Week ending October 24

Your regular summary of the week in cruise is back - and there is plenty of news to catch up on!

Oasis of the Seas was in the UK last week, and the ship that is fresh from dry dock played host to a number of UK travel agents - read the Travel Weekly special report where Royal Caribbean reveal that the High Street is vital to their growth plans: read here.

TTG also covered the arrival of Oasis of the Seas as the cruise lines looks set to be the largest cruise line in the world by 2016 as their new ship building programme continues: read here

We are very excited that Quantum of the Seas arrives in Southampton this week - as is Richard Fain the Chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean - who 'marvels' at its technology and elegant design: Read here.

And here are ten things you should know about Quantum of the Seas: Read here.

Meanwhile it was good news all round for Carnival Cruise Lines as Ian Baillie and Erin Johnson both receive promotions at work - well done both! Read here  

There have also been promotions and changes over at Holland America Line and Seabourn with both Slattery and Kammerer both benefiting from the changes: Read here.

Over at Celebrity Cruises it is the agents that are being rewarded as the line rolls out its brand new rewards programme from 1 November that will give travel agents the freedom to choose their own incentive.  Read here.

We all enjoy cruise ship entertainment - and one of the stars is Craig Revel Horwood, star of Strictly and P&O themed cruises - who talks here exclusively to Cruise International: Read here.

With Costa Diadema getting ready for launch - read here - with Regal Princess about to be christened in Florida - with Quantum of the Seas coming to the UK and with the CLIA UK & Ireland River Cruise Convention coming soon - see here - there is a lot to be excited about!

Until next week!

Thursday October 9

Firstly an apology for a gap in our weekly blogging - with lots of travelling and so much happening in the industry (including Cruise Week) we have skipped a couple of weeks... but we are back to business!

We start with a great opinion piece in Travel Weekly from Lucy Huxley who tells us why we should keep the selling of cruise holidays nice and simple - read here - and in that vein Thomas Cook unveil their first 11 cruise concept stores too! - read here

CLIA has also been very busy!  We announced last week that we have teamed up with Travel Counsellors as our new travel agent members - really great to have them on-board - read here - and we have launched a worlds first - a 100 Brochure Rack where the latest brochures can be downloaded, printed or shared - read more

In other news, great to see Kathryn Beadle, formerly of Hurtigruten now heading to the rivers with Uniworld - read here.  We wish her every luck in the new role.

Celebrity Cruises this week looked to families as they launched teenage-friendly shore excursions - read here.

Silver Galapagos, one of a number of expedition ships operated by the ultra-luxury cruise line, is finishing off its latest renovation programme - read here -  whilst Oasis of the Seas gets a refurb on entirely different level! - read here.

Over at American Cruise Lines their new 150 guest riverboat has now been named as American Eagle - the new ship will operate on the Mississippi from March next year.

All Cruise Week Travel Weekly have been running daily blogs by key people within the CLIA family - you can catch up with them all on the Travel Weekly website, but here is a flavour from CLIA Chair Jo Rzymowska on why we should all #lovecruise - read here,  and here from Lynn Narraway, Chair of the CLIA UK & Ireland PR Committee on why we are stronger together - read here.

Have a great week!