How To Cruise With A Teenage Boy

There is a fun post over at the Washington Post about a mother and teenage son cruising onboard the Navigator of the Sea. It is a very interesting article and indirectly gives some great pointers on the what to do and not do traveling with teenage boys.

An excerpt:

My travel agent suggested bringing walkie-talkies, but a ship representative told her a limited number were available free on a first-come, first-served basis from Guest Relations.

As it turned out, the free walkie-talkies had been discontinued. I declined to purchase a $50 pair from the ship store, and we decided to wing it on our first night on the ship: Carter went to the arcade and a Teen Mix & Mingle, I headed for the casino and Promenade, a three-story shopping mall that serves as a floating Main Street. We planned to meet up in two hours, but he missed the teen welcome and sensibly headed back to the cabin. His crazy mother wandered the decks for an hour hunting for him before it occurred to check the room. “We’ve got to come up with a better system,” I muttered seconds before we both sank into a long, deep sleep. The next morning we devised a note-in-the-cabin method of keeping tabs, which we used exactly once before finding a noteless rhythm of designated meeting times and places.

Within 24 hours, we had settled into our temporary home. Our cabin was a small but comfortable interior room overlooking the Promenade. Hurricane Katrina was headed west, away from our scheduled path out of Miami, and the weather was sunny and warm.

Posted on February 8, 2006 by The Travel Blogger

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Cunard Lines and Queen Mary 2 Win Travel Awards

Queen-mary-2Recently, the Cunard Line won the Travel Trade Gazette’s British Travel Awards  for “Best Luxury Cruise Line” and “Cruise Line of the Year.” Travel Weekly awarded the Queen Mary 2, the Cunard flagship, the Best Luxury Cruise Ship” in its Readers Choice Awards.

“It is truly an honor to receive these very meaningful accolades from our valued travel industry partners,” says Carol Marlow, president and managing director of Cunard Line. “Their sentiments are a testament to the distinctive experience that only Cunard is able to offer - blending unique onboard elements with historic itineraries and our renowned White Star Service .” via Cunard Lines

Cunard Lines really are the cream of the crop. My parents traveled to England out of New York on  the QE2 20 years ago, and still consider it one of their best trips.

Posted on January 10, 2006 by The Travel Blogger

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Cruise Ships to Return to New Orleans

Preparations are being made for the return of cruise ships to New Orleans as the Mississippi River cruises are returning first, then the large cruises from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean.

Its first post-Katrina call will be, as we reported on our news ticker yesterday, the return of RiverBarge’s 198-passenger River Explorer. That barge vessel will return to the Big Easy on December 19. The 600-passenger Delphin Renaissance will spend New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day in New Orleans. After a slight January slump, embarkation visits begin again, starting with P&O’s 2,600-passenger Arcadia, which will be in port from February 9 - 11. Swan Hellenic’s 600-passenger Minerva II pops in for a day call on February 22.

Otherwise, says Chris Bonura, a spokesman for the Port of New Orleans, the city will have to consider its normally busy fall-through-spring season an unavoidable disappointment thanks to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. However, cruise lines that had planned to homeport vessels there this year are already announcing concrete plans to return to regularly scheduled itineraries next autumn. Among them? Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas, NCL’s Norwegian Sun and Carnival’s Sensation. Interestingly, Carnival has not committed to returning Carnival Conquest, which is now housed in Galveston indefinitely, to the Big Easy though it does plan to resume weeklong New Orleans-based voyages at some point. via Cruise Critic

Posted on December 15, 2005 by The Travel Blogger

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