Carnival certainly seems to be taking things in a new direction with their newest ships by building out some fantastic new indoor experiences - even as they continue to develop fabulous open air ones too. Their next ship, Carnival Celebration will continue what they introduced with the French Quarter concept but this time it is featuring a two-deck zone they call The Gateway.

If there's one cruise line that knows how to party it is Carnival Cruise Line. They are celebrating 50 years of operation this year with an epic series of kick-off events this month that include ship meet-ups at sea, bringing back cruise favorites like Baked Alaska, and generally a celebration of all the things that make Carnival the "Fun Ships".

We made our first visit to a cruise terminal in more than a year and it felt good to know that slowly... but surely... cruising is getting back on track. During this event, 120 crew from Holland America Line's Koningsdam received their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, along with several other ships anchored offshore. It might be silly sounding, but even just something we take for granted like the sound of a cruise ship captain talking to a group of people was a welcome sign of returning to normality and the smiles on the faces of crew members ranging from chefs to engineering to officers in their dress whites just made this event even more special.

While we are still waiting on the CDC's no-sail order to be lifted, Princess Cruises is busy updating their plans for the summer of 2021 including the addition of cruises from Los Angeles.

While most of you think of the major lines like Celebrity, Viking, and MSC when it comes to Mediterranean Cruises, we met with the folks from Celestyal Cruises earlier this year and were impressed by the offerings that they are working on to bring a different feel to the market. They've been around for several years and as a Greek cruise operator offers an interesting perspective introducing guests to their backyard. With the introduction of Celestyal Experience - formerly Costa newRomantica - they have upped the game dramatically and this makes us even more excited.

Viking continues to be on a roll when it comes to introducing new ships and new exciting itineraries. The company has now announced that it will launch a new ship next summer for its popular Magnificent Mekong cruisetour. The vessel, currently under construction, is the 80-guest Viking Saigon℠ is scheduled to debut in August 2021, with cruise tours and the river cruise portion of the itinerary sailing between Kampong Cham, Cambodia and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam.

We were on hand tonight for Viking's unveiling of their latest product - Viking Expeditions. With their incredible success with taking over the river and small-ship ocean cruise market, Viking Expedition is poised to have the same disruptive impact. Most importantly, the positioning is clearly a move away from traditional expedition offerings where the experience is secondary to the destination, Viking promises to bring a similar experience that we love from the river and ocean product to expeditions as well - including features such as large comfortable bathrooms as well as accessibility and comfort. 

Norwegian Spirit is the latest cruise ship in their fleet to undergo a huge revitalization including new dining venues, double the spa space, and a very chic modern new look. Based on the news today and photos and video below, we're pretty excited to see the new look. Plus, once she returns to the fleet after dry dock, Norwegian Spirit will have some awesome itineraries that include stops in Bali, Abu Dhabi, Israel, and South Africa.

The Canaveral Port Authority and Disney Cruise Line have reached a new 20-year agreement to expand operations and make Port Canaveral home for two of Disney Cruise Line’s three new ships.  

Take away some of the "home" features like a refrigerator that knows when you need more milk and instead, let's focus on the core system that we've all dreamed about. Despite our homes being stuff with IoT devices today, what still separates our "smart homes" from what we see in the movies is the system that runs it all and unifies the hardware, the software, and the brains. No matter if you're using Zigby of Z-wave, no consumer-level smart home today can genuinely call itself smart. For that experience, we're going to have to take a cruise. When Princess rolls out it's OCEAN system later this year, powering the Ocean Medallion, we're finally going to see the potential for smart home technology... it's just going to be on a cruise ship with waiters and crew instead of robots. In fact, this smart ship is so smart it knows that it doesn't even has to use that label :)