Profile and Photo Tour of Oceania's Regatta; Photo Essay on Carnival Dream

This week the focus is on two ships that present quite different cruising experiences. Indeed, they could be said to be polar opposites. Both ships are very good at providing the type of cruise experience that they set out to provide. However, that experience is quite different and whether you will be happy cruising on either of these ships very much depends upon your tastes and lifestyle. Thus, they serve to illustrate that all cruise ships are not fungible and thus it is important to investigate the type of cruise experience that a ship provides before booking a cruise.




Oceania Cruises Regatta is one of eight essentially identical cruise ships that were built for Renaissance Cruises. When that company went out of business the eight ships were dispersed among several cruise lines. Previously, Beyondships has profiled R Four, which is now Ocean Princess of Princess Cruises http://www.beyondships.com/Princess-OP-Profile.html and R Eight, which is now Adonia of P&O Cruises. http://www.beyondships.com/PO-Adonia-Profile.html Regatta was formerly R Two.



The R class ships are relatively small ships providing an elegant cruise experience in an intimate setting. They have wood-paneled public rooms that are furnished with overstuffed chairs and subtle unobtrusive art collections. The atmosphere is reminiscent of an upscale country club. Wisely, Oceania has maintained this atmosphere on Regatta.



Regatta is offered as a luxury cruise experience. It includes a gourmet dining program developed by Chef Jacques Pepin. Things like airfare are included in the fare and there is no cover charge for the two specialty restaurants. The intimate shipboard spa is operated by Canyon Ranch.



With only 684 passengers, the ship is uncrowded. Moreover, the guest to staff ratio is 1.71 to one, which allows for very personalized service.



As a small ship, Regatta is able to get into ports that the larger cruise ships cannot. Thus, her itineraries include ports that are off the beaten track.



As a result, Regatta tends to attract experienced travelers as well as those who are seeking a luxury experience. Guests are often mature and well-to-do.



Beyondships’ profile of Regatta is at http://www.beyondships.com/Oceania-Regatta-Profile.html The multi-page photo tour begins at http://www.beyondships.com/Oceania-Regatta-Tour-1.html



Carnival Dream is the largest cruise ship in the Carnival fleet. In fact, in terms of gross tonnage, she is four times the size of Regatta. She carries more than five times as many passengers.



Although Carnival still calls its ships “Fun ships,” they are not the young singles party boats that they were when the line began. Rather, the focus is on young families. Carnival provides a good quality cruise experience at reasonable rates designed to embrace people for whom cruising was not an affordable vacation option in the past.



Dream is big, bold and brassy. While her interior is more subdued than earlier Carnival ships, it is still intended to evoke a good times atmosphere. Furthermore, as a very large ship, there is space for lots of amenities and features. The spa is quite large as is the outdoor pool deck. There are also numerous bars, lounges and public areas.



Carnival Dream currently operates out of Port Canaveral in Florida. Her itineraries include major Caribbean ports where she can dock. These are popular ports that are well-developed for tourism.



I’ve added a new photo essay to Beyondships’ profile of Carnival Dream showing her in one of those popular ports - - St. Maarten. http://www.beyondships.com/CarnivalDream-photo-essay.html We have also added some more Fun Times daily programs to the profile page. http://www.beyondships.com/CarnivalDream-Profile.html



Thus, Carnival Dream and Regatta provide much different vacation experiences. Which is better depends upon what you like.

Talking with the Captain and Hotel Director of Carnival Dream

This week we return to Carnival Dream to speak with two of her officers who were instrumental in shaping Carnival’s newest and largest ship. Captain Carlo Queirolo was the first master of Carnival Dream and Hotel Director Donato Becce was the first man in charge of the ship’s hotel operations (i.e. just about everything a guest comes into contact with). Both men started working on the hip when she was still in the shipyard and continued through her entry into service and her first cruising season. Thus, they know the ship well and have shaped the vacation experience that guests encounter on the Dream.

