Fred. Olsen Cruises canceled three sailings aboard Braemar and re-scheduled several others in order to reposition the Braemar at LOCOG, the official Olympics organization, which plans to use it to house and feed 900 workers for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. From July 12 to Aug. 15, the ship will be docked at either Royal Albert or King George V docks in East London. Guests who were booked on affected cruises are being offered an alternative cruise and an unspecified goodwill gesture, or they may request a full refund.
Carnival is celebrating the debut of the new Carnival Breeze with a travel agent booking sweepstakes tied to the ship’s Europe program, which will operate from June to Oct. 2012. For every online Carnival Breeze booking made on a Europe sailing, travel agents may enter to win a grand prize seven-day Carnival cruise for two or one of 50 runner-up prizes of MasterCard gift cards worth $50 each. Each online reservation counts as an entry so the more bookings travel agents make, the more opportunities they have to win. Qualifying bookings are automatically entered into the sweepstakes, which runs through April 15.
Viking River Cruises announced the delayed arrival of Viking Freya and Viking Njord, two of its new Viking Longships. The two river vessels were originally set to launch in late March, but now won't be delivered until mid-April. The river line cited "broader shipyard delays" as the reason. The revised delivery schedule will result in cancellation of five scheduled sailings for Viking Freya and Viking Njord. All affected guests are being contacted to discuss alternative cruise options. Guests booked on cancelled sailings have the option to rebook a similar itinerary on a different ship and receive up to a 50 percent credit on a future cruise booking. Or, if they don't choose to rebook, they'll receive a full refund.
Lastly, Celebrity Cruises released some of its itinerary plans for the summer of 2013. Joining Celebrity Eclipse in offering modern luxury vacation experiences from the UK will be the newly ‘Solsticized’ Celebrity Infinity. Celebrity Eclipse will continue to offer sailings from Southampton in the spring and summer of 2013, while Celebrity Infinity – which emerged in Dec. 2011 from Celebrity’s ambitious, four-ship, $140-million Solsticizing investment – will present enticing new British Isles and Fjords sailings from Harwich, England.