The right price…………………………………………………………………….……$449
February/March/April 2011: 7 nights
Ship: Celebrity Summit
Departure: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Ports: Virgin Islands, St. Kitts, Dominica, Grenada, Tobago
Bonus: Oceanview $499
Contact: cruises.orbitz.com
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When Jimmy Buffett took a header off the stage in Australia the other night, the gasp from our resident Parrothead was likely heard in Sydney, where Mr. B. is recovering…She was further horrified when she learned of the song her musical heart-throb had just finished singing: “Lovely Cruise“…Not all cruise lines are backing off Mexico…Ocean Star Cruises is a new venture with an old ship, the Aquamarine, built in 1971 and acquired from the Louis Group…In April, it starts 3, 4 and 7-day sailings from Manzanillo and Acapulco to the Mexican Riviera…Not sure yet if that means the much-maligned Mazatlan…Ocean Star claims it can carry 80,000 passengers and create 750 jobs…We don’t know anyone who can walk on water but there are people on the seas who can run on it…When the Caribbean Princess docked at St. John’s in Antigua on Wednesday, 180 passengers ran (presumably) off the ship and didn’t stop until they reached Fort Barrington, up a short but steep hill…No mention of the distance, but who cares?…Each of them carried a book to donate to the national library, all part of Princess’s Cruise To Run — the two Rs, you know, Readin’ and Runnin’.
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A site called Travel Smart is hyping a service that makes it easy to get your bags to and from a cruise ship in Fort Lauderdale…Your bags can go from the airport to the ship, from 
the car rental center to the ship, from the ship to the airport or just be stored at the airport…No mention if the bags go to the ship’s porters (thereby incurring another cost) or directly to your stateroom door for that price…The company, Bags To Go, also operates at the airport in Las Vegas and soon will, apparently, in Miami…Apparently Mickey was a little too close to a rival cruise ship last week…The Disney Dream (left) drifted perilously close to Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas during its coming-out ceremony…How perilously?…Disney officials said no closer than 20 or 30 feet, but Monarch crew members said there’s a zero that should be there — 2 or 3 feet…We spent 10 minutes watching a variety of YouTube videos, none of which were conclusive.
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File this under “Who Would Want To Do this?”…Costa Cruises has a loyal-guest program called ViceVersa, in which loyal guests get to switch places with crew members for a day to “experience the thrill of being a part of the onboard staff”…Really?…Trained by the cruise director (now there’s a scary thought), the CostaClub members will work in guests services, as tour escorts, cruise staff, musicians, singers, waiters and cooks…This happens on four cruises, the first of which ends Monday after 21 days on the water…The second one isn’t until July, so Costa has plenty of time to assess and change direction…This takes belt-tightening to a whole new level…When Disney pulled its Wonder out of Mazatlan over security concerns, it substituted an extra day in Cabo San Lucas…That’s an “extra day” not an “overnight”…The ship leaves Cabo at night, goes out to sea, and returns the next morning…Sailing overnight must be cheaper than port taxes, even when anchored in the bay.
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Most cruise commentators are getting a chuckle, at least, out of Royal Caribbean’s “announcement” that it’s adding singles cabins for solo travelers, all of them windowless on the inside, all of them on a makeover to Radiance of the Seas…The chuckle is because “all of them” consists of three cabins…More will follow on future makeovers to old ships…Three cabins at a time?…Norwegian’s Epic, by the way, started all this by building the ship with more than 100 singles cabins…For the 18th year in a row, Holland America was chosen as the line that offers the Best Overall Cruise Value, by the World Ocean and Cruise Liner Society, an organization encompassing thousands of travelers who average two cruises a year…The society reviews all cruise lines annually and credits HA with offering “a number of features that other cruise lines believe are not necessary or are too costly.”
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There’s a new Royal Caribbean office to market the flagship brand, along with Celebrity and Azamara, and bet you can’t guess where it is?…Mexico City!…Another crumb of good news for the beleaguered Mexican cruise industry…Latest ship to get a facelift, so to speak, 
is the Norwegian Sun…The Sun (left) spent a dozen days in drydock to get the usual cosmetic enhancements, along with a new restaurant, the Brazilian steakhouse that made its debut on NCL’s Epic — Moderno Churrascaria…Next in line for the upgrades at the Dawn (in May) and the Spirit (in September)…Crossing the Atlantic as you read is the Oceania Marina, en route from Europe to its christening ceremony in Miami next weekend…Before embarking on two 18-day Panama Canal cruises, the Marina will meet her godmother, TV icon Mary Hart.
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That’s it, we’re done.