New Ship - New Feature Exclusive

[rickpo]

There was also The Topaz, My first taste of A/I at sea.

Picked up some bad habits on that ship, ie Brandy and Baileys, don't think I could drink it now.

[Leurbost]

One idea that I am not aware any line does is to have around five luxury cabins that as you book you can select an option ,similar to select your aircraft seat.Once option selected these passengers are charged an extra £20.00per passenger as part of booking process. This gives them access to a draw for one of these cabins . Six weeks before cruise , assuming final payment made , the names of the passengers who receive this upgrade are drawn. If on average 500 passengers selected the option and paid the £20.00 per passenger Marella would have £10000.00 a week for these cabins and the lucky selected passengers would have the best cabins on the ship. I know it will never happen but its an idea.

[bishop84]

9 hours ago, hullmackem said:

So why do TUI Germany get new ships and we get cast offs! 

 

Maybe because TUI Cruises is a 50/50 operation with Royal Caribbean? The 2 new ones planned with 4500+ guests are apparently costing US$1 billion each! 

[anchorweight]

1 hour ago, bishop84 said:

 

Maybe because TUI Cruises is a 50/50 operation with Royal Caribbean? The 2 new ones planned with 4500+ guests are apparently costing US$1 billion each! 

Like i said surely we can do better than ships built in the mid 90's, like an earlier post stated its like TUI think we'll tolerate it.

[Brummijam]

On 10/5/2019 at 2:55 PM, Brummijam said:

Just a couple of questions.   In what capacity are you invited to these meetings with the bosses of Marella? And don’t they have a marketing dept of some sort that should be asking this type of thing?

I am sure that if they organised some sort of competition on their web site asking the same thing then they would get a much better response as in people taking part than they would by putting it out here.

just asking.

No sign of the OP since these questions were asked.

hope all is well.

[davecttr]

7 hours ago, Brummijam said:

No sign of the OP since these questions were asked.

hope all is well.

He was active on a Celebrity forum yesterday

[nancyneptune]

10 hours ago, Brummijam said:

No sign of the OP since these questions were asked.

hope all is well.

 

Just after you asked these questions and I said I wondered exactly the same thing, I noticed he had viewed my profile.  

[nancyneptune]

19 hours ago, Pensioncruiser said:

Agree with you Nancy but you missed out the smallest ship Calypso which was fun and the Emerald which was posh😁

 

We never sailed on Calypso but remember Topaz and Emerald.  How would they look next to the mega ships of today ? 😃

[Pensioncruiser]

We did one of our most memorable cruises on the Calypso, through the Corinth canal, apparently it was the largest ship allowed , we did bounce of the walls a few times😲

[nancyneptune]

We have viewed the Corinth Canal from the bridge on a land holiday in Greece but never sailed through it. Sounds fab. Would love to do this. Perhaps the cruise ships are too big now to sail through. 

[Brummijam]

1 hour ago, nancyneptune said:

We have viewed the Corinth Canal from the bridge on a land holiday in Greece but never sailed through it. Sounds fab. Would love to do this. Perhaps the cruise ships are too big now to sail through. 

I will probably get berated again for going off topic but hey ho.

We did a cruise on the spirit and one of the excursions was the Corinth canal the coach stopped off at that bridge for half an hour, We watched a few fearless youngsters bungee jumping into the abyss!! absolute madness😳 Then we did a transit through the canal albeit on a much smaller boat than Pensioncruisers trip. As I recall ships are not allowed through these days due to erosion of the walls.

One of those trips well worth doing.👍

[so,ton saint]

16 hours ago, nancyneptune said:

We have viewed the Corinth Canal from the bridge on a land holiday in Greece but never sailed through it. Sounds fab. Would love to do this. Perhaps the cruise ships are too big now to sail through. 

 

Lovely picture in todays daily mirror MS  Braemar  sailing the Corinth canal.

[Brummijam]

35 minutes ago, so,ton saint said:

 

Lovely picture in todays daily mirror MS  Braemar  sailing the Corinth canal.

Wow that’s some feat getting that through.  The boat we went on was nowhere near that size and the captain was telling us how dodgy it was to navigate with submerged rocks that had fell from the side walls, hence no big ships

[Pensioncruiser]

This was us in 2009. What an experience 😎

[Brummijam]

17 minutes ago, Pensioncruiser said:

This was us in 2009. What an experience 😎

Thanks for sharing the pics PC, you can’t put a price on those memories.👏😉

Keep well.

[so,ton saint]

51 minutes ago, Pensioncruiser said:

This was us in 2009. What an experience 😎

 

Lovely pictures Roger                      guess our next game up to the black country

[Pensioncruiser]

Thanks Howard, are you coming up for the match if so we could catch up. 

Must apologise to SP for going off topic. 

[nancyneptune]

2 hours ago, Pensioncruiser said:

This was us in 2009. What an experience 😎

 

 

Wow ! Looks great. Thanks for sharing.

 

Just as we were talking about this I saw on the news that Braemar had sailed through the canal. Wonderful experience for all those on board.

[capasamari]

With the popularity of TV programmes such as Bake Off, how about an opportunity for passengers to book a class with the chefs onboard, use their own recipes, and make some goodies that would then be served at dinner or on a buffet or at afternoon tea?

Maybe other passengers could vote for their favourite and an overall winner?

 

(Apologies if this has already been done, it's been a few years since we cruised).

[so,ton saint]

1 hour ago, capasamari said:

With the popularity of TV programmes such as Bake Off, how about an opportunity for passengers to book a class with the chefs onboard, use their own recipes, and make some goodies that would then be served at dinner or on a buffet or at afternoon tea?

Maybe other passengers could vote for their favourite and an overall winner?

 

(Apologies if this has already been done, it's been a few years since we cruised).

 

sounds good to me, I reckoned you have nailed it.

[edinburgher]

Just a few minutes ago I opened a Fred Olsen e-mail which featured their recent transit of the Corinth Canal. They have a video of it and were also advertising the next sailing which will include it. Round trip Southampton next April.

 

On a general internet search, simply search "fred olsen braemar cruising through the corinth canal" and multiple links to videos will appear.

 

Apparently there was as little as 3 feet spare at some points.

 

An almost last minute EDIT.

 

I just now found that on the FRED Forum, someone has linked to a YouTube video.

Edited October 13, 2019 by edinburgher

[Wjm989]

On 10/10/2019 at 10:22 PM, hullmackem said:

Like i said surely we can do better than ships built in the mid 90's, like an earlier post stated its like TUI think we'll tolerate it.

I was working aboard Celebration when the transfer of Discovery was announced in 2015 and the number of pax moaning about 'big new ships' shocked the company. New ships will depend on what TUI/Royal Caribbean have in mind for the Marella brand. I suspect that they wouldn't want to grow it to the size where new ships are really a requirement as the English-speaking cruise market is already well populated (unlike the German market).