpful hints on how to enjoy this popular activity.Presented as part of Princess’ award-winning ScholarShip@Sea educational program, Scrapbooking@Sea incorporates a series of onboard classes and a specially created scrapbooking kit with unique themed pages designed exclusively for Princess. The program begins rolling out to select ships this month, and is expected to be available across the Princess fleet by early 2007.

Scrapbooking@Sea offers a series of classes, starting with a complimentary Scrapbooking Basics class which will introduce passengers to the art of creating scrapbook pages. Participants will learn how to use basic tools of the craft, familiarize themselves with page design and journaling techniques, and will receive the supplies and instruction needed to create their first page. Subsequent courses are available to all passengers who purchase Princess’ special scrapbooking kit. Classes offer tips and creative ideas, plus plenty of free time to work on pages with a full range of supplies available for use, including scissors, adhesive, deluxe paper, die cut machines with assorted die cuts, a selection of pens and other items that can be used during the class sessions. All materials are acid-free and archival safe.

Princess’ special Scrapbooking@Sea kit features decorative papers, stickers and rub-on emblems along with instructions on how to build five unique vacation-themed pages. These pages can be used to create decorative backdrops for photos from typical cruise activities such as welcome aboard, days at sea, shore excursions, or formal evenings. Kits are available for $24.95 at any Scrapbooking@Sea class or at the ship’s onboard photo gallery. Additional themed kits are being developed for future sailings. In addition, a specially designed Princess scrapbook is available for purchase at the ship’s photo gallery.

It was a slow week this week, so we decided to do just one show. There just wasn’t a lot of news this past week and we decided to keep this week’s feature, cruise line loyalty programs short.

In the news this week:

• Celebrity partners with Lead Frog
• QM2 in Germany for repairs
• Carnival Triumph to sail seasonal Eastern Caribbean itinerary.
• Princess to hold simultaneous ship naming
• Trouble onboard Carnival Liberty
• Celebrity deals with some bad news

Once finished with the news we discussed the various loyalty programs offered by the crews lines. Some of the highlights of what’s offered:

• Princess’ Captain Circle which offers things like complementary internet access in their cyber-cafes.
• Celebrity’s Captain’s Club which is one of the richest programs available, not only can you get reciprocal benefits onboard Royal Caribbean, but there are also added benefits you can get if you’re a Captain’s Club member and enroll in the Crown and Anchor Society on Royal Caribbean.
• Holland America loves to recognize their Mariner Society members, check out the neat tiles that Mariner Society members get when they sail on Holland America by going here.

Don’t forget to check out this week’s Deal of the Week, and you can always find the show in iTunes. Click below to download the show right to your computer or play it in your browser.

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 Some Loyal News [42:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (39)

From the Christmas tree adorning the ship’s mast to a visit from Santa, the holiday season brings a special kind of cheer to Princess ships. This year, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year celebrations will be in full swing fleetwide, with several new seasonal activities for passengers to enjoy.Trimmed from stem to stern in festive holiday décor, Princess ships will reflect the season in a variety of ways. Special menus and culinary displays will offer traditional goodies. Strolling carolers and live musicians will fill the air with the sounds of the season. And the ship’s movie screens will feature the holiday classics loved by young and old alike.

Some special activities debut this season, adding to the festivities. Children of all ages will enjoy a special reading of “The Night Before Christmas” by a member of the ship’s company. A holiday production show debuts in the Princess Theater on select ships, with the opportunity for photos with the cast members in their holiday finery.

You’ll find more information about this year’s Holiday celebrations when you click on “more.”  Space is still available on my Princess Holiday itineraries, visit Cruise Planners or call us at 888-286-9827 for details.

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