I spoke with Captain Queirolo about the ship from a nautical perspective. After serving in the Italian Navy and on cargo ships, Queirolo came to Carnival in the early 1990s. He has since served on almost all of the Carnival ships and has had the responsibility for bringing four ships into service.

Mr. Becce served with both Cunard and Renaissance Cruises before coming to Carnival. He also managed land-based hotels and has taught in the field. I asked him to focus on some of the highlights of Carnival Dream that make her different than previous Carnival ships.

My interview with Captain Queirolo is at http://www.beyondships.com/CarnivalDream-art-captain.html

The conversation with Mr. Becce is at http://www.beyondships.com/CarnivalDream-art-HD.html

A couple of items in the news . . . .

Carnival Fascination has emerged from the drydock after a multi-million dollar refurbishment. She is the sixth of Carnival’s Fantasy-class ships to go through the “Evolution of Fun” process. From a nautical perspective, these ships have many years of useful life in them and it is nice to see a major line up-grading their hotels so as to remain competitive in the first tier of the market.

Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean has announced that Grandeur of the Seas will be deployed to Palma de Mallorca in Spain in May 2011. The idea is to serve British and Irish guests who like to take their holidays in Spain. This is another indication of the British and Irish attachment to Royal Caribbean that has been developing over the last few years. It all began with the idea of trying to market Legend of the Seas to the British market during a deployment in Southampton several summers ago. To the surprise of many, this very American-style product was accepted by the British. So, Royal decided to deploy the larger Navigator of the Seas there. She too was accepted and so Royal substituted the even larger Independence of the Seas for Navigator when Independence entered service. This was so successful that Royal is going to base her in England all year next year. Now, a second ship will be sent to the Med to serve the British/Irish fly-cruise market.

Photo Tour and Guide to Carnival Dream

After much consideration, I think the best way to describe Carnival Dream is that she has gravitas. The ship is confident, substantial and important.

For nearly a decade Carnival Cruise Lines has been developing the design that first debuted with Carnival Destiny. With each ship, new features were added and the size of the ships grew somewhat.

With Carnival Dream, the line took a substantial step up in size. Its previous ship, Carnival Splendor, is 113,000 gross tons while Carnival Dream is 130,000 gross tons.

This difference in size gives the ship better proportions and makes her more substantial from her predecessors. It is like everything that had gone before was leading up to this.

This is so not just with the ship’s physical size but also with what Carnival is doing onboard. For example, the line has been moving steadily away from its origins as a party venue for young people towards being a family vacation experience. With 19,000 square feet devoted to children - - not placed off in some out-of-the-way corner of the ship but right in the center - - Carnival line is making clear that it is a family vacation experience.

One can also see that the line is increasing the overall quality of its product. Carnival has always been good value for money but it has been pushing upwards, offering items that with the Dream are the equivalent of those found on premium market cruises. A clear example is the multi-deck spa.

Carnival has also taken a step upward with the new shows it is featuring in the ship’s theater. These are not just musical revues but rather more akin to Broadway productions. While they still rely primarily on popular tunes, they are packaged in a more thought-provoking production.

The Dream is not just a good development of some old ideas. The Carnival experience is enhanced by the addition of several new features. One of these is the transformation of the outdoor promenade into the Lanai. In the past, the outdoor promenade was the gloomy area under the lifeboats where only a few souls went primarily to have a smoke. The Lanai is a much wider area that is protected from the wind and which is sunlit due to the fact that the lifeboats have been placed underneath it. There are also whirlpools, nice padded furniture and an area of tables where one can bring drinks and/or food.

The Lanai opens into the Ocean Plaza, which includes a bar, the specialty coffee bar, seating and a stage for live performances. This area gives the public rooms a centerpiece that was lacking on prior Carnival ships. It is a user-friendly place for the ship’s programmed activities as well as a crossroads.

