Like the airline industry, it seems that cruise companies have started developing new ways to relieve you of your money. It was always the case that an outside cabin cost more than an inside and the closer you were to the top of the ship the more expensive it became. But most people looked on cruising as an all-inclusive holiday. When you paid you had little more expense to consider other than how to tip and how much. And even that started to be priced in so you paid for it at the point of purchase. That is changing. Now there are add-ons. And most of them are little things but which add up to big money for companies.

In the first of a new series, CD-Traveller spoke to Bob Schumacher, Senior Director UK and Ireland at Continental Airlines – who recently unveiled its new fully flat-bed Business First seat – about the three C’s in his life: Canada, cruising and, of course, Continental Airlines

There was a lot of publicity last week about the largest cruise ship in the world, Oasis of the Seas, which begins its first cruise on Saturday. We thought that since there was so much publicity you wouldn’t want more from us but no, we were taken to task by some readers for not mentioning it.

The publicity by the media has concentrated on its huge size (225,282 tons, 16 passenger decks) and that it can carry up to 6,200 passengers plus 2,000 crew. By any standards this is big. I’ve lived in smaller villages. The response by writers has been to ask whether it is too big.

As the summer ends we are beginning to get a better picture of where we actually went and what we did this summer past.

Both Hoseasons and Park resorts who largely operate holidays in Britain, have announced that they did bumper business this year as did the caravanning industry. Some sites were full in August.

Last year was a record year for the cruise industry in Britain. Nearly 1.5 million people went on a cruise up 11% over the previous year and of these, 577,000 cruised from a UK port.Traditionally cruises are thought of as exotic trips into warm climates. Lazy days at sea with the sun beating down as [...]

I was a little slow in spotting this but I mention it here just because it is different.There have been singles cruises, educational cruises, cultural and lecture cruises and just downright ordinary cruises but a football cruise?
Claiming to offer a first, Costa Cruises have persuaded Pele (a footballer even I have heard of) to front [...]