When you’re No. 2 — or even No. 3 or No. 4 — you try harder. Norwegian Cruise Lines has plenty of experience, competing with bigger brands, all of which are part of cruise line consortiums…Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess and so on. When you try harder, you try everything. Quality of products, quality of service.… Continue reading Norwegian…Egyptian winning jingle
Category: Deals
American Queen — Plus a Horse Race
In another life, as a sports writer, there were five big sports events I hoped to see before moving on to another profession. One of them was the Kentucky Derby. I made it, in 1978, when Affirmed left the favorite, Alydar, a length-and-a-half behind at the finish line of the famous Run For The Roses.… Continue reading American Queen — Plus a Horse Race
Cunard Return…Just a Few Years Later
“We are committed to Southampton as our main base, but Liverpool is our spiritual home.” Those are the words of Peter Shanks, Cunard’s President, after word leaked in the Liverpool Daily Post that the Queen Mary 2 may — that’s “may” — start sailing from Liverpool to New York on a one-off, sporadic basis. The… Continue reading Cunard Return…Just a Few Years Later
New Panamax Ships and the Canal
We were having lunch with our friend and colleague Phil Reimer, author of Ports and Bows, yesterday. Somewhere between the breakfast burrito (yes, some people do have breakfast burritos for lunch but she doesn’t want to advertise it) and the Caesar salad, the subject of the Panama Canal came up (better the Canal than the… Continue reading New Panamax Ships and the Canal
Splendor in the Seas…Maybe Not
We feel a little sorry for the Carnival Splendor. She’s not even four years old and already she’s been rejected, isolated, burned and — while it may be stretching the analogy too far — placed in the cruise ship version of a witness protection program. She came out of cruising’s womb at Fincantieri, Italy’s most… Continue reading Splendor in the Seas…Maybe Not