Week ending Friday Nov 7th

What a week for our industry! Three new ships made their debut - and one of them was in the UK!

The week started with the Southampton celebrations onboard Quantum of the Seas - check out our Facebook page for photos and video: facebook.com/cliaukireland

On Wednesday the new Princess Cruises ship - Regal Princess, sister to Royal Princess launched last year, was formally named in Florida by the cast of The Love Boat: read here

And it was Friday that the newest Costa Cruises ship, Costa Diadema, was launched in Genoa - read here

Closer to home, at WTM CLIA UK & Ireland held a special seminar with Phil Nuttall, Anne Brine, Dean Harvey, and Adele Mcgrary of Royal Caribbean on how social media has helped the industry spread the word: read here and read here.  Thank you to all of our panelists.

Staying with the UK, Ipswich based Fred Olsen also announced a refurbishment programme for three of its ships before Christmas - Black Watch, Braemar and Balmoral: read here

On the subject of new cruise ships - Carnival Corp are increasing capacity by 10% with Britannia, Diadema, Regal Princess and XX, whilst a further 5 new ships are scheduled to be delivered between 2016 & 2017: read here

And finally ahead of the 2015 River Cruise Convention in Amsterdam next weekend - see more at cliauk.co.uk - Avalon announced this week that they are combining rail and river cruising: read here.

Until next week!

You can keep up to date with CLIA activity and events via our Informer magazine: read here