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Latest Press Release from Celebrity
Cruises | |
Miami - Consistently striving to provide its guests with unmatchable vacation experiences, Celebrity Cruises is now offering guests an inside look into the fascinating world of cruise ship operations. A new addition to the unique and robust Celebrity Life onboard activities program, "Celebrity Inside Access" takes guests on a once-in-a-lifetime journey behind the scenes of Celebrity's renowned fleet, inviting them to discover the intricate details and functions behind modern luxury at sea. Celebrity's Inside Access program invites guests to join two intimate and exclusive activities, the "See How It's Done Tour" and the "Bridge Sail Away Experience."
Designed to provide a thorough and rich three-hour experience, the See How It's Done Tour guides an intimate group of guests through several otherwise non-public areas of the ship, including the bridge, mooring deck, crew gym, theater, engine control room, prep rooms and the main dining room galley. At each area of the tour, guests have the opportunity to interact with expert members of the Celebrity crew. Each tour is followed by a savory wine-paired lunch hosted by an officer in the main dining room.
The Bridge Sail Away Experience presents the opportunity for vacationers to join the navigational team on the bridge as the ship sails away from port. Beginning 30 minutes before and concluding 30 minutes after departing, guests are given a tour and an overview of the bridge conducted by a senior Celebrity bridge officer. Guests also have the opportunity to meet and take photos with the ship's captain.
"Celebrity has dedicated itself to providing guests with the finest in culinary experiences, award-winning service and engaging onboard activities," said Simon Weir, Director of Hotel Operations, Celebrity Cruises. "Now, with the addition of Celebrity Inside Access, vacationers can also satisfy their curiosity and gain rare, behind-the-scenes insight into a Celebrity ship's inner workings."
The Celebrity Inside Access program is offered on all ships and available for purchase onboard.
About Celebrity Cruises:
Celebrity Cruises' iconic "X" is the mark of modern luxury, with its cool, contemporary design and warm spaces; dining experiences where the design of the venues is as important as the cuisine; and the amazing service that only Celebrity can provide, all created to provide an unmatchable experience for vacationers' precious time. In addition to offering vacations visiting all continents, Celebrity also presents immersive cruisetour experiences in Alaska, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, Europe and South America. One of the fastest-growing major cruise lines, Celebrity is one of five cruise brands operated by global cruise vacation company Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE, OSE: RCL). Celebrity's fleet currently consists of 10 ships, with an additional Solstice Class ship, Celebrity Reflection, scheduled to join the fleet in Fall 2012. For more information, dial 1-800-437-3111 or call your travel agent. |
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E NEWS SUPPLEMENT...by Bill Miller
December 26, 2011 |
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Greetings!
Please continue to send in report cards of any voyages you have taken this year so that they may be included in our survey which is wrapping up!
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.
HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!
Sincerely!
Tom Cassidy |
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 Changing places!
The 2,052-bed Carnival Inspiration has just gone into twice-weekly cruise service from Long Beach, California. The 70,000-tonner will offer 3 & 4 night cruises. She's joining the larger, 3,006-passenger Carnival Splendour, which offers 7-night cruises from Long Beach, but to more ports along the Mexican Riviera. Meanwhile, the Carnival Paradise, which had been based in Long Beach, is changing homeports to Tampa, offering weekly western Caribbean cruises. |
Added touches!
Celebrity has, in my experience, one of the finest cruise experiences in their category. Along with beautifully decorated ships, they offer excellent service, dining & entertainment. Easily, they are highly recommendable. But now, there's something new: 2 behind-the-scenes tours for passengers. See How It's Done looks at the likes of the galley, the crew gym, & mechanical areas while Bridge Sail Away has emphasis on the bridge & ship's navigational operation. Both tours take 3 hours in all & include a special lunch with wine & hosted by an officer. I am sailing onboard the newest in the fleet, the 122,000-grt Celebrity Silhouette, on Jan 29th. It's a 12-nighter to the Eastern Caribbean from Cape Liberty (Bayonne, New Jersey) in New York harbor. A report to follow. |
 Classic Int'l Cruises-Extended time!
The long, costly refit of the 10,000-ton, 1961-built Funchal at Lisbon has been extended & so the 500-passenger ship has yet to return to service |
Splendor on the seas! 
I've just returned from a 12-night, mid-Atlantic positioning cruise aboard the 68,000-ton Crystal Serenity, sailing from Lisbon to Miami via Casablanca, Tenerife & St Maarten. I've always had a special, quite fond attachment to the beautiful Crystal Serenity. Nearly nine years ago, I went to western France, to the big shipyard in St Nazaire (near Nantes), to research the building & outfitting of the $550 million, 68,000-tonner. My overall task: To write the commemorative commissioning book in time for the ship's maiden cruise three months later, in July 2003. Following in the wake of the delightful Crystal Harmony (1990) and then the charming Crystal Symphony ('95), the 1,080-bed Crystal Serenity was the biggest and, to some, the best of the three-ship evolution for six-star, Japanese-owned Crystal. I was aboard her first two cruises in that maiden summer and found her to be exquisite, warm, of course superbly served & fed. But now can a beautiful lady be made even more beautiful? The answer: A definite yes!
Last May, as we disembarked from a 22-night cruise from Cape Town to Dover (London) & stopping along the way at the rather remote West African coast, workmen & equipment were loaded aboard almost immediately. As the last passenger made their way ashore, the 820-ft long ship hurriedly departed for a shipyard at Hamburg & a $25 million facelift. It took 14 days, round-the-clock schedules and altogether involved 400 technicians and craftsmen. In the end, the Serenity emerged with an even more stunning look --- "a blend of Hollywood glamour and Fifth Avenue elegance". And there's some new colors aboard as well: browns and whites with splashes of purple, bronze, copper, pale blue and silver.
