Thursday February 06th 2014

It has been another busy week in our cruise industry - with European deployments, UK growth, Strictly Come Dancing, and Tom Daley... what more could you ask for?!

Royal Caribbean announced this week that Allure of the Seas will be deployed from Barcelona (and Rome) in 2015 - great to have the biggest cruise ship in the world now within much easier reach: read the story from Travel Weekly here

Meanwhile over at Royal Caribbean's sister brand - Azamara Club Cruises - the talk from new boss Richard Twynham is further growth in guests sourced from the UK... but will we see more ships in the fleet?? Read the interview from Travel Weekly here.

On the subject of ship deployment the growing unrest in Thailand has caused Crystal Cruises to announce that it will not be visiting Bangkok - read here.  Whilst MSC Cruises announces its first itinerary to Australia in 2015 - read here.

It was great to see that Paul Ludlow from Princess Cruises is to be promoted with his responsibilities now spreading across Europe - well done Paul! Read the story from TTG here.

Closer to home, and we in the UK are delighted to be taking the lead as the official training team at Seatrade in the Med in September as reported by Seatrade Insider here.

And whilst Tom Daley made the front page of Travel Weekly last week for Royal Caribbean - we should not forget those Strictly folk working with P&O: read here.

And finally - our favourite story of the week from Spain - how cruises are getting more popular than churches for weddings... read here.

Just before we head off towards the weekend, do not miss the Directors Blog on Alaska this week: read here; and in The Hub this month in the members area of cruiseexperts.org we talk Vietnam, shoppers and the importance of add-ons, Top Ten Things to Do on a Norwegian Fjord cruise and much more.  Head to the CLIA UK & Ireland website here.