Monday, June 08, 2009

Rob Gill

Monty Python and Fawlty Towers comedy legend John Cleese will be one of the stars appearing on Silversea’s new Silver Spirit ship.

Cleese (pictured) will recount anecdotes about his long career in comedy on February 20, 2010, as part of Silver Spirit’s 91-day Grand Inaugural Voyage, which departs from Fort Lauderdale on January 21, 2010.

The comedian will be performing on the Buenos Aires-Santiago leg of the journey and is part of a line-up of guest speakers which also includes astronaut Dr Kathryn D Sullivan, who was the first US woman to perform a walk in space.

Silver Spirit, which launches in December before making its maiden journey in January, will be Silversea’s sixth and biggest ship with a capacity of 540 passengers.

 

Afternoon folks,

Just a note to say if and when you log out from the message board, it automatically sends you here to the blog site.

So yes, you are officially logged out!

Crows Nest is not too big that any information soon gets lost but it’s not small either and members are growing daily.

We’re a friendly bunch, all are welcome. You’ll soon find your way around. You can sit there and watch or you can join in anywhere anytime. I’m sure there will be something of interest to you.

We all enjoy some fun along the way too, aswell as serious talk and good debates and there are always’s Administrators around to help.

Is this your first cruise, we all started  at sometime. Is their information on port’s that you are visiting, what are the best excursion’s to do and what are the best things to buy. We have the answers. We have plenty of cruise reviews and photo’s of many ships. So you can read about a ship or cruise before you try.

It’s not all cruise talk either. You might want some tips on gardening, your PC is playing up, you need a hotel somewhere or even what’s the best tanning cream to use. We have all the answers. And if we don’t then ask your question and we’ll find out for you.

That’s just a little of what we get up to, so come on in and see for yourself.

MV Rotterdam, carrying 1300 passengers, arrived this morning at the city’s cruise liner terminal.

The 60,000-tonne Rotterdam vessel sailed in from New York via Belfast. She will leave later today.

It is hoped this first visit by the Holland America Line’s (HAL) fleet will lead to regular visits by transatlantic liners.

She will be the first cruise ship connecting Liverpool with New York since the Sylvania made a crossing from the Mersey in November 1967.

That was a one-off sailing after Cunard stopped its regular transatlantic service the previous year.

The last north Atlantic passenger voyage was made by the Empress of Canada 111 from Liverpool on November 7, 1971.

Cllr Gary Millar, Liverpool’s member for enterprise and tourism, said it was another significant landmark for the terminal.

More than 2,000 cruise ship passengers have been asked to quarantine themselves for a week after two Australian children aboard the liner tested positive for swine flu. Skip related content
Related photos / videos A scientist works at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza …More Enlarge photo “We are all requesting that all people onboard this ship remain in quarantine for seven days,” New South Wales chief health officer Kerry Chant told reporters after the Pacific Dawn arrived in Sydney.

Two five-year-old children who arrived in Sydney onboard the ship on Monday after a South Pacific cruise tested positive for the A(H1N1) virus, bringing Australia’s total of reported cases to 23.

Passengers were asked to remain in their homes or hotels.

The ship’s departure for its next cruise, with a fresh contingent of guests, was delayed until health authorities gave it the go ahead, with passengers saying they would rather be inconvenienced than exposed to the flu.

“We’d be complaining if we all got sick, and the recycling air conditioning doesn’t help flu and all the rest of it,” one passenger told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

A spokeswoman for Carnival Australia, owners of the Pacific Dawn, said the ship sailed on Monday night after receiving the all-clear from New South Wales health officials.

“I think it’s important to note here that we have very well-trained doctors and very well-equipped medical centres on board our ships,” she said.

“In some cases we’re better equipped to deal with the spread of contagious disease, better than perhaps many other holiday destinations are.”

Australia’s Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the number of confirmed swine flu cases in the country had risen to 23 and five schools had been closed to prevent its spread.

“We are moving into a different phase here in Australia; the disease will be spreading quickly,” she told a news conference.

Quotes from Yahoo.. I suppose it was bound to happen, but i hope those affected have a very quick recovery…

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090526/twl-swine-flu-hits-cruise-ship-passenger-dc3662d.html

The 594ft-long Tahitian Princess was tying up for the day to allow passengers to go on a series of coach trips to Lake District attractions.