Beyondships profile of Carnival Dream is at and the photo tour and commentary begins at http://www.beyondships.com/CarnivalDream-Profile.html and the photo tour and commentary starts at http://www.beyondships.com/CarnivalDream-Tour-1.html

Turning to the news, Carnival Corporation, the parent company of Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Cunard, Costa and several other lines, announced that it earned $193 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. This was better than what Wall Street analysts had been expecting and indicates that even in poor economic times, people are reluctant to sacrifice their vacation and that the public recognizes that cruising is a very economical way to vacation.

Winter has commenced early in the northeast and Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 managed to arrive in New York on schedule during the first blizard of the season. The ship encountered 30 foot waves coming up the coast from the Caribbean and managed to maintain a speed of approximately 25 knots. The ship is doing a series of Caribbean cruises from New York before beginning her world cruise.

Meanwhile, NCL’s Norwegian Gem returned to New York on December 12 for a season of winter cruises to the Bahamas and the Caribbean. The Gem is the only ship sailing from Manhattan this winter. On the other side of the harbor, however, Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas will be sailing again this winter from Bayonne, New Jersey.

Queen Mary 2 - - Behind-the-scenes looks at Entertainment and Dining

This week, Beyondships continues its behind-the-scenes look at the workings of Queen Mary 2 with two interviews.

The first is with Entertainment Director Paul O’Loughlin. Paul is relatively new to QM2 but is no novice to the world of cruise ship programming. He has been a cruise director for 30 years on some 27 ships including many of the major P&O and Princess ships. Considering the prestige of Queen Mary 2, one would expect that anyone assuming such an important would be highly qualified.

The Entertainment Director is in charge of the programming for the ship - - all of the entertainment including production shows, musicians, movies, and visiting entertainers as well as all of the activities ranging from guest lecturers to trivia contests. He also acts as the primary interface between the passengers and the ship’s management, introducing performers, hosting parties and receptions and appearing on the onboard television. It is a highly visible position.

On most ships, this position is called cruise director. However, considering the type of experience that Cunard seeks to present with Queen Mary 2 that title does not really seem appropriate. Indeed, having sailed with Paul on Emerald Princess, which is a very nice up-market cruise ship, I can see a difference between what he did there and what he does on QM2.

My conversation with Paul is posted at http://www.beyondships.com/QM2-art-Oloughlin.html

The second interview posted this week is with Jamie Firth, the maitre d’ hotel of the Britannia Restaurant on QM2. Cunard regulars will remember Jamie from Queen Elizabeth 2 where he was a mainstay in the restaurant operation for years.

Jamie is in charge of the largest and most spectacular dining room on QM2. Since he is a very articulate person, I thought it would be good if he described the dining system on Queen Mary 2, the Britannia Restaurant’s place in that system and the mechanics of the restaurant’s operation. Accordingly, Jamie talks about what the restaurant is all about and such topics as how tables are assigned, the various duties of the restaurant staff (more than one would think) and what happens after a passenger gives his or her order to a waiter.

My interview with Jamie Firth appears at: http://www.beyondships.com/QM2-art-Firth.html

Cunard also featured in the cruise ship news this week. On 23 November, the name Queen Elizabeth was welded onto the new Cunarder now being built by Fincantieri near Trieste in Italy. The new ship will join the Cunard fleet in October 2010. Meanwhile, Cunard came in first in the large cruise line category ahead of 22 other lines in a survey of travelers conducted by Zaggat’s.

Another Fincantieri ship, the Costa Deliziosa (92,600-tons) successfully completed her sea trials on 15 November. She is currently being fitted out at Fincantieri’s Marghera (Venice) shipyard and will be delivered on January 29, 2010.

While much attention was being paid to Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas’s arrival in the United States, her sister ship Allure of the Seas was floated out of her building dock at the STX shipyard in Turku, Finland.

Tahitian Princess is currently in drydock in Singapore being transformed into the Ocean Princess. Progress on the transformation can be followed on the Princess.com website.

Also in drydock, is Holland America’s flagship Rotterdam. I was able to take the attached photo of her during a port call in Freeport, Grand Bahamas last week.

