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The Captain’s Log

Your Daily Cruise Industry Briefing

Cruise News Trip Planning & Advice Destinations Cruise Lines & Ships Cruising Styles Onboard Experience The Sunday Spotlight

  • The Ocean Crossing Is Its Own Kind of Cruise

    There is a cruise where the whole point is that nothing happens. No ports. No shore excursions. No rush to the tender line. Just you and the open Atlantic for a week. This is the ocean crossing, and it is a completely different animal from a repositioning cruise. A repositioning cruise is about the deal.…

  • Silversea Silver Ray Is the Small Luxury Ship That Feeds You Like a Local

    Silversea just put its newest ship in the water and it holds about 728 guests. That is smaller than a single deck on some of the megaships people fly across the country to board. The ship is called Silver Ray. It is the second in Silversea’s Nova class, and it runs on a hybrid system…

  • Sitka Is the Alaska Port Most Cruises Never Bother With

    Sitka sits on the outer coast of Baranof Island, facing the open Pacific instead of the sheltered Inside Passage. That is exactly why a lot of cruises skip it. Getting there means a little more open water, and some ships would rather stay tucked inside. Their loss. Sitka is the most beautiful town in Southeast…

  • The Cruise Card Hold That Can Freeze Your Bank Account

    Your onboard account is not billed the way you think. The ship does not charge you as you spend. It places holds on your card and settles the whole thing at the end. That difference matters more than it sounds. A hold is a temporary lock on your available money. The cash is not gone.…

  • Cruise News Roundup for the Week of August 31 2026

    Three real stories moved this week. None of them are the kind that make the evening news. All of them matter if you have a booking or are about to make one. Royal Caribbean cancelled a batch of 2027 sailings on Navigator of the Seas and Ovation of the Seas. Both ships are being redeployed.…

  • Carnival Versus Royal Caribbean and Why the Answer Is Not the Ship

    People ask me to settle this constantly. Carnival or Royal Caribbean. As if one of them is right and the other is a mistake. Neither is a mistake. They are two very good cruise lines chasing two slightly different people. The trick is knowing which person you are before you book. Start with the ships.…

  • The Onboard Cooking School Is the Best Souvenir You Can Actually Use

    You can bring home a fridge magnet. Or you can bring home the ability to make risotto that does not turn into wallpaper paste. A lot of ships now have a real hands-on cooking school. Not a demo where a chef cooks and you watch and clap. An actual kitchen where you stand at your…

  • Adults Only Cruising Is a Whole Category Now Not Just a Pool Deck

    There is a difference between a cruise with no kids and a cruise built for no kids. People mix these up all the time. One is an accident of timing. The other is a design choice. The whole-fleet adults only lines are the real thing. Virgin Voyages runs four ships, Scarlet Lady, Valiant Lady, Resilient…

  • Holland America Is the Cruise Line Your Parents Were Right About

    Holland America gets written off as a line for older cruisers. That reputation is not wrong. It is also not the whole story. This is a mid-size ship line. The ships are smaller than the floating cities Royal Caribbean and MSC keep launching. That means no waterslides, no go-kart tracks, and no roller coasters at…

  • Champagne Bay Is the South Pacific Stop People Cannot Quite Place on a Map

    Vanuatu has a beach so good the name sounds made up. It is called Champagne Bay. It sits on Espiritu Santo, the largest island in the country, and cruise ships tender you right to it. Most people book a South Pacific cruise for Fiji or New Caledonia. Then Champagne Bay shows up on the itinerary…