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What a week it’s been in cruising!

Carnival trumped the news with the exciting announcement of their USD $500 million initiative, ‘Fun Ships 2.0’ in New York earlier this week.

The line will partner with celebrities George Lopez and Guy Fieri and companies including EA Sports and Hasbro and I was more than a little chuffed to start a twitter conversation with DJ Irie who has been named the ‘Official DJ’ for Carnival.

We’ll be chatting with him in the coming weeks as part of ‘Our Celebrity Blogger’ series.

 Celebrity Cruises followed suit with their sister lines Royal Caribbean and Azamara earlier this week when they announced their ‘Extend Your Stay’ program allowing passengers the option to remain onboard later than usual on disembarkation day.

Whilst only available for selected European sailings at the moment, I am hoping that this is a program that is adopted by a wider variety of cruise lines across more regions because I think the option sounds like pure heaven.

What are your thoughts? Do you prefer to get off the ship as quickly as possible or perhaps take your time and enjoy another full day onboard?

Yours in cruising,
Natalie

	Carnival Breezes out of shipyard Fincantieri celebrated the launch of Carnival Cruise Lines’ newest flagship at their Monfalcone shipyard last week, complete with traditional coin ceremony for good luck.
	Carnival Fun Ships 2.0 In the largest initiative ever undertaken by Carnival Cruise Lines, their fun ships will receive what the line is dubbing the 2.0 treatment with fourteen ships scheduled to receive the refurbishments through to the end of 2015.
	Agents set to win with Cunard and P&O Australian and New Zealand agents are being given the chance to win one of 60 cabins on local sectors of Cunard and P&O Cruises World Cruising world voyages in 2012.
	Disney to say ‘Aloha Hawaii’ twice in 2012 For the first time in Disney Cruise Line history, the company has added a second voyage to Hawaii in 2012.
	Suite inclusions for Oceania Riviera Features of the 625 staterooms onboard Oceania’s newest ship Riviera have been revealed prior to her launch in April 2012.
	Extend Your Stay with Celebrity Celebrity Cruises has joined sister-lines Royal Caribbean and Azamara by offering passengers the option to disembark later through their new ‘Extend Your Stay’ program.
	Seadream scoops Berlitz awards The 'Berlitz Guide to Cruising and Cruise Ships', released on 1 October, has listed SeaDream I and SeaDream II as the top two 'Boutique Ships' for the year.
	Technical delay for Pacific Jewel The departure of P&O Cruises’ Pacific Jewel was delayed until almost 3am this morning due to a technical fault.
	Carnival Spirit slides into social media Carnival Cruise Lines has announced the first competition in a series offering Australians the chance to be involved in the ‘Aussification’ of Carnival Spirit.
ANMM Collection. Reproduced courtesy of the Australian National Maritime Museum