Special cruise offers abound this first week of January. It is the beginning of Wave season - the strongest booking period of the year, amd the cruise lines are all hoping to make the best of it. Why? Because the holidays are over, as is the election and there is little to look forward to in the near future other than several more months of cold weather in many parts of the country.

What kinds of specials are we seeing?

Oceania Cruises is offering 2 for 1 cruise fares PLUS free airfare on many cruises, especially to the Mediterranean this summer.

This promotion will launched on January 7th with “unprecedented price reductions on more than 40 voyages.” With savings of up to 72%, travelers can enjoy the Oceania Cruises Experience for as little as $1,249 per guest.

Adding savings for singles, solo travelers may enjoy the Oceania Cruises Experience for a single supplement of only 25%!

3rd and 4th guests in a stateroom will receive an additional 50% reduction off of their cruise fare.

2009 European Collection
On select 2009 European Collection voyages, guests will receive Free Airfare, 2 For 1 Cruise Fares and an additional Price Reduction of $2,000 per stateroom on accommodation in categories G through A.

Applicable Sailings:

• April 4, 2009 - Barcelona to Istanbul, 14 Days
• May 31, 2009 - Rome to Istanbul, 12 Days
• June 5, 2009 - Athens to Rome, 12 Days
• July 23, 2009 - Athens to Istanbul, 12 Days
• July 26, 2009 - Venice to Barcelona, 14 Days
• August 4, 2009 - Istanbul to Rome, 12 Days
• August 16, 2009 - Rome to Athens, 12 Days
• August 23, 2009 - Istanbul to Athens, 12 Days
• September 4, 2009 - Athens to Rome, 12 Days
• September 9, 2009 - Istanbul to Athens, 12 Days
• September 28, 2009 - Venice to Barcelona, 14 Days
• October 12, 2009 - Barcelona to Athens, 10 Days
• October 17, 2009 - Athens to Venice, 12 Days
• October 17, 2009 - Venice to Istanbul, 14 Days
• October 22, 2009 - Athens to Venice, 12 Days
• October 29, 2009 - Athens to Istanbul 12 Days
• November 3, 2009 - Venice to Rome, 12 Days

November 15, 2009 - Rome to Barcelona, 10 Days

 Larry Pimentel Resigns as CEO of SeaDream Yacht Club

A letter is circulating the cruise industry that says Larry Pimentel has resigned as CEO of SeaDream Yacht Club effective immediately. Pimentel said he no longer could be reached at his SeaDream email address or telephone number.

Pimentel did not give any indication why he left the small-ship cruise line or what he plans to do now. Pimentel co-launched SeaDream in 2002 with Brynestad, not long after Pimentel stepped down as president and CEO of Cunard Line, citing personal reasons.

 Carnival Sales Event: Best Available Upgrades in 2009
Carnival Cruise Lines has a new sales event offering free best available upgrades on a wide variety of “Fun Ship” departures throughout 2009.

The new “Fun4All” promotion is available in conjunction with virtually all three- to 12-day cruises departing through Dec. 18, 2009, including voyages to the Caribbean, Bahamas, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, New England and Europe. To be eligible for this special offer, bookings must be made between Jan. 5-23, 2009.

The new “Fun4All” sales event is capacity controlled and applies to new individual bookings for categories 4A and higher. Upgrades are available within specific stateroom accommodation types (i.e., interior to interior, ocean view to ocean view, balcony to balcony, etc.). Guests must request fare code PFF when making the reservation.

For additional information and reservations on the “Fun Ship” vacation experience, call 1-800-327-9501 or your local travel agent.

Crewmember Falls from Carnival Sensation

26-year-old Antonio Matabang from California fell from the ship in New Years Day just after midnight.  He never surfaced after falling 82 feet into rough, 72-degree waters about 12:30 a.m., officials said.

Despite the precarious position he was in - it was clearly an accident in the sense that he didn’t jump, but it also has to be said that it was improper procedure to be standing anyplace where a loss of balance could mean going over the edge. So, the young man is not without some responsibility for what happened.

We are sorry for the young man and never mean to take these stories lightly. This is actually one of the first cases of a person “accidentally” going overboard who was not necessarily doing something flagrantly wrong he should not have been doing. It is possible the seas were fairly rough and he normally would have felt fairly secure wherever he was standing under normal conditions. But conditions were not normal, neither the seas, where he was standing or likely what he was doing and under what physical condition.

In any case,  we are sad it happened. The safety features are there, it is just up to people to use common sense.

Jennifer Seitz: High Seas Mystery or Media Hype?

Mystery on the High Seas?

What do you do when a suicide happens on a cruise ship? If you are the national media don’t just theorize, sensationalize! Word of a missing-person tragedy on a cruise ship came in over the weekend, and despite the lack of any evidence to the contrary, over 1000 news reports are ready to make a “federal case” out it - literally.

Jennifer Seitz was cruising with her husband, Ray, and her mother who lives with them. Described as “loud and wild” by passengers who also participated in a “not-so-newlywed” game onboard - broadcast on the ship’s closed circuit television - Jennifer was also described as “excitable.”

A news report says a witness in an adjacent cabin heard an argument at 8:00 on Thursday night from stateroom 11112, a mini-suite far astern on one of the top decks of Norwegian Pearl. The words “stop hitting me,” were reported, but not who said them. The events for the rest of the night are unclear, but no one saw Jennifer after 8:00. Ray and her mother apparently enjoyed the ship and then went to bed, expecting Jennifer to show up when she had cooled down.

At 3:30 Ray awoke and realized Jennifer was not in the room and notified the ship’s officers. A surveillance tape pointed at the side of the ship was accessed and revealed a grainy image suggesting a person dressed all in white went overboard at 8:00 pm from the stateroom balcony. The stateroom was sealed but Ray was not arrested. Ray and Jennifer’s mother were relocated until the cruise ended Sunday morning.

When the ship arrived in Miami the FBI boarded immediately and interviewed Ray, other witnesses and inspected the stateroom. A picture of the FBI measuring a chair placed right against the ship’s railing was shown in an video during a 7-minute Monday morning NBC Today Show segment.

The fact that Ray was never arrested by the ship’s staff or the FBI, that the chair was placed in a step-up position on the deck next to the railing and that the person on the videotape was described as “falling” from deck 11 all point to a suicide. There were no reported signs of a struggle. Only one news report said the FBI has eliminated Ray as a suspect.

Several web sites and major news organizations led this story down the oh-so typical path of “danger on the high seas” trying to turn an apparent suicide into a crime as they always do when a cruise ship is involved. Most of these news reports note that at least six people have “disappeared” from cruise ships this year, but not one of them mentions suicide as the reason, that some 12,000,000 people took a cruise in 2008 or that no charges were ever brought forth in any of the cases.

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