Thursday July 3

After yet another busy week in cruise the headlines were dominated yesterday by the MSC Cruises announcement of Serving You - which includes a larger UK sales team and 'MSC Ambassadors'.  All of this hopes to see a large rise in bookings from the UK for the cruise line.  Read more here

In the more traditional cruise sector meanwhile, exciting news from Cruise & Maritime Voyages this week with the announcement of them chartering a ship - Azores - for 2015.  The 550 guest ship will compliment the rest of the CMV fleet: read more here

Over at Holland America Line meanwhile and this week we saw the announcement of their 2015 114 day World Voyage: read more here; whilst over on Queen Mary 2 it is all going Star Trek crazy with a sailing featuring veteran actor George Takei: read more here

In International news, American Cruise Lines launch a newbuild ship for the Mississippi - a growing river cruise destination for UK guests - read more here; and over down-under in New Zealand and our colleagues at CLIA Australasia talk about the significant increase in the number of people taking a cruise holiday: read more here

In other news, here at CLIA UK & Ireland we have now launched registration for both the November River Cruise Convention and the August Premium and Luxury Cruise Expo - all available in the members area of www.cruiseexperts.org

Until next week!