By The Cruise Web, Inc. Cunard recently announced the addition of a brand new ship to its fleet – scheduled to make her debut in 2022. The currently unnamed ship will join the Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth as the fourth member of the Cunard family. She will be the first new Cunard […]
By The Cruise Web, Inc. The Azamara family will be expanding by one in the near future! Azamara Club Cruises just announced the addition of a new ship, Azamara Pursuit, scheduled to debut in March 2018. Azamara Pursuit will be Azamara Club Cruises’ third ship, joining sister ships Azamara Journey and Azamara Quest.
Having just returned from an exciting and successful weekend in Utah, winning the National Auto Sport Association’s National Championship in the BMW SpecE30 class, I have been asked by our Cruise Web newsletter team to write a behind the scenes report about capturing the championship. Here is a look at the week, key tactics and strategies that led to the title.
Plan ahead, and then have a plan B, and even a plan C!
Plan A for me was to have my local DriveGear racing team bring my sweetly tuned #87 car out to Salt Lake City for the big event. However, team owners Jon and Andrew and their wives, both decided to have babies this very month, and further, refused to ask the stork to hold delivery for another month.
Plan B found last year’s National runner-up, Steve, with a speedy backup red #92 car. Yet, despite a signed contract, “Little Red” decided to blow a motor three weeks before the dance. Being the thoughtful and honorable man that he is, Steve helped me line up my Plan C ride – a black 1987 BMW 325is from team PFB Performance.
Summer is almost over, school is beginning, and lazy casual days at the pool or beach are floating away with the surf’s ebb. Soon, the breeze will pick up, we will all add a light layer of clothes, and the smells and colors of autumn will be upon us.
In Rob Reiner’s film The Bucket List, Jack Nicholson’s and Morgan Freeman’s characters meet in a crowded hospital room, having just been diagnosed with terminal illnesses and prognoses of less than a year to live. The two become unlikely friends, and set off together to climb the Pyramids, traverse the Great Wall of China, safari in Africa, and share all the things on their list before they “kick the bucket!”
With respects to legends Reiner, Nicholson and Freeman, and to those who have actually lived out final year bucket lists, I have to argue that this is the ‘old’ way about a Bucket List! The New Bucket List concept is quite different … and it’s ageless! First of all, very few of us are given one year’s ‘advance notice’ on our life expectancy, and then also have the time, resources and health, to knock off a list of 20 worldly pursuits in under a year.
Last summer, I took my then 6 and 9 year old boys to the little southern Swedish coastal village of Falsterbo. Falsterbo and neighboring Skanör are small old fishing villages that have turned into popular summer vacation spots for many Swedes, and have always been favorites of my children’s Swedish born “Farmor” (literally translated “fathers’ mother”).
As this was the first trip for my boys to the home country of many of their ancestors, we packed an active itinerary into our 10-day vacation. However, almost every morning, we made time for the beach! Waking in a family friends’ summer home as immaculate as every building and home in these pristine villages, the three of us would eat our Swedish porridge and then board our old-fashion rented bicycles – baskets, bells, and all – to bike 10-15 minutes to the crisp and breezy water of the Baltic Sea.
The Cruise Web is pleased to welcome back several Cruise Consultants from another educational Seminar-at-Sea. Jacques Botty, Tina Colicchio, Jarren Matthews, and Heather Wasson represented The Cruise Web on the 7-night Western Caribbean cruise aboard the Celebrity Solstice. The cruise was a well deserved vacation for the group and we are glad to hear that they had a wonderful time, with Celebrity’s glassblowing demonstrations proving especially memorable. Tina was kind enough to provide the following post about the hot glass shows performed aboard the ship:
I have been to a few renaissance fairs in my time and I have seen live glassblowing before. A good friend of the family is an amateur glassblower herself. For me, glassblowing was “been there, seen it, done that…” But my preconceptions about the art of glassblowing shattered right then and there. I became hypnotized by what I saw.
This month’s Current theme, “cruise cuisine,” reminds me of my first ever dining experience in a cruise line’s specialty steak house.
I was among a few guests invited to dine with one of a leading cruise line’s corporate executives for an inaugural dinner aboard a new vessel that was debuting its first steakhouse at sea. Wow — while the company was terrific, the dining experience was even better!
My personal itinerary in New York City did include a show, but just as I prefer to do when on a cruise vacation, I enjoyed mixing in a variety of different activities. However, unlike the high cost and sometimes challenging access of many activities in the Big Apple, cruising includes a myriad of activities for little or no extra cost that are right there on your own floating city!