The call in Freeport was on the new Carnival Dream. The Dream, sailing out of New York, was making the same port calls as fleetmate Carnival Pride, which was sailing out of Baltimore. As a result, the two ships formed a Fun Ship Flotilla, which included the two ships maneuvering closely around each other at sea in a similar fashion as when Queen Mary 2 and QE2 made tandem crossings. Dream was also accompanied for a time by the newly-commissioned USS New York (LPD 21).

NCL’s Norwegian Dawn experienced a power failure during a Caribbean cruise, which made her divert to San Juan, Puerto Rico for repairs rather than return to Miami where the cruise had begun. Dawn’s next cruise also had to be cancelled.

Naming Carnival Dream and Talking with the President of Costa Cruises

Carnival Dream came to New York this week for her official naming ceremony and I had the good fortune to attend. The ship is Carnival Cruise Lines’ largest ship to date and while she is ultimately based upon the Carnival Destiny design, the increase in size gives the ship more-eye pleasing proportions than her predecessors. Inside, the design is more restrained than earlier ships but still with the distinctive style of architect Joe Farcus.

The ceremony was held in the ship’s theater, which was indeed fortunate because outdoors NewYork was in the grips of a pre-winter cold snap and there was a steady rain. Carnival’s Senior Cruise Director and master blogger John Heald conducted the ceremony with his typical charm and good humor. He emphasized that a goal was to get away from the traditional stuffiness of ship naming ceremonies and it was kept fast-paced and light-hearted. Carnival President and CEO Gerry Cahill spoke, Dr. Henry Belin delivered the benediction and Marcia Gay Harden acted as godmother to the ship. I have put together some photos along with excerpts from the various speakers and posted it at: http://beyondships.com/CarnivalDream-art-naming.html
Following up on last week’s story about Costa Atlantica, I was able to ask Maurice Zarmati, President and CEO of Costa Cruises North America, a series of questions about Costa. Costa is a relatively old line and very well known in Europe but in recent years, its North American operations have been primarily in the Caribbean. Now that Costa is offering cruises in and around Canada and New England, I thought it would be a good to give the line the opportunity to re-introduce itself and talk about its cruising style. My interview with Mr. Zarmati appears at: http://beyondships.com/CostaAtlantica-art-Zarmati.html

Returning to Carnival, the line featured prominently in the news this week.

Carnival’s oldest ship, the Holiday, has now left the fleet. She is to be replaced as the Carnival ship sailing out of Mobile, Alabama by the Carnival Fantasy. Taking the Fantasy’s spot in New Orleans will be the Carnival Triumph. Both ships inaugural cruises from their new homeports were delayed a day due to the approach of Hurricane Ida. (As she moved north, the remains of Ida closed the port of Baltimore thus preventing Grandeur of the Seas from returning as scheduled).

Carnival also announced that Carnival Fantasy will be homeported year-round in Charleston, South Carolina beginning in May 2010. She will be replaced in Mobile by sister ship Carnival Elation.

Two other Fantasy-class ships, Carnival Ecstasy and Carnival Fascination, will be going in for major refurbishments, which will include the addition of 98 balconies and the installation of water parks and adults-only retreats. These ships will be the fifth and sixth Fantasy-class ships to be so retro-fitted.

Meanwhile, Oasis of the Seas arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, her new homeport, on November 13, 2009. The giant ship was delayed two days on her crossing from Finland due to hurricane-force winds and 80-foot seas. Her next milestone will be her naming ceremony on November 30.

Costa Atlantica Cruise ship photo tour and commentary

This week Beyondships presents its first profile and photo tour of a Costa Cruises ship. She is Costa Atlantica, which was built to the same design as the Carnival Spirit and which is the forerunner of quite a few cruise ships sailing for a number of different lines. It is a good design from a seagoing perspective - - she goes fairly fast and her seakeeping qualities mean that she is not confined to just going around calm seas. This design is also popular with passengers, carrying an array of features and amenities in a good layout. At nearly 86,000 gross tons, she is big but not gargantuan.

