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Latest Press Release from Oceania Cruises | |
Oceania Cruises' new Riviera - launching in April 2012 - will offer custom-crafted accommodations that are reminiscent of an elegantly appointed private residence. The ship's 625 staterooms and suites are among the most spacious at sea.
Veranda-and Concierge-level staterooms on Riviera - a spacious 282 square feet - feature a sitting area and balcony furnished with a chaise lounge, armchair and occasional table.
"Riviera and her sister ship Marina have been designed specifically for the upper-premium market," stated Bruce J. Himelstein, Oceania Cruises' president. "The attention to detail is evident from the moment guests embark. Nothing has been overlooked. Quite simply, from a design perspective, these ships are without peer in the industry."
Spacious and Stunning Suites
Penthouse Suites measure a class-leading 420 square feet with living/dining room separate from the sleeping area, walk-in closet and bathrooms with a double vanity.
Oceania Suites are 1,030 square feet of luxurious living area. The layout is comprised of a large living and dining area, media room and separate bedroom. As a highlight, the large veranda features a hot tub and flat-panel TV.
Vista Suites range in size from 1,200 to 1,500 square feet and offer the same features as Oceania Suites but with the added benefit of floor-to-ceiling windows affording sweeping views over the ship's bow.
Owner's Suites offer 2,000+ square feet of luxury unlike any suites at sea. The suites are completely appointed from furniture and fabrics to lighting and bedding using the acclaimed Ralph Lauren Home collection.
"The Owner's Suites on Riviera and Marina can best be described as glamorous," according to Himelstein. "Guests universally say 'wow' upon entering the foyer, with its baby grand piano, wet bar, domed ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows."
In addition to the standard stateroom amenities, suite guests enjoy the added luxury of Champagne upon arrival, 1,000-thread-count linens, 42" plasma TV, Hermès and Clarins bath amenities, butler service, and in-suite delivery from any of the ship's restaurants.
Other stateroom amenities include a flat-panel TV, lap-top computer with wireless access, refrigerated mini bar, security safe, writing desk, plush terry robes, bed slippers, and an oversized marble and granite bathroom. In fact, most staterooms feature a separate tub and shower, a rarity among upper-premium cruise ships.
Casual Elegance Meets High Style
Oceania Cruises' 1,250-guest Riviera has been designed for epicureans and features 10 dining venues - six of which are open-seating, gourmet restaurants - including a French bistro by Master Chef Jacques Pépin. Facilities also include a Canyon Ranch SpaClub® and Bon Appétit Culinary Center and Artist Loft enrichment center. Interior design highlights include a Lalique-designed grand staircase, elegant public rooms, Owner's Suites furnished exclusively in Ralph Lauren Home and luxury suites by design icon Dakota Jackson.
For more information, visit www.OceaniaCruises.com |
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E NEWS SUPPLEMENT...by Bill Miller
October 17, 2011 |
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Greetings!
In an effort to serve our members better we have changed our phone number to a toll-free number.
Please make note of this number. While there is supposed to be a message on the old number for some reason the phone company is struggling with this request. Our new number is (866) 631-0611.
Sincerely!
Tom Cassidy
P.S. There is still space available to join us aboard Celebrity Cruises' Silhouette on January 29th at great rates! Please contact our cruise coordinator Beth Schmidt at (800) 828 4813 ext 1009 if you would like to join us. We would love to see you! |
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Heritage!
During her recent inaugural call to Halifax, the 90,000-grt, 11-month-old Queen Elizabeth was the backdrop for a tribute to Samuel Cunard, the local Nova Scotian who founded the Company & began service 171 years ago, in 1840. A commemorative event was staged, sponsored by our good friend John Langley, who founded the Cunard Historical Society, in the shadows of the recently erected statue of Mr Cunard. The 964-ft long Queen Elizabeth created the backdrop. |
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Heading west! 
The 2,834-bed Disney Wonder will be back in Pacific waters in 2012, making cruises to Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii & along the American West Coast. Her Alaskan cruises will be based from Seattle. Meanwhile, her sister, the 83,300-grt Disney Magic, will be cruising from New York as well as Galveston. |
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 Glory days of the 1950's!
If you have anecdotes, materials, photos, etc & which you might share, I am penning yet another new book called Classic Liners: The Ile de France & Liberte. |
Italy - Work force! 
Hardhit by the current international economic downturn, normally busy Fincantieri Shipyard had some good news lately. Their yard at Palermo in Sicily has won the contract to refit & refurbish the French cruise ship Bleu de France (the former Europa of 1981). The 37,300-grt will become the Saga Sapphire for Britain's Saga Cruises. |
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 Change in plans!
