The Cruise Report With Cruise Specialists Cruise Reporter Ralph Grizzle

If memory serves me (but it hardly does) perhaps the most relaxed moment of my life took place this afternoon. The bow whirlpool

with the birds drifting overhead

was only interrupted by the squawking when one tried to land where there was no room for a stranger.

 Read more... (494 words, 8 images, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

The Canal opened in 1914, and since then close to a million ships have made the trip from ocean to ocean. Ten years ago last month we turned the canal over to Panama. Soon it will be bigger. There will be two new locks that will handle ships up to 160 feet wide and 1,200 feet long. It won’t be completed until 2015, but when it opens, it will be a big benefit to the cruise lines.  Read more... (495 words, 7 images, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

A penne for your thoughts. Some thought I was being a bit persnickety (I didn’t know I even knew that word) in yesterday’s blog when I complained about the penne pasta. OK, you are right. I have no idea what provoked me to order it. The woman next to me had the best looking lamb chops I’ve seen on a ship’s plate.  Read more... (506 words, 4 images, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Geoff Edwards assesses Seabourn Odyssey.

It’s been just a week since my return from Fiji. I am sure by now there are Fijian mosquitoes dying for lack of my blood.

So empty the suitcases and fill them up again. Michael (my wife) and I are heading to Ft. Lauderdale for a transcanal back to Los Angeles.

This is the first leg of a world cruise for the new Seabourn Odyssey. We’ll be on her for 16 nights. Carrying 450 passengers, Odyssey is quite a bit bigger than Seabourn’s other “yachts.”

Seabourn's Odyssey

We took the red eye on American to save some hotel money. We didn’t leave until 1 AM to arrive in Lauderdale at 10 AM. This got us to the ship about two hours before the 1 PM scheduled boarding time. Hopefully, they’ll let us on a bit earlier.

Seabourn calls Odyssey “luxury redefined.” They do not tell us, however, what it becomes.  Read more... (839 words, 8 images, estimated 3:21 mins reading time)

If you’ve been contemplating a luxury cruise but haven’t quite pulled the trigger, this may just decide the issue. The Yachts of Seabourn, recently recognized by readers of Conde Nast Traveler as the Best Small-Ship Cruise Line, is in the middle of a weeklong sale on 10 itineraries this winter and next spring. To qualify for fares from $1,349 per person, travelers must make reservations by the end of next Monday, July 20.  Read more... (248 words, estimated 60 secs reading time)

The cruise lines are all dressed up with plenty of places to go, but they still need some more dance partners. And they are prepared to use all their wiles to get more people to join them out on the floor — er — make that, out to sea.

Completed nearly 100 years ago, the Panama Canal took more than three decades to build — at a cost of 30,000 lives. Transiting this “path between the seas,” cruise ships move at a snail’s pace, waiting one behind the other to enter the enormous locks that flood with water to raise and lower ships.

Once the water fills the concrete locks, ships progress to the next set of locks. There may be a container ship in front of you, a sailboat behind on your panama cruise.  Read more... (218 words, 1 image, estimated 52 secs reading time)

Cruise-ship devotees may want to mark their calendars for Jan. 13, 2011, and make plans to be in New York Harbor that day. That’s because three luxury ocean liners from Cunard Line — Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria — will make their second Royal Rendezvous, three years to the day after the first one.  Read more... (152 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

The new Queen Elizabeth will make her maiden world cruise for Cunard in 2011. Cunard’s 2011 world cruises — on the Queen Elizabeth as well as the flagship Queen Mary 2 — go on sale next week, and Cunard is offering some significant early-booking incentives.  Read more... (271 words, estimated 1:05 mins reading time)

While we probably won’t have the time to sign up for this particular global tour with Cruise West, we can’t help feeling a large twinge of envy for up to 120 lucky souls who will be departing with the Spirit of Oceanus from Singapore on March 6, 2010. What a wonderful trip it’s going to be: 242 ports, 59 countries, all part of a 335-day circumnavigation, returning to Singapore on Feb. 3, 2011.  Read more... (314 words, estimated 1:15 mins reading time)