…the haunt for celebrities and the comfortably off to escape to during the European winter. The amount of Polo played is one clue to just the type of clientele that visit the island. The number and extent of smart restaurants scattered liberally around the most popular tourist areas on the West and Southwest is another. I have written a posting about Barbados and how to make the most of your time there. In that I talk about how the island has amaz…
…ch means that it is leaving the Caribbean where it has been for all of the European Winter and heading back to the UK to begin its summer schedules based out of Southampton. If you like sea days these are great cruises as they are always much cheaper then normal cruises as less people like the sea days than visiting lots of ports so you can often get great deals. This 2-week cruise is costing us about 60% of a 2-week cruise we did in the summer on…
…ant when you consider that Greece is actually fairly far away from Western European countries like the UK, France, Spain and Germany for example, and if you are making the trip it seems a real missed opportunity not to go to Athens. It will take around 4 hours for example to fly from London which many people find surprising, forgetting just how far south Greece actually is. • The 3 largest and most popular tourist islands near to Greece are Crete,…
…hways that were used to cross the desert passed through the area. Once the European settlers discovered what the Indians knew about the springs in the area (the name Las Vegas means springs in Spanish apparently) it became an important stop on the route from Los Angeles to the Mormon settlements in Salt Lake City. It developed into a key stagecoach stop and then eventually a railway stop. Once the gold rush started the brothels and gambling dens t…
…u keep finding new buildings, museums, galleries and shops. The city was a European City of Culture in 2004, and is investing in restoring and maintaining these old buildings. There is also really a new and 3rd aspect to Genoa which is all around the port area. Here there are wide walkways, a massive new Aquarium with 10,000 species, the huge Maritime Museum with a decommissioned submarine mored outside, Roman Polanski’s Pirate Ship from his film…
…t is more suited for cruising around the relatively more calm Caribbean or European Mediterranean Seas. However both the Queen Elizabeth 2 and Queen Mary 2 were designed more a Liners. Ocean liners have hulls shaped and made stronger to be able to sustain the battering from the North Atlantic route. The Queen Mary 2 was used to reinvigorate the Cunard line. It also meant that the ageing and dated QE2 could be retired off in 2008 after 40 years of…
…ompanies will only run a transatlantic service at the start and end of the European Summer season to reposition their ships, usually from Europe to the Caribbean or perhaps as part of a World Cruise route. The Queen Mary 2 can cross the Atlantic in significantly fewer days that it runs its schedule on! When the Queen Mary 2 came into service it offered 6 night crossings to and from Southampton and New York. This was also the length that the Queen…
…is very up-market in feel and look, and has great beaches. It does have a European feel to it, and exudes that atmosphere and style, and so while it is a great place to visit it is not as rough and ready and authentic as other parts of the Caribbean. That, though, appeals to a lot of people. There is a beach at the end of the busy international runway that people love to visit as planes take off and land really close, blowing visitors clinging on…
…holiday makers “Connecting” with the sea with more balcony cabins Getting European cruise taking levels to the same as in the USA Running more one off “theme” cruises, like heavy metal or other music themes to attract interest groups that had not been on a cruise to go onto ships Getting more “Eastern” travellers into ships, both from East Europe and Asia (especially China) As a passenger I want more about the experience. I want more differentiat…
…p differed from your past experiences at sea? Younger, more diverse, more “European” and cosmopolitan! The whole look and feel of the ship was very different from other cruise lines I have been on. It was less traditional than lines like Cunard, less “Las Vegas” than lines like Celebrity and less staid than lines like P&O. This style set the tone for the experience I came to find on the ship. The biggest difference, though, was that the passengers…
…over French champagne. If there is no Italian luxury leader, then another European leader is chosen. Like Valrhoda chocolate, Bose audio players, Black Angus beef and Philips TVs and DVD players. Using luxury and prestigious brand names is to important to the image of Silversea. They seek them out and weave them into the experience. Silversea luxury for me is being able to have a great cup of Illy coffee. Thank you! Read all my Silversea articles…