What distinguishes Costa Atlantica from her sisters and cousins that sail for other lines is her Italian-style of cruising. While some other lines try to de-emphasize their national origin in hopes of attracting an international clientele, Costa emphasizes its Italian origins and succeeds in attracting an international clientele. In fact, it is the most popular cruise line in Europe and even when the ship is sailing in North America, there are substantial numbers of European guests.

As a result, Costa Atlantica has a cosmopolitan and international feel. This should not be confused with being stuffy - - the bold colors and designs of the interior are too light hearted for that. Rather, it means that one is likely to encounter people with different backgrounds and tastes, which is a broadening experience.

The profile of Costa Atlantica appears at: http://beyondships.com/CostaAtlarntica-Profile.html and the photo tour and commentary begins at: http://beyondships.com/CostaAtlantica-Tour-1.html

Turning to some items in the news - -

On 1 November Oasis of the Seas passed under the Great Belt Fixed Link bridge in Denmark while making her way from the shipyard where she was built in Finland out to the Atlantic. Even with her telescopic funnels lowered, there was only 2 feet of clearance between the bridge and the ship. Traffic on the bridge was halted for 15 minutes while the ship passed. I think that incidents such as this underscore just how big this ship is in a way that the gross tonnage figures do not.

Unfortunately, the ship then encountered high winds and rough seas, which caused RCI to announce that her arrival in Fort Lauderdale will be delayed two days to November 13. This should not be seen as a black mark on the new ship’s record. The North Atlantic can be difficult in November. Building in the ability to withstand such seas and make fast crossings is the reason why Queen Mary 2 cost a third more to build than a comparable sized cruise ship. Since such crossings are not what Oasis is intended to do, there was no reason to build such a capability into her. Her test will be how well she entertains guests while sailing the calm waters of the Caribbean.

Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise Lines’ largest ship yet, Carnival Dream (130,000 tons) will be named in a ceremony in New York on November 12. Carnival has announced that the godmother will be actress Marcia Gay Harden. The naming ceremony will also include the unveiling of the world’s largest children’s book signifying a multi-year partnership between Carnival and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Princess announced that it is going fully digital with its pre-cruise documents. In the past, passengers have received a rather dauntingly large envelope in the mail containing such things as information about shore excursions and a booklet designed to answer questions about the upcoming voyage. For voyages departing after January 21, 2010, passengers will be receiving a series of e-mails giving them information about their upcoming cruise. Amongst other things, these e-mails will be more personalized to the ship, the itinerary and the passenger’s status in Princess’ repeat passenger program. At least in theory, this should save a few trees.

Joe Farcus Talks About the New Carnival Dream

Later this month, Carnival Dream will enter service. At 130,000 gross tons, she will be the largest ship yet built for Carnival Cruise Lines. She utilizes an underlying design that Carnival first introduced with Carnival Destiny and has been developing with each mega-cruise ship (100,000 plus tons) that it has introduced over the course of the last decade. This has been a very successful and popular design and thus passengers can be assured of finding on Carnival Dream the features that they have enjoyed on earlier Carnival ships.

Yet, Carnival Dream is not just a bigger version of past Carnival ships. Amongst the features being introduced on this ship is a wrap-around outdoor promenade with hot tubs cantilevered over the side. Linking this area to the indoor public spaces will be a new plaza that will be part entertainment venue, part dining area, and part lounge.

Of course, no two Carnival ships are the same. Carnival’s architect Joe Farcus ensures that each ship has its own interior design, each reflecting a different central idea. These creative designs help to give each Carnival ship its own identity and enhance the guests’ vacation experience by both challenging them intellectually and dazzling them visually.

Consequently, who better to talk about what Carnival is trying to achieve with Carnival Dream than Mr. Farcus? My interview with Mr. Farcus appears at: http://www.beyondships.com/CarnivalDream-art-Farcus.html