Live From Azamara Quest: 5 Reasons Why This Is the Best Cruise Ship in the World

Onboard Azamara Club Cruises’ Azamara Quest in Bangkok, all it took was 15 minutes onboard to remind me why this – and seven nearly identical other vessels – is absolutely the world’s best cruise ship. You might think that’s a pretty bold statement, especially since over the past year or two I’ve traveled on splendid, [...]

Is This Cruising’s Toughest Packing Challenge?

No matter how often you travel, packing is a tough challenge, even for a seven-night Caribbean cruise. In a recent discussion on our Facebook page about packing for long-haul, more exotic cruises, Ted Ferragut’s posting resonated. “We are off for a 39 day cruise and really want to pack light. But it’s very hard to [...]

Live From Azamara Quest: 20 Hours in the Air? When Getting There Isn’t Half the Fun

Asia as a cruise destination should be massively popular. It’s a sprawling region of complicated countries with fascinating traditions and histories that many of us know only through books, news and movies. And isn’t a cruise — which can seamlessly join Singapore to Bangkok to Taipei to Ho Chi Minh City to Okinawa to Shanghai [...]

The Port Call Conundrum: Hey, Eight Hours Is Better Than Nothing …

I’m standing at the edge of Albania’s Butrint, an extravagantly beautiful excavation of Hellenic-Roman ruins. It’s a pretty safe bet most of the world hasn’t yet seen Butrint – Albania’s answer to Pompeii (sans volcano). I’m in awe, not only of the mystical scenery – mountain ranges, ancient theaters, and lush gardens – but also [...]

Getting the Drift: Cruise Ships in Snow

Let’s face it: Most of the time we associate cruises with sunshine and beaches. So it’s startling to see a ship in snow. But there are more cruises than you’d think that feature the white stuff, either right up close or afar. From Alaska voyages and Antarctic expeditions to European Christmas market cruises and Norwegian [...]

The Decline of Cruise Ship Elevator Etiquette?

“I have always wondered how common courtesy goes out the window when it comes to elevator etiquette,” begins a missive to the Sea-Mail inbox from Ria Maratheftis. “If I am waiting for an elevator & a few people come along & press the button, then why do they think they should be the first ones [...]

Cruise Ships on Parade: A Record-Setting Day for Port Everglades … and We Were There

It’s easy to figure out that the Caribbean high season — which generally runs from Thanksgiving to Easter — has begun when Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades reports that it has handled a record 55,000 cruise passengers … in one day. They were on eight different ships that arrived in port (early in the morning) or [...]

Chew on This: Is Cruise Food Getting Worse?

After Charlie Palmer parted ways with Seabourn recently, I wondered: So what? Does it make a difference? Then we looked around at the other celeb chef/cruise line partnerships out there (Jacques Pepin and Oceania, etc.) and asked readers which one they could live without. The result: a collective shrug (the most popular response was to [...]