Cruise Holidays - Attheta Travel

Cruising is a wonderful family vacation, but you might want to be sure your chosen cruise line and ship offer special activities for children. You may look forward to spending a day reading an entire book while stretched out on a poolside lounge chair, but your kids may need to be a bit more active than that. Not to worry – family-oriented cruise lines know how to keep kids happy. And, some lines that offer supervised (and often educational) programming for children have teamed up with big names in entertainment to ensure your young cruise companions have fun. Disney Cruise Line has a built-in advantage in this area, as Disney is one of the biggest names in entertainment. The house of mouse puts its beloved characters to good use on its four cruise ships, where they can often be found in the Oceaneer Club and Lab (for ages 3 to 12). Characters vary by ship, but just imagine your kids playing and learning alongside Woody from Toy Story, Tinker Bell, Jedi knights from Star Wars, the ...

Alaska has long been a favorite cruise destination, consistently ranked among the top five domestic vacation destinations. The 49 th state’s spectacular scenery – perhaps best seen from a ship – is a consistent draw. There are two common Alaska cruise itineraries. One focuses on the Inside Passage, the waterway that threads between the coastline of the southeast panhandle and a string of barrier islands. This is a popular choice for a seven- or eight-night, roundtrip cruise from Seattle or Vancouver. The scenery is breathtaking and the towns you might visit – Ketchikan, Skagway, Sitka, Juneau – are historic and interesting.  The second typical itinerary also sails the Inside Passage but takes in some of the Gulf of Alaska, too, giving you more of the glaciers, mountain peaks and wildlife that make Alaska so memorable. These are often one-way cruises, meaning you’ll embark and disembark in different cities. For example, you might go from Seattle or Vancouver to Seward...

The history of the Panama Canal is dramatic, and its reputation as one of the world’s great feats of engineering is well deserved. A cruise is a fantastic way to see this manmade waterway and the surrounding scenery in the beautiful Central American country of Panama. The canal cuts through a slim, jungle-covered isthmus that connects North and South America, allowing ships to glide between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Begun by the French in 1880, the difficult work of canal construction was finally finished by the U.S. in 1914. There are interesting options for cruising the canal: you have a choice of how far to go. Specifically, you can choose from a full crossing, partial crossing or no crossing at all. Full-crossing itineraries sail all the way through the canal,  a 50-mile voyage that includes three locks, Lake Gatun and the Culebra Cut on the Continental Divide. Be sure to check out the shore excursion options within the canal. You could ride on the Panama ...

Digital technologies are making the cruise experience even better. Many cruise lines now offer smartphone software applications (or “apps”) passengers can use to access lots of helpful information, such as daily activity schedules, spa reservation assistance, or trackers for onboard spending. Some cruise lines are now going beyond. For example, some Royal Caribbean ships now equip passengers with WOW bands: wristbands with RFID chips that serve as stateroom keys and onboard credit cards. Passengers love them because they eliminate the need to carry around one of Royal Caribbean’s SeaPass cards, which are easier to misplace or forget. Royal Caribbean intends to make WOW bands available on all of its ships within a few years. Princess Cruises is also introducing a digital wristband, the OceanMedallion, which debuted this fall on the Caribbean Princess . It serves as a stateroom key and onboard credit card, as well as an onboard wayfinder and a means to locate your travel compa...