The Right Price…………………….$799
Ship: Celebrity Eclipse, 13 nights, Transatlantic (Miami to Southampton) Departure: April 16
Ports: Ponta Delgada, Azores; Lisbon, Portugal; Vigo, Spain; Cherbourg, France
Bonus: Arrive in England the day of the Royal Wedding
Contact: Celebrity Cruises
* * *
Norwegian announced its latest shuffling of ships, the result of which puts two Jewel-class ships serving The Big Apple market, the Pearl and the Gem, starting in the fall of 2012…Currently, the market is served by the Jewel and the Gem…Hmm, what’s the big deal?…According to the cruise line the big deal is that by swapping the Pearl for the Jewel, New York passengers gain a year…Really?…The Jewel (2005) is older than the Pearl (2006)…What’s more important than the ships is how many sailings…In 2010, NCL sailed out of New York 74 times, and in 2011 that number will jump to 103…However, right now there are just 79 departures scheduled in 2012 for the three ships, a drop of 24…The Port Authority says cruise-ship passengers spent $144.6 million in 2010 and $93.8 million in 2009, and of the 48.7 million visitors in 2010, 582,979 came from cruise ships…An increase of more than 10% is anticipated this year.
* * *
In case you’re wondering what Kurt Warner — former quarterback of the Arizona Cardinals — is doing in retirement, it’s not inventing 3-D street art…According to Celebrity Cruises, that’s Kurt Wenner (no relation), 
and his passes are with a brush…The hugely talented inventor was commissioned by Celebrity this week on Wall Street to create an innovative art installation at the New York Stock Exchange, where presumably it will entertain 3-D art lovers as well as remind passersby that the Celebrity Silhouette is coming…The new ship will be launched in July and will cross the Atlantic in October, in time to start sailing the Caribbean in November from Bayonne, NJ, just across the water from Wall Street…NYSE employees had a taste of what the new Lawn Club Grill will be like when the open-air restaurant and display kitchen makes its debut on the Silhouette and the Celebrity ship to follow, the Reflection.
* * *
So do you think life in Egypt is becoming more tourist-friendly?…USA Today’s cruise columnist, Gene Sloan, reported this week that Grand Circle Travel is one of the operators that has resumed cruises on the Nile River…The significance is that a month ago Grand Circle announced it was suspending operations on the Nile until March 31…The first cruise now will be March 14…You may never have heard of this company but the 10,000 Americans it takes to Egypt every year sure have…On two ships that hold 138 and 38 passengers, respectively, that’s a lot of cruises…Most other river cruisers are considering a return to the Nile next month…Yes, now that you ask, there used to be cruises to Libya, a country that in December ordered a 4,000-passenger cruise ship that’s due for delivery in December 2012.
* * *
What does it take to set off the fireworks at Cunard?…A meeting of the ships…On Thursday night at Long Beach, California, the Queen Victoria met the Queen Mary — or at least passed her in the night…That lit the match for a fireworks display to celebrate yet another “royal rendezvous”…You may recall there was one earlier this year, when “We Three Queens” (that would be Elizabeth, Victoria and Mary 2) were all in New York Harbor…The Long Beach tete-a-tete was only the second time a “reigning” Queen had visited a sibling 
Photo by Matthew Field
in retirement — Mary has been docked since 1967 in Long Beach Harbor, where she became a tourist attraction and eventually a hotel…Her offspring, the Queen Mary 2, dropped by for a cup of tea in 2006 on her maiden trip to Los Angeles…Presumably they still recognized each other…This year is the 75th anniversary of the original Queen Mary, which as any Long Beach visitor can tell you has an illustrious history on the seas.
* * *
That’s it, we’re done.