One tour was expected to take in Furness Abbey on its journey to the Lakes, and another was combining a trip to the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway with a steamer ride on Windermere. A brass band, Morris dancers, and Barrow’s town crier were among those waiting at a reception marquee at Ramsden Dock Basin, and shuttle buses were standing by to run tourists into Barrow.

The mayor, Councillor Dorothy Dawes, was also due to go aboard to meet the captain.

The ship made Barrow its only English port of call on a seven-port voyage from Russia to Ireland.

The ship is due back in Barrow on Tuesday with a new set of passengers on their way to the Baltic region.

There goes my day. Out come all the bats and balls and the paddling pool. Little devils they kept asking me to get out because they wanted to play in it, how mean can you get, I mean to say they could play with all the other toys. lol

Oh dear, that helicopter I threw is in here somewhere!

Well anyway, we had a lovely day. I did a buffet lunch which was eaten outside, thank goodness and now they have all gone home. So now I can relax and sit on my sun lounger and grab some sun before it disappears tomorrow.

I know you are visiting because our site statisitcs say you are.  So, whilst you are here I may as well talk to you.  I want to talk to you about our cruising community and why we are here and why you are here too! 

About 2 1/2 years ago we (Brad & Lou) decided that a fine idea for our honeymoon would be a cruise.  I’m not keen on flying and neither of us are really into laying on a beach!  So we looked into cruising.  We are both in our 30′s and at first fell into the age old trap of cruising is for ‘the older generation’.  My first thoughts were of sedate games of shuffleboard and long (& slow) dinners with people we had nothing in common with! 

At that time researching  a cruise holiday wasn’t straight forward.  Opinions from people we knew were ambiguous at best so we turned to the internet.  We searched long and hard to learn as much as we could before commiting to a cruise and eventually settled on cruising with P&O on board Aurora for three weeks around the Med in November & December.

More questions followed.  ‘Will the weather be good?’,  ‘how stable are cruise ships?’, ‘what do you wear?’ and a million other questions that nobody really seemed to know the answer to!   Our reseach led us to the P&O Cruises website and eventually P&O ‘Cruise Connections’ message board.  Cruise connections was the perfect resource for the newbie cruiser.  The boards were full of knowledgeble people who were always ready to offer excellent advice.  No question was to silly.  However, cruise connections was possibly the slowest website on the internet!  The software used was out dated and poorly maintained and constant server errors made for difficult surfing at times.  So, there was only one thing for it…..Show a mssive, multi-national company how to setup and run a message board properly!

Here we are nearly 3 years on.  We have a website, our amazing message board and now a blogsite too!  Everything a lover of cruising could possibly need.  The heart of our community will always be the message board.  The essence of the original P&O Cruise Connections is still there (even if cruise connections has now gone).  We have a fantastic community of people who love to talk cruising and anything else that comes to mind!  Our site used to be very biased towards P&O cruises but I am very glad to see our membership expanding and talking about all aspects of cruising (P&O, if you are reading this watch out, Celebrity cruises are coming to get you!).  As of today we have less than a thousand registered memebers, which makes us a small community in the grand scheme of the internet but it is all done by word of mouth and very little other advertising.  So well done to you lot for spreading the word!

Thanks must go to our message board management team:

Clydecruiser,  Batwoman, Dollybird, Mikef & Barnaby who make sure that you are all happy with the boards and help out whenever you need it.  They spend a lot of their spare time doing an unpaid service, so if you meet them onboard…..Buy them a drink!!!  Special thanks also goes out to another management team member, Alan who sadly passed away last year.  His help, advice & efforts are not forgotten.

We’ve also had assistance in testing this blog before it went live.  JulianB & Cap’n Jack Sparrow…..Thank you chaps!

The future

The site lives year by year.  Basically, every January we have to renew our server space and domain names and every May we renew the lease for our message board software.  Well, the lease has been renewed this year so the Crow’s Nest continues for at least another year!  The site gains support from CruiseKings, a fantastic independent cruise specialist.  CruiseKings help to pay the bills so make sure that you consider them when you are looking to book your next cruise.  You wont be dissapointed!

So there we are.  If you are familiar with our community, keep doing what you are doing.  If you are new to the Crow’s Nest, jump in & enjoy the fun.  We don’t bite!  You can meet us all at the message board (see the links to the right of this entry) or join in with the blogging here (see ‘be an author’ at the top of this page)

So there yo have it.  Our community exists because we needed a bit of holiday advice.  We did get all the advice & help we needed and had a fantastic cruise too! (and no, cruising isn’t just for the elderly)