The right price……………………………………………………………..……$3,088
April 3, 2011: 23 days Ship: Queen Mary 2
Departure: Dubai to New York
Ports: Safaga (for Luxor/Karnak), Sharm el Sheikh, Suez (for Cairo/Giza), Port Said, Rome (Civitavecchia), Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Southampton
Bonus: The historic meeting of Cunard’s three Queens (Elizabeth, Victoria) at the Statue of Liberty at prices that are up to 50% off
Contact: Call at 1-800-7-CUNARD or go to the cruise line website
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Once upon a time, Norwegian Cruise Line had a ship called the Dream. For at least two members of the Norwegian Sky family, it was one romantic ship!
Captain Roger Gustavsen met his wife, Jocelyn, on the Dream. She was working as a server and today they live in the Philippines with their young son. When the captain returns from his 10-week vacation to pilot the Norwegian Gem, his seventh ship, he’ll be one of the Gem’s two captains. Every member of the NCL fleet has two captains and two staff captains.
“I’m going to the second-newest one,” he says, “so it’s always good to get that experience.”
Concierge Ana Maria Telea met her husband-to-be on the Dream. Florin Cretu now works as a accounting executive on the Epic and when he proposed, they were on her ship, the Sky. “We were on a Dream, and then we were Sky-high,” laughs Ana Maria. She and Florin both come from the same city in Romania — Brasov, in the state of Transilvania.
“But we are not vampires!”
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The Sky was once called the Pride of Aloha and if your guess is that she sailed the Hawaiian Islands, go to the head of the class. When she was re-fitted in 2004 and moved to mainland ports after five years in the South Pacific, the newly re-named ship had to have a casino, because a casino is a no-no in Hawaii.
She still retains much of her Hawaiian heritage. There are paintings and artifacts on the walls, and the rooms (Maui, Kauai, Oahu) retained their original names, and Captain Cook’s is still one of the main watering holes.
There are rumors that the Sky, because of her age (11) and her size (2,000-plus) will be the next Norwegian ship to be sold, after the arrival of NCL’s two new ships over the next 
couple of years. However, as ship officials readily point out, she is almost always full sailing three-day and four-day voyages to the Bahamas.
“We carry as many passengers in a week as the Epic,” says Hotel Director Frank Hasenwinkel.
The Sky can carry up to 2,200 passengers. The Epic’s capacity is 4,100.
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This was the fifth Norwegian ship we’ve been on and, while others may have this, it’s the first time we noticed fish embroidered into the carpets. That’s not so exciting, is it?
However, the direction the fish are “swimming” — to the front — is a quick way to find your way from bow to stern.
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One of the little perks for passengers who buy suites on the Sky, and for VIPs, is they get to have breakfast and/or lunch every day at Cagney’s. For dinner, passengers pay $25 per head to dine at the upscale steakhouse.
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We picked up an interesting fact while visiting the Sky’s laundry…hey, this job’s not all sunbathing and sipping martinis, you know.
There are 17 employees in the cleaning department from only three countries — India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
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That’s it, we’re done.