The charter of the Louis Crystal to a Canadian company for winter cruises from Cuba has been dropped. Instead, the ship will undergo extended winter repairs & refitting. The 25,600-grt, 1,096-passenger Louis Crystal dates from 1980 and had been the Baltic-based Sally Albatross & later Norwegian Cruise Lines' Leeward before returing to Baltic operations as the Silja Opera. |
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Unusual pair!
With vivid, very colorful designs on their forward hulls & being basically all-German cruise ships, the liners of Aida Cruises are unusual visitors to New York. But on the first weekend of Oct, not one but two Aida ships were berthed together along Manhattan's West Side. Both ships were on US East Coast cruises. But in another unusual turn, the Aidaluna & Aidaura were berthed stern-first. Their colorful bows were therefore pointed outward to the Hudson River. |
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 Big Apple base!
Still under construction, 4,000-bed Norwegian Breakaway will be completed in May 2013 & will be based year-round at New York. She will be the largest liner ever homeported at Manhattan & will bring in an additional 140,000 passengers (over 2 years) and added $35 million in income to the Port. NCL has had a fulltime ship based at New York since 2003 and then added a 2nd vessel two years later. The 141,000-grt Norwegian Breakaway will replace the existing Norwegian Star in New York cruising. She'll make 88 cruises in a year's schedule. New York City has become one of the top 10 US cruise ports with 583,000 passengers departing in 2010. ... Facelifts! Major refits are in the planning for the Norwegian Spirit (at a Mobile, Alabama shipyard) and for the Norwegian Jade (at Marseilles) that will include shipboard WiFi, new carpetings & flat screen TVs and renewal of some public rooms. |
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Ocean Liner Collectibles - Bathtub boats!
A 32 ½-in long tin boat dating from 1910 & said to be the German passenger ship Bremen sold at auction recently for $4,880. |
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Ocean Liner history - Northern waters!
Back in the summer of 1937, the steamer Princess Charlotte of Canadian Pacific Steamships offered two 11-day cruises from Seattle, Victoria & Vancouver going north to Behm Canal, Ocean Falls, Alert Bay, Prince Rupert, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau & Sitka. A highlight was a 36-hr stay at Skagway, convenient for extended side trips. The cruise was priced from $115. |
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Around the deck! 
A guest aboard the Grand Princess recently completed the first Princess shipboard marathon. For a charity benefitting injured soldiers, the passenger did 70 laps in 5 hrs, 16 mins & 45 seconds. In total, he logged 26.2 miles! |
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Ocean & Cruise News
Current & Past Issues Members can download a PDF of current and past issues using the following links
Past Issues of this "new" Email Supplement beginning with the Feb. 21, 2011 issue can be found by clicking our logo below
The above listed items are copyrighted material and are for the exclusive use of paid members in good standing. Any unauthorized duplication, transmission or distribution of this material without the written permission of The World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society is strictly prohibited. |
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About Bill Miller 
Bill Miller is an international authority on the subject of ocean liners & cruise ships. This includes those great ships of the past, those "floating palaces," as well as the current generation of cruise ships, the "floating resorts". Called "Mr. Ocean Liner," he has written over 75 books on the subject: from early steamers, immigrant ships and liners at war to other titles on their fabulous interiors, in post card form and about the highly collectible artifacts from them. He has done specific histories of such celebrated passenger ships as the United States, Queen Mary, Rotterdam, France, Queen Elizabeth 2, Costa Victoria, Super Star Leo and Crystal Serenity.
In all, he has also written over 1,000 articles for newspapers, magazines and nautical journals & newsletters. He even had his very own ocean liner quarterly, the Millergram. He has made nearly 350 voyages to date: Atlantic crossings, tropical cruises, coastal runs and even trips on container cargo ships and exotic banana boats. He has appeared in some three dozen video & television series, both in the USA, Britain, Europe and Australia, including Castles of the Sea, The Floating Palaces, The Superliners, Inside the World of a Cruise Ship, Disasters at Sea, Deco: Age of Glamour, and Lady in Waiting: The Story of the SS United States. He has also appeared on The Today Show, CBS Evening News, CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, NBC Evening News and many other news broadcasts. He has been guest lecturer aboard over 50 different liners, sailing with the likes of Crystal Cruises, Cunard, Carnival, Holland Americ
a, Princess, Radisson-Seven Seas, Saga Cruises and others. Miller was a public school teacher, in middle school and for social studies, for 32 years. He was named "Teacher of the Year" in 2002.
A native of Hoboken, New Jersey, the once busy port just across the Hudson River from New York City, Miller was named Outstanding American Maritime Scholar in 1994, received the United States Maritime Preservation Award and also the Ocean Liner Council's Silver Riband Award, both in 2004. Also, he has been chairman of the Port of New York Branch of the World Ship Society, serves on the selection committee for the American Maritime Hall of Fame, created the passenger ship database for the Ellis Island Museum and currently serves as Curator of 20th Century Maritime History at Manhattan's South Street Seaport Museum. He has also organized a 14-week college course on liners, and helped to create & then served as historian at the US Merchant Marine Museum. His private collection includes 4,000 books on ships, over 15,000 photos and some 1,000 miniature ship models, most of them being passenger ships.