To me, most obvious has been the stunning new suite & cabin decor. We're in a Deck 9 double with verandah and it is all more inviting, more luxuriously comfortable than ever. A big smile filled my face as I first entered. There's the new custom carpeting, tufted black leather headboards, plush bedding, bedside cabinets, flat-screen TVs, new veranda furniture and more attractive lighting including very clever, late-night reading lamps. And speaking of lighting, the entire ship has a new, more ambient system. Elsewhere, the ship's shops are totally new, redesigned and even more attractive, the corridors everywhere have a more inviting feel and tone while the lido deck has delightfully inviting and more colorful furniture.
As we sailed westward last week across the mid Atlantic, the "sunny southern route" as it was once called, the Crystal Serenity remains magnificently run --- for food, service, entertainment (and the sheer diversity of it & with the likes of 8 guest speakers aboard!) and absolutely one of the very best crews on all the seas. But now her appearance has changed too --- quite simply, she's better than ever! |
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 Facelift for a Queen!
The mighty, 2,600-passenger Queen Mary 2 is back in service after a 12-day refit at a Hamburg shipyard. There's been some changes, lots of renewal & rejuvenation and an added portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. I am aboard, as a guest speaker of course, on the Jan 3rd eastbound, New York to Southampton. And so, more news on the Queen's facelift soon to follow. |
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Added guests! 
The world famous Muppets will be boarding the new Disney Fantasy beginning in March. |
 Looking to the future!
NCL has been busy, already planning for the 2013-14 cruise schedules. Big news is that the brand-new, 4.,000-passenger Norwegian Breakaway will be offering 7-night New York-Bermuda cruises. In other, random deployment news, the Norwegian Jewel will be sailing from New Orleans, the Norwegian Star from Los Angeles and, on Eastern Canada itineraries, the Norwegian Gem from New York & the Norwegian Dawn from Boston. |
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Ocean Liner Collectibles - Prized photo!
A black & white post card of the great Cunard liner Queen Mary, which sailed from 1936 until 1967, sold recently for $75. The card dated from the ship's early years in the late '30s. |
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Ocean Liner History - Just 50 years ago!
In November 1961, the great French liner Liberté was retired from trans-Atlantic service. The 31-year-old ship, which had been the German Europa in the 1930s, was being replaced by the brand new, $70 million France. The future of the older ship was in question. Strong rumors were about that the 936-ft long Liberté would be sold to American investors who wanted her for use as a floating hotel for the 1962 World's Fair at Seattle. The ship would be towed, it was reported, through the Panama Canal from Le Havre & then positioned in Puget Sound. Plans continued and projections included also using the 1,550-berth ship elsewhere, such as at New York for the 1964-65 World's Fair. But unfortunately, the deal collapsed & instead the ship was sold to Italian scrappers & was demolished at La Spezia, near Genoa, in the spring of 1962. |
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Changing hands! 
As she has been troubled with frequent mechanical problems & therefore delays as well as cancellations, the 47,262-grt Pacific Sun is leaving the P&O fleet come next summer. The 1,486-berth ship, originally built in 1985 as the Jubilee for Carnival, is going to unidentified Chinese buyers. The ship had been transferred to P&O, also within the vast Carnival empire of course, in 2004.
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 Shipboard novelties!
The Splendour of the Seas is now the very first cruise ship to offer iPads in every stateroom while a Starbucks shop has been added to the 6,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas. |
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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 --- from those "floating palaces" of yesteryear to the current generation of cruise ships, the "floating resorts". Called "Mr. Ocean Liner," he has written some 80 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 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 450 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 Super Liners, 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 America, 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, deputy director of the New York Harbor Festival, served 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 1,500 miniature ship models, most of them being passenger ships.
By 2011, 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. In 2011, he hosted Cinematic Crossings: Ocean Liners on the Big Screen, a 5-day film festival at Manhattan's Lincoln Center. Currently, he spends some 200 days a year lecturing onboard ocean liners & cruise ships.
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!
Busy scribbling! Our good friends Anthony Cooke & John Maxtone-Graham have new titles out on the shelves. London-based Anthony has just released Favourite British Liners with 216 pages & 216 photos (96 of them in color). Check through Mainmast Books in the UK. Meanwhile, Manhattan-homeported John has just finished a new title on the immortal Titanic. It was published by W W Norton & Company.
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.
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It was an age of evolution, when size and speed were almost the ultimate considerations. 'Bigger was said to be better' and ship owners were not exempted from the prevailing mood. While the German four-stackers of 1897-06 and then Cunard's brilliantMauretania & Lusitania of 1907 led the way to larger and grander liners. White Star Line countered by 1911 with the Olympic, her sister Titanic and a near-sister, the Britannic. The French added the France while Cunard took delivery of the beloved Aquitania. But the Germans won out -- they produced the 52,000-ton Imperator and a near-sister, the Vaterland, the last word in shipbuilding and engineering prior to the First World War. They and their sister, the Bismarck, remained the biggest ships in the world until 1935. But other passenger ships appear in this decade --- other Atlantic liners, but also ships serving on more diverse routes: Union Castle to Africa, P&O to India and beyond, the Empress liners on the trans-Pacific run. We look at a grand age of maritime creation, ocean-going superlative, but also sad destruction in the dark days of the First War. It was, in all ways, a fascinating period.
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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
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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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