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August 2003 Newsletter |
Trade Shows
Once again, Worldwide will be exhibiting at the CMITS show. Please visit us at booth 1641 for all the latest in cruises and on our resort partners.
We are also looking forward to seeing you at IT&ME this year. Our booth number is 2239 in the cruise pavilion. Food on a CruiseIf you read our ship reviews, you will always notice a section about food. This month’s review of the Carnival Glory is no exception. What many of us never really focus on however is the great value a cruise provides particularly if you tried to put an itemized cost associated with food on a cruise. If you itemized the costs for breakfast, lunch and dinner not to mention a couple coffee breaks, what do you come up with? Did you add in all of the taxes and gratuities? Did you get really good prices on duty free wines with your dinners?Considering that you can currently get balcony cabins on some very nice ships for between $700.00 and $1,000.00 per person, how much did the cruise actually cost you when you deduct the food costs? Our guess is you will come up with a figure that is really going to shock you! More than likely, you know better than we do about the challenges of handling large groups and dining. Cruise ships are able to feed hundreds of people nightly and provide a different menu every night. You never have to limit your participants to the chicken or the steak on a ship. Most cruise ships offer nightly menus that have 5 to 7 choices of entrees, numerous appetizers, several salads, several soups, a selection of breads and a separate dessert menu. How many times have you organized a dinner only to find out the majority of the people where disappointed with the menu selection? Today's cruise ships offer more dining choices than ever before. While the smaller up market ships are able to offer open seating nightly many of the larger cruise lines have changed their approach from very fixed dining schedules as well. NCL for example has FreeStyle Dining that offers up to 10 different restaurants with open seating. Carnival Cruise Lines now offers four different dining times plus nightly service in their buffet restaurants. Do not forget most ships today offer alternative dining rooms as well. Additionally on most ships you will have the alternative of a la carte dining at every meal as well as more casual buffet service. Depending upon your group’s size, it is possible to get private or semi-private dining. Worldwide can match your group’s size up with a ship that has a dining room that can offer you private dining. More New Itineraries
5 night Rome to Athens, 7 night Alaska trips, 6 night Lisbon to Barcelona, 6 night Singapore to Bangkok, 7 night Ushuaia to Valparaiso, 7 night San Francisco to San Francisco, 7 night Aruba to Aruba. Small Group Charter Opportunities
Tax Deductible Cruises for MeetingsAs most people know foreign flag cruise ships do not meet the test for being tax deductible. Starting in 2004, NCL will be able to offer meeting planners 3 and 4 night cruises in Hawaii that are fully tax deductible even including 50% of the cost of shore excursions.FAM Trip OpportunitiesWe also have limited space available for Grand Lido Braco Resort and Spa in Jamaica. September 3-7.For information on either of these FAM opportunities, email Leon at lbanossian@cruiseco.com Ship and Property ReviewsThis month, read about the new Carnival Glory. Also, all of our ship and property reviews are archived on our website at www.cruiseco.com. To read the report now, click here. |