By 2010, Miller had 10 new books in the works, was curator to Decodence (an exhibit at the South St Seaport on the design & décor of the grand French liner Normandie) and himself was the subject of a one-hour film documentary aptly titled Mr Ocean Liner. (Updated 8/10).
Follow Bill's look back at ship's of yesteryear..
Heard Along the Boat Deck
And his current and past cruise experiences...
Scribblings |
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William Miller Books!
In the works! The presses are rolling over in England, at the History Press. I've penned a short, 10,000-word overview of passenger ships entitled The Great Liners. It should be out soon. It will be followed, at the same publishing house, by Great Passenger Ships 1910-20 and then Great American Passenger Ships. Happily, my finger keeps on typing ... and happily, there are still photos and anecdotes and maybe something new to be shared.
Another new book project! Happily, I have been signed to do another edition of the Classic Liners series for the History Press over in the UK. In the wake of our book on the Caronia, Cunard's "Green Goddess," this project will deal with two of the most popular, most beloved post-Second World War French liners, the Ile de France & Liberte. The Ile was built for the French but back in 1927; the larger Liberte came to them as post-war reparations, having been the German Europa of 1930. The Ile sailed the Atlantic between 1949 and 1958; the Liberte ran between 1950 and 1961. They transported thousands on the regular run between New York, Southampton or Plymouth and Le Havre, and even had occasional cruises. They were of course predecessors to the much larger, faster France, commissioned in 1962. If any of our readers has anecdotes, reflections, comments and shared materials on these great liners, please contact me through Ocean & Cruise News.
On the horizon! Brian Hawley is penning a new book, filled with lots of photos, about the Olympic, the White Star liner completed in 1911 and sister to the infamous Titanic
Ocean liners in words & pictures! An updated list of my published ocean liner books ... and available thru bmce48@yahoo.com.
Last Atlantic Liners: Getting There is Half the Fun (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2011
RMS Caronia: Cunard's Green Goddess
(co-authored with Brian Hawley) The History Press Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2011
Floating Palaces: The Great Atlantic Liners(Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2011
Great British Passenger Ships (The History Press Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2010)
SS Nieuw Amsterdam: The Darling of the Dutch (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2010)
Cunard's Three Queens: A Celebration (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2009)
Under the Red Ensign: British Passenger Liners of the '50s & '60s (The History Press, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2009)
SS United States: Speed Queen of the Seas (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, 2009)
And yet to come.....
Great Passenger Ships 1910-20 (The History Press Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, due Sep 2011)
I Was Born in Hoboken: Memories of the 1950s & '60s (Hoboken Historical Museum, Hoboken, NJ, due fall 2011)
Along the Hudson: Great Passenger Ships at New York in Photos (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, due 2012)
The Last Great Dynasty: The Royal House of Windsor (Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, due 2012)
Great Atlantic Liners of the 20th Century in Color (co-authored with Anton Logvinenko; Amberley Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, due 2012)
Great American Passenger Ships (The History Press Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK, due 2012)
The Cunard Yanks (co-authored with Ian Wright; pending but due 2012)
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 WOCLS E News & Renewals
If you've been receiving this E-news but not the monthly print publication chances are your subscription has expired. Please renew now as your E-news will stop shortly. Please renew online using the following link http://www.wocls.org/renew.htm
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In either case you may renew securely using your Visa or MasterCard. This form features VeriSign's Secure processing so you know your vital information is secure. You may also mail your check to The World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society - P.O. Box 329 - Northport NY 11768. A renewal ($30/year domestic -or- $36/ year foreign) will extend your existing subscription to both this "E-News" Supplement and Ocean Cruise News a full 12 months from the end of your current subscription |
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WORLD OCEAN & CRUISE LINER SOCIETY'S
HOSTED CRUISES
One of the great things about being a World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society member is joining us aboard one of our "Hosted" member cruises. Each cruise features low group rates, special amenities plus onboard lectures and events
Noordam - Southern Caribbean (10 Night)
Dec 2, 2011 - from $1,019*
Silhouette - Eastern Caribbean (12 Night)
Jan 29, 2012 - from $1,499*
Veendam - Bermuda (7 Night)
Jun 3, 2012 - from $799*
Queen Mary 2 - Canada / New England (11 Nights)
Sep21, 2012 - from $2,695*
*Rates are per person based on double occupancy.
Government fees are additional.
For Reservations and Information Call WOCLS Group Coordinator Beth Schmitt at (800) 828 4813 Ext 1009
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