The recent refurbishment of Crystal Serenity is featured on Seatrade Insider that details its $17 million refurb including a redesign at Navantia Shipyard with chic new Crystal Penthouses and dramatically transformed indoor/outdoor casual dining spaces, including the Trident Grill, Scoops ice cream bar, Tastes Bar, Lido Cafe and Tastes restaurant.  Read here

Plans for further refurbishments have also been announced by Thomson - with new private balconies being added to three ships: Read here

And this follows the news from Oceania Cruises of the refurb of all three of their ships: Read here

On Wednesday Carnival Cruise Line announced a tie-up with Dr Seus - bringing Green Eggs and Ham to their fleet: Read here

Meanwhile Norwegian Cruise Line have released their 2015 deployment - with three ships in Alaska and four in the Med: Read more here

Talking of far-away places, it is great to see continued investment in new ports - this time Abu Dhabi is planning on being a major cruise hub of the region: Read here

Back to the UK and the announcement came on Friday of the new boss for Azamara Club Cruises - Richard Twynam will take his place in the new year: Read here  And a new Director of Marketing and PR has been appointed for Celebrity Cruises too: Read here

And it was great to see CLIA UK & Ireland once again making the headlines with a new initiative unveiled last week to ensure that we meet our core strategic strategy of getting more people to cruise, more often.  Three new working groups will spearhead the campaign: Read here