On the event front, thousands of cruise selling travel advisors and cruise industry suppliers attended CLIA's annual Cruise 360 conference in Fort Lauderdale. Among the highlights, Adolfo Perez, senior vice president of global sales and trade marketing, Carnival Cruise Line, was recognized with CLIA's Lifetime Achievement Award for 2022 and also inducted into the CLIA Hall of Fame. Perez has championed cruise travel since he started working for Carnival 40 years ago. Just 16 years of age in 1982, he began his Carnival career as an embarkation agent at PortMiami.
At that event, advisors and cruise lines continued to react positively to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) decision the previous week to eliminate its Travel Health Notice ratings for cruise travel. Another positive development is that more countries including Denmark are eliminating entry requirements that include COVID-19 testing.
The Netherlands and the City of Rotterdam announced an agreement to use Holland America Line’s Volendam to house 1,500 Ukrainian refugees for three months. This ship will be docked in Rotterdam. Volendam was slated to return to service on May 15 so three voyages have been canceled. The ship will now return to cruising on July 3.
Small-ship Hurtigruten acquired a minority stake in Metropolitan Touring.
Travel agency franchise group, CruiseOne/Dream Vacations, is celebrating 30 years in business by funding its longest-running consumer promotion for its travel advisors. The "Spring Ka-Ching" anniversary promotion is available on cruise, resort and villa vacation bookings and it is fully funded on behalf of franchise owners.
Ship Shape
Silversea’s new, 596-passenger Silver Dawn was christened last Thursday in Lisbon, Portugal. Earlier in the week, Travel Agent had published a story about Otium, the line's new Roman-inspired spa, which debuted on the new ship. The new Discovery Princess also set sail last week.
New ships continue to move through the shipyard “construction pipeline” including MSC Cruises’ MSC Euribia, which will set sail in June 2023. Sales opened last week for that new ship. MSC also revealed details about new shows for its Meraviglia-class of ships.
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