Last Year In Cruise...

This Week in Cruise has temporary jumped ship from the news to our blog to take a look at cruising in 2011. From diet cruises to cruise ship rescues, here's the best of last year's cruise news.

The Boats Ships

The last few years have followed a similar pattern, with new super liners either being ordered, built or delivered to the world's cruise lines and 2011 was no different. Though a few *coughs* new ships have hit the ocean waves in the past couple of years, the big boys of cruising have been busy designing and ordering even more cruise liners — just in case we run out.

Royal Caribbean got the year underway back in February when they announced Project Sunshine, a new class of cruise ships that the cruise line are planning to build with Mayer Werft. The cruise line announced that these ships would be smaller than the Oasis Class ships, but would continue to offer Royal Caribbean's theme-park feel. The following month, Princess Cruises, Royal's biggest competitor, announced their own plans for two new ships — though this time these would be the largest in the fleet. The first of the new ships has already been named the Royal Princess, one of the cruise line's long serving names, and that the capacity would be 3,600 passengers at 141,000 tonnes of super liner.

As summer approached, P&O Cruises, Princess Cruises' sister line, also announced that two new ships were to be ordered and that they would be the largest cruise ships ever made specifically to cater to the UK market. And yes, you guessed it... they will also be 141,000 tonnes and carrying 3,600 passengers. That's not like P&O and Princess to share hulls, oh wait a minute...

Not to miss out on all the fun Norwegian Cruise Lines announced plans for two new ships, and being all American like and a little bit Royal-Caribbean-style, with their bright lights and constant entertainment, they also gave their new ships an enticing codename: Project Breakaway. Shortly afterwards they saw sense and actually named the ships, the NCL Breakaway (there's a surprise) and the NCL Getaway.

All four cruise lines are following the same pattern with their first ship pencilled in for spring 2013, with the identikit second due in 2014. Costa Cruises have also announced a new ship for 2014, but you probably don't care.

Three Queens

Talking of boats ships, Cunard's three Queens have been in and out of the news in 2011. Their first foray into the 2011 press, was their meeting in New York, where the three Queens were in port together for the first time ever and had their pictures taken together. It's not often you get to see three large Queens in Manhattan.

Their second foray into the news was courtesy or a change of registration. For the first 171 years of Cunard's history all of their ships have were registered in Southampton, the cruise line's home port. In October 2011 the cruise line announced that the three ships would be reregistered and would bear the name Hamilton on their rear for the first time. The change now means Cunard are able to offer weddings at sea, and plan to start their first ever wedding season later this year — oo-er!

Booze Cruise

Back in March 2011, Royal Caribbean launched a set of new, controversial packages onboard three of their ships, the new all-inclusive booze deals. Passengers onboard Grandeur, Legend and Independence of the Seas were suddenly able to pre-pay for drinks packages that included alcohol, sparking discontent and expectations that passengers would suddenly all be legless. The reality of this, is that the drinks were suddenly more reasonably priced and people could drink in a relaxed leisurely kind of way — though I'm sure a few people have probably fallen off barstools since.

Continuing on a theme of enjoying a beverage onboard, Celebrity Cruises decided to cancel a couple of Holy Land cruises and replace them with a much more exciting topic, Wine Tastings cruises. Though the cruises to the wine hot spots of Europe, taking in Bordeaux and the likes doesn't depart until this year, the fantastic idea was born in 2011. The sampling sessions will include up to five wines from well-known châteaux, along with port and food-pairing dinners. How soon can I book?

Marathons, Rescues and Social Success

2011 also bought about some pretty random news stories, such as the aforementioned cruise ship rescues, Huritgruten trending on Twitter thanks to their YouTube clips of the world's longest documentary, and a chap who decided to run a marathon at sea — a mildly eccentric way of combatting the buffet restaurant.

Between October and December the Crystal Serenity, Norwegian Gem along with P&O Cruises' Ventura, have all been involved with rescues at sea, with the most recent rescue being of the high profile Atlantic rowers, Team Tom. The two Toms were rowing across the Atlantic as part of the Atlantic Challenge, before their boat capsized. With the Crystal Serenity being the nearest ship to receive the emergency alert from the Falmouth Coast Guard, the ship sailed 120 miles to collect the rowers, before taking them all the way to the St. Maarten in luxurious surroundings — it's probably not the worst thing they'll ever have to deal with.

One weekend in October saw both other ships involved in rescue missions. The most impressive of which being the Norwegian Gem's effort to rescue passengers of a yacht stranded without power amongst some large breaks, before taking them safely back to New York, the ships next port of call. "This rescue operation was conducted under extremely difficult circumstances," said Captain Svedung. "I am proud of our crew who braved their lives to rescue the five people in distress."

Finally P&O Cruises crew onboard Ventura had to react quickly to rescue a passenger who had managed to find their way into the ocean. The fast thinking crew members pulled said passenger back aboard before taking them to the medical centre, where they were said to be in a stable condition. Nothing was said to how the passenger had come to find themselves flailing around in the ocean, as opposed to relaxing onboard the ship.

So... what will 2012 bring — apart from new cruise ships, different destinations and celebrity chefs?