Our dining table aboard the Wilderness Explorer had no dinner menu. Must be misplaced, I thought. Then I discovered that the ship does not print daily menus because of its efforts to be “green.”

“We take our commitment to conserve and protect the environment very seriously,” said Debi Heins, hotel manager for the Wilderness Explorer. “We do everything we can to be ‘green.’” Read more...

Taking a family vacation on a cruise is a great idea for people of all ages. Unfortunately, sometimes, people just need to get away from the kids. Dropping them off at the kids program is a start, but sometimes being away from kids, means being away from kids, not just your own. Princess pioneered an adults-only area on a family friendly ship, with the Sanctuary. Read more...

Cruises are great vacations for families, this is something that pretty much everyone can agree on. But the question is what cruise line is best for families? The truth is that there are a lot of choices out there for this, and pretty much every major cruise line has something great that the family can agree on, but according to one influential travel website, one cruise line – Royal Caribbean – stands out. Read more...

Cruise ships are as much museums of modern art as they are anything else these days, and that is very much apparent in the new Celebrity Reflection, which finally set sail from US waters last week. As part of our continuing coverage on the ship, we wanted to share about the fantastic artwork onboard. Read more...

Norwegian Cruise Line hasn’t even launched the New York themed Norwegian Breakaway on the high seas yet, but they can’t seem to keep a lid on the excitement that they’re building from the Norwegian Getaway. Like the Breakaway, the Getaway is going to be themed around its homeport which for this ship is Miami, and they’ve chosen Miami artist Dan “LEBO” LeBatard to design the hull art for the ship, scheduled to launch in early 2014. Read more...

He used to live in the forest, soaking up the rain. Now he lives on the Carnival Magic, basking in the sun.

That’s the Carnival story about the RedFrog. And they’re sticking to it.

In fact, the little tree frog has made himself so at home on the cruise ship that he has his own private label draught beer, custom-brewed specially for Carnival – ThirstyFrog Red. Read more...

A lot of people are talking about Carnival’s new pricing promotions. Starting today (December 3), Carnival is making changes to the way that they structure fares. What’s changing? Not a lot, but the change in how things price might be a little confusing – so we thought we’d help! Here’s a handy guide to the new types of fares that Carnival is offering beginning today. Read more...

The people who built the Houston Bayport Cruise Terminal have got to be breathing a sigh of relief these days. The $100 million terminal was built in 2008 to host no ships whatsoever. The terminal has been an expensive white elephant for the city until this month, when both Princess and Norwegian Cruise Line announced plans to homeport in Houston, instead of its more entrenched Texas counterpart, Galveston. Read more...

The Mayan people have been on a lot of people’s lips lately. Well, their calendar has as well. With the hypothetical “doomsday” approaching, this lost culture has been gathering more and more interest and in Cancun, the Mexican government has done something special to keep that history alive, hopefully longer than the December 21 end date of the Mayan calendar. Read more...

For most people, an international vacation means an opportunity to be something most of us don’t get a chance to be anymore – off the communication grid. For a few of us, that’s a welcome opportunity. For others, its a real challenge – especially because using that smart phone means an extremely high mobile phone bill the next month in most cases. A number of companies offer the ability to rent or buy a prepaid global cell phone. This option has pros and cons to it, though. Let’s explore! Read more...