Great Stirrup Cay, St Kitts and Cunard's Queen Elizabeth

Norwegian Cruise Line's private island, Great Stirrup Cay, keeps changing. Despite a hurricane last fall, Norwegian continues to make noticeable progress on its ambitious plans to develop this Bahamian island into a vacation paradise. New beaches have been created and landscaping has been done to the finished sections.

More is to come but the changes that have been made already call for an update of our profile of Great Stirrup Cay. Indeed, we have added another page to this section of Beyondships. The tour of GSC begins at http://beyondships.com/NCL-GreatStirrupCay.html

We have also updated and expanded our coverage of another island - - St. Kitts. We have added some additional places of interest and taken a look at the Frigate Bay area. We have also re-arranged material in order to make it more reader-friendly and more consistent with our recent cruise destination profiles. The St. Kitts section begins at http://beyondships.com/Ports-StKitts-1.html

Finally, we have updated our profile of Cunard Line's Queen Elizabeth with anew menus page http://www.beyondships2.com/queen-elizabeth-menus.html and a new daily programs page. http://www.beyondships2.com/queen-elizabeth-daily-programmes.html

Cruise ship Vision of the Seas: profile, photo tour, interviews, menus

I was a little apprehensive before sailing on Vision of the Seas. In researching her beforehand, I read that the ship had never had a major refurbishment since entering service in 1998. This sounded unusual to say the least and I wondered if I would find some worn out and outdated ship upon boarding.

My concern turned out to be entirely unwarranted. The ship was in marvelous shape. In fact, I found her in better condition than her sisters in the Vision class that I have sailed. I saw no signs of wear. She does not have all the features of Allure of the Seas but then you can't really expect a smaller ship to offer such a panoply of features.

What Vision does offer instead is a cruise experience on a personal scale. Her size is conducive to interaction both with your fellow guests and with the officers and crew.

Vision has a good senior team as well. Captain Srecko Ban is a dynamic young officer who likes to interact with the passengers and to lead by example.

I met Joao Mendonca when he was Food and Beverage Manager on Allure of the Seas. There he played a key role in developing that ship's innovative dining operation. Now that he has been promoted to Hotel Director, his talents are being used to create memorable cruise experiences for Vision's passengers.

Vision is scheduled for her first major refurbishment in September 2013. This is part of a fleetwide program to roll out some of the features of Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas to the rest of the Royal Caribbean fleet. The plans are ambitious and when completed will give guests on Vision more dining and entertainment options.

The transformers will have to be careful, however, to ensure that Vision does not lose the character and ambiance that she has today. Those are more valuable than physical features.

The home page for our profile of Vision of the Seas is at: http://beyondships.com/RCI-VOS-Profile.html

The photo tour and commentary about the ship begins at http://beyondships.com/RCI-VOS-tour-1.html

We also have a menus page with the new Royal Caribbean menus being used on Vision. http://www.beyondships2.com/vision-of-the-seas-menus.html

Our conversation with Captain Ban is at http://www.beyondships2.com/vision-of-the-seas-captain-interview.html

Mr. Mendonca talks about Vision today and outlines the changes that will be made during the refurbishment. http://www.beyondships2.com/vision-of-the-seas-interview-hotel-director.html

Emerald Princess update - - Photos, Menus, Dining Guide and Captain interview

This week the focus shifts to Princess Cruises with an expanded and updated profile of Emerald Princess.

I had enjoyed myself on Emerald Princess the last time I was onboard and I was pleased to find that she still presents a quite enjoyable cruise experience. Apparently, quite a few other people agree as the ship attracts a high proportion of passengers who are in the upper tiers of Princess' loyalty program. These are experienced cruisers who do not spend their time on ships that do not deliver a superior cruise experience.

When I spoke with Captain Tony Draper and Hotel General Manager Peter Hollinson, I asked them what it is about Emerald Princess that attracts experienced cruisers. They pointed to the fact that she does longer cruises and that her itinerary includes a nice set of ports. In addition, they pointed to the strength of the Princess product in general.

I think they are valid points but that there is more to it than that. There is what they used to call a can-do atmosphere on Emerald Princess. It manifests itself in crew members who go beyond what is required of them. This reflects well on the ship's management too, of course.

In any event, my conversation with Captain Draper and Mr. Hollinson is reported at http://www.beyondships2.com/emerald-princess-interview.html

We also have a new photo essay showing Emerald Princess in some of the ports that she visits in the Caribbean. (She spends her winters in the Caribbean and her summers in the Baltic). It is at http://www.beyondships2.com/emerald-princess-in-the-caribbean.html

A lot goes on on Emerald Princess. To give you an idea of some of the entertainment and activities that occur during a cruise, we present a Scenes from a Cruise Slideshow focusing on the Emerald Princess' entertainment offerings. http://www.beyondships2.com/emerald-princess-in-the-caribbean.html

Princess styles itself the consummate host and Maitre d' Hotel Generoso Mazzone personifies that slogan. He has been with Princess since 1983 and really believes in the Princess product. Accordingly, he runs the ship's dining rooms with friendliness and style. His goal is a level of customer satisfaction that will turn each guest into an advocate for Princess.

To help me in creating a dining guide for Emerald Princess, I asked Mr. Mazzone to discuss both the overall Princess approach to dining and each of the dining venues on Emerald Princess. He generously gave of his time and insights. The dining guide begins at http://www.beyondships2.com/emerald-princess-dining-guide.html

As a companion to the dining guide, we have also added a new Emerald Princess menus page. It has all of the main dining room dinner menus from a 10 day cruise. Plus, it has the menus from Sabatini's, the Crown Grill and from the Chef's Table. It appears at http://www.beyondships2.com/emerald-princess-menus.html

Norwegian Jewel revisited

Norwegian Cruise Line is in the spotlight this week. Its new ship, Norwegian Breakaway, is coming to New York to take up residence. This is an exciting prospect as Breakaway appears to combine the innovativeness of Norwegian Epic with the quality of a Meyer Werft ship.

Norwegian has had two ships based in New York for some time now. With Breakaway's arrival, one of those ships, Norwegian Jewel, will be re-deployed to other itineraries.

However, as Jewel takes up her new life cruising to Alaska this summer and to the Caribbean from New Orleans and Houston this coming winter, we wanted to update and expand our coverage of the ship. http://beyondships.com/NCLJewel.html

To that end, we spoke with Hotel Director Hugo Vanosmael about the various dining options on Jewel. Freestyle dining is all about giving the guests options. So to help you make these choices, we have put together a dining guide to Norwegian Jewel. It is posted at http://www.beyondships2.com/norwegian-jewel-dining-guide.html

Along the same lines, we have updated our Norwegian Jewel menus page. This includes the new menu for Cagney's steakhouse. http://www.beyondships2.com/norwegian-jewel-menus.html

Jewel is a photogenic modern ship. With better than average speed, she also manages to get around. As a result, we have accumulated a number of good pictures of her in various ports in the Caribbean and The Bahamas this winter. These have been put together into a new photo essay. It is at http://www.beyondships2.com/norwegian-jewel-photo-essay.html