The right price…………………………………………………………………….……$1,545
May 23, August 29, September 5 or 12, 2011: 8 days
Ship: A Scenic Tours river ship
Departure: Budapest to Nuremberg (or the reverse)
Bonus: Price is per person but is a 2-for-1; all shore excursions and all gratuities included
Contact: WOW Travel Deals
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Just in case you didn’t think there was a theme cruise for everyone, how’s this for a tripleheader?
If you love good (bias showing here) music from the past, there’s a Beatles Tribute cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas (March 5).
If you’re into right-wing politics, there’s a Mike Huckabee cruise on the Sapphire Princess (June 5).
And if you’re a Brady Bunch buff, Florence Henderson herself will take two of her TV kids on a Ballroom Dance Celebration at Sea, aboard the Celebrity Eclipse (January 2012).
Since there are more Beatlemanias than Huckabeers or Hendersonites, the Liberty of the Seas cruise warrants more enlightenment. Among the 
invited guests who will entertain the fans are a member of Paul McCartney’s band Wings (Laurence Juber), a tribute band called Yesterday, a true Beatles artist named Shannon (she also paints them) and a man of whom McCartney once said: “If you want to know anything about the Beatles, ask Tony Bramwell [right]. He remembers more than I do.”
You can say these are all people making a living off the Beatles, or you can say they’re sharing their particular insight of the world’s greatest band, for a price. We prefer the latter.
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There was to be a fourth theme cruise in this blog today, because there was a Wizards At Sea cruise featuring everything Harry Potter, on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas in August. If you click on the promoter’s website, you’ll notice the cruise was canceled for “reasons beyond our control” and that this is an unofficial gathering of Harry Potter fans, also that no copyright nor trademark infringement is intended.
Should that be “was” intended?
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Guess we’ll have to wait until one Monday night in February to find out which cruise ship is going to show up in Hawaii Five-O, the hugely popular new/old show on CBS, because nobody’s saying…yet.
Actor Nick Lachey and his fiancee, Vanessa Minnillo, have been cast to play an engaged couple on the show. Apparently she — yes, SHE — is working as a deckhand on a cruise ship that’s taken hostage by pirates.
Out of real life come new ideas for TV scripts. You don’t think they filmed it off Somalia, do you?
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This one is probably a sign of things to come. Royal Caribbean’s frequent cruiser program — Crown & Anchor Society — has been changed, from cruise credits to cruise points. Passengers now get one point for every night spent on a Royal Caribbean ship and instead of four status levels, there are now six: Gold, Platinum, Emerald, Diamond, Diamond Plus and Pinnacle Club. The two new ones are Emerald and the highest level, Pinnacle Club.
The current status of all C&A members will be grandfathered — no change despite the new qualifying levels.
Will it be long before all cruise lines create a more sophisticated loyalty program like this one, which gives the line more flexibility with rewards and which means somebody taking a 14-day cruise receives more credit than somebody on a 5-day cruise, as it should be.
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That’s it, we’re done.