Author Archive: Simon Veness
Are Cruise Ships Bad For the Environment?
French company Ponant Cruises was fined $70,000 this week for the unintentional grounding of its ship L’Austral on a sub-Arctic island just off New Zealand in January 2017. The ship’s captain, Regis Daumesnil, was fined an additional $30,000 for … Read more…
Crystal’s Crown Jewel Takes Shape
The poet Robert Browning first coined the phrase in 1855. Architect Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (now there’s a name to conjure with) picked it up and ran with it in the 20th century, and countless others have used it to … Read more…
Who Invented Cruise Ships?
Who Invented Cruise Ships? By Simon & Susan Veness The provenance of the very first cruise ship is probably lost in the mists of time. It might have been a Phoenician trader who, fed up with the daily grind of … Read more…
Five Small-Ship Lines You Need To Know About
We’ve reported this year on small cruise line takeovers by the big boys (Royal Caribbean & Silversea), big ships that are just plain ugly (Norwegian Cruise Line, and others), and when big is just TOO big (last week’s missive centred … Read more…
Cruise Ships: When is Big TOO Big?
By Simon & Susan Veness We all know that cruise ships have increased in size in the last 20 years or so, dramatically in many cases. Where 100,000 tons was once considered gargantuan, it is now merely ‘mid-size’ to … Read more…
5 New Cruises For 2019
By Simon & Susan Veness If like us, you already have one eye on next year in sea-going terms, you might like to consider some of the intriguing new options for cruises in 2019, as there are an array … Read more…
South Pacific Cruise Guide
Some call it the ultimate paradise, others merely insist it is heaven on earth. It has attracted authors like James A Michener, and artists like Paul Gauguin. It is more prosaically called the South Pacific, but it is a … Read more…
A Silversea Takeover? Never Fear!
It’s commonplace in many businesses that the takeover of a small, boutique company by a larger conglomerate often rings the death-knell for the original operator, and that fans of the original business end up in mourning for a ‘lost’ … Read more…
5 Up-And-Coming Cruise Destinations
It’s a common enough phrase, and it’s increasingly in usage in the travel business. “It’s a small world,” has applied ever since Mr Boeing and his jet-plane friends sent ever-larger numbers of people flying around the world with greater and … Read more…
Best Cruises for First-timers
Everyone can remember their first time. It’s that wide-eyed moment of startling realisation, a wonderful curtain-raising revelation of new frontiers and excitement. There is simply nothing like that first-time cruise experience. *Muttering from the audience* Cruising – we’re talking about … Read more…