Roadtripping

Naming ceremony for the Carnival Breeze

If it seems that I’ve been blogging a lot about cruise ships lately – especially for someone whose first (travel) love is roadtripping – I am. This is the season when ships that have spent the summer in Europe return to South Florida and when new ships that were built in Europe’s shipyards arrive in Miami or Fort Lauderdale.

Which explains why I’ve attended two ship-naming ceremonies in the last eight days: Celebrity Reflection last weekend and Carnival Breeze on Saturday. Those two, along with Oceania’s Riviera – which had its ship-naming in Europe – are the new ships of 2012, all of which have arrived in Miami in the last few weeks.

Ship-naming ceremonies have several traditions associated with them, including the selection of a godmother and the breaking of a bottle of champagne on the hull of the ship. Other traditions, such as the sacrifice of sheep or even humans, thankfully have been discontinued. The original purpose of the ceremony was to introduce the new ship to the god of the sea – Neptune, Poseidon, whoever. The ancient Greeks drank wine to honor the gods and poured water on the new vessel as a symbol of blessing, but those two rituals eventually merged into one, and the liquid of choice in recent times has been champagne.

It’s considered bad luck if the godmother smashes the bottle against the hull and it doesn’t break -- Judi Dench swung a bottle of champagne against the Carnival Legend three times before it broke – so now, the bottles often are scored with a glasscutter first. It’s probably also considered bad luck if guests are cut by flying shards of glass, so the ceremony isn’t necessarily held near the hull. Both the Carnival and Celebrity ceremonies were held in the respective ship’s theater. The godmothers stood on the stage and cut or pulled a ribbon, and by some remote mechanism, the bottle was swung against the hull and smashed, which we saw on a huge video screen. Seems like a waste of good champagne to me, but who am I to say no to Poseidon?

Tracy Wilson Mourning is the godmother of the Carnival Breeze, and the ceremony was both touching as she talked about the Honey Shine mentoring program for young girls, a program she founded, and funny, as master of ceremonies John Heald pranced like a hefty supermodel on the catwalk and threatened to sing Barry Manilow songs. (Carnival’s frequent cruisers all know Heald – he is senior cruise director for Carnival and writes a funny, slightly risqué and usually helpful blog here.)

Watch next Sunday’s Travel section, when I’ll tell you about the new ships.

My photos of the ceremony, by the way, were pretty awful, so I pestered Andy Newman, who has photographed many of Carnival's ships, on Sunday morning for these. Top, Carnival Breeze's godmother, Tracy Mourning, and Capt. Vincenzo Alcaras with a stand-in bottle of champagne (the real one was swung against the hull). Below,Tracy with husband Alonzo (yeah, I know who he is but this is HER show) and the captain on the bridge.

 

A touch of Miami on Norwegian Cruise Line's next ship

For the Norwegian Breakaway, a new ship that will home port in New York City, Norwegian Cruise Line commissioned Peter Max to paint its hull with images of the New York skyline, named the Rockettes as godmothers, designed a promenade inspired by the Coney Island Boardwalk, and added New York-style hot dog carts.

On Monday, Norwegian announced the first of the Miami features that will grace Breakaway’s twin,  the Getaway, which will home port here: a hull painted by David “LEBO” Le Batard, a Cuban-born Miami artist known for his murals. The hull will feature a mermaid, a lighthouse, pelicans and other whimsical sea features.

“We wanted somebody who embodied the unique culture of Miami,” said Kevin Sheehan, Norwegian’s CEO, who cited Le Batard’s  “bright, colorful, fun … stunning” works  in making the announcement at the artist’s studio in Wynwood.

Sheehan declined to say what other Miami details might be associated with the ship: An arepa stand? A promenade that looks like Ocean Drive? “Cuban coffee,” he volunteered. Well, of course! But what could be more Miami than to announce a work of art on a ship to kick off Art Basel week?

The Breakaway and the Getaway are 4,000-passenger ships under construction in Germany. The Breakaway will arrive in New York in May and sail cruises first to Bermuda and later to the Caribbean and Florida. The Getaway will arrive in Miami in January 2014 and will sail to the eastern Caribbean year-round.   

Renderings of the Getaway (top) and Breakaway (above) courtesy of Norwegian Cruise Line.

Celebrity Reflection: A shower that is bending cruise ship design rules

If you spotted a Celebrity Cruises ship sailing along the South Florida coast on Sunday, it probably was Celebrity Reflection, the line’s newest ship. And if you noticed an odd addition to one of the top decks, what you were seeing was an example of a trend in cruise ship design: a cantilevered space.

The feature that’s getting all the oohs and aahs on the Celebrity Reflection, which took travel agents, writers and VIPs on a short cruise-to-nowhere over the weekend, is a glassed-in shower in the ship’s biggest suite that extends out over the edge of the ship.

As people toured the 1,636-square-foot suite and the shower on Sunday, it was hard to tell which characteristic they found most provocative – the glass enclosure or the fact that only a thick pane of what looked like frosted glass came between their feet and the ocean 14 decks below.

“This is kind of scary,” said a travel agent, as she stepped into the shower.

“Are you sure that people can’t see in?” asked another.

The shower is enclosed with a special reflective glass that is supposed to guard the occupant’s privacy, but as a back-up, the flick of a switch will turn the glass from transparent to translucent.

The shower is in the “Reflection Suite,” a one-of-a-kind stateroom that also boasts a bathtub and rain shower on its private veranda.

On Sunday, a line of people waiting to see the shower wound up one side of the living room, down the other, and through a bedroom. 
Some people stepped into the shower, others regarded it from a secure distance.

It’s not the first cantilevered space on a cruise ship. Some ships have jacuzzis that extend out over the side. Two Disney ships have a flume ride in a clear tube that loops out over the water. The new Royal Princess ship, which will arrive in Port Everglades late next year, will have SeaWalk – a glass-bottomed walkway that will be cantilevered 28 feet beyond the starboard side of the ship.

Rendering of SeaWalk by Princess Cruises

Statue of Liberty closed indefinitely due to storm damage

If you're planning a trip to New York that includes Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty, you may want to hold off on the trip. The National Park Service took journalists on a tour of Liberty Island Friday and pointed out extensive damage done by Superstorm Sandy. Most of the island was under water, some parts as much as much as 8 feet deep. The statue itself wasn't damaged -- nor were artifacts on neighboring Ellis Island -- but clean-up of the grounds is going to require so much work that the National Park Service won't estimate when the sites will reopen. Read the full story here.