Kenyan Hotels Expand As Business Travel Surges

Some of the world's biggest hotel brands including Marriott, Hilton and Rezidor are planning to open hotels in Kenya to cash in on a surge in business travel from China and the Middle East to east Africa's biggest economy.

Interest in Kenya from China and other new markets including India and the United Arab Emirates led to a 15 percent surge in visitors to the country to 1.26 million last year, accounting for about 80 percent of total bookings in Nairobi.

Kenya is racing to improve facilities to meet this growing demand, which has important economic implications - the sector generated foreign exchange earnings of KES98 billion shillings (USD$1.15 billion) last year, second only to tea.

Its main airport, the biggest in east Africa, is being expanded to double its capacity to over 4 million passengers.

Alex Kyriakidis, Marriott's president and managing director, Middle East and Africa, said he expected to sign a deal by the end of the year to open a hotel in Kenya by 2015.

"We believe investment in infrastructure in the airport and Nairobi looking to be a hub is very positive," Kyriakidis told reporters at the Africa Hotel Investment Forum held in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

Hotel operators at the Forum shrugged off concerns over violence that have in the past dented Kenya's tourism sector, including during the election in 2007.

"We have just gone through the Arab Spring in North Africa (and) all our hotels are absolutely fine," Kyriakidis said.

Besides Kenya, Marriott plans a total of about 5,000 rooms in Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Gabon, Nigeria and Rwanda by 2015, a USD$1.5 billion investment.

Hilton plans to open two new hotels in Nairobi and is looking to renovate and rebrand existing hotels on Kenya's coast, as well as venturing into Congo and Rwanda.

Rezidor will open two in Nairobi by 2014.

Africa has posted strong growth rates of about 5 percent in recent years, second only to Asia, drawing increased investment, according to World Bank estimates.

"Seven out of the 10 fastest (growing) economies are in sub-Sahara Africa. We would be crazy not to be focused in the sub-Saharan market," said Andrew McLachlan, vice president of business development Africa and India Ocean Islands at Carlson Rezidor.

(Reuters)

Air Canada Picks AirTran Exec As COO

Air Canada said on Friday that Klaus Goersch, an executive at Southwest Airlines' AirTran Airways, would be its next chief operating officer.

Goersch, a former pilot who was most recently AirTran's executive vice-president of operations and customer service, will succeed Duncan Dee, effective October 1.

The airline announced Dee's early retirement in June.

(Reuters)

Fuel Costs, Economy Outpace Lufthansa Savings

Lufthansa's efforts to cut costs will be thwarted by higher fuel prices and a weak economy this year, its chief executive said.

The company launched a savings initiative - dubbed SCORE - earlier this year to boost annual earnings by EUR€1.5 billion (USD$1.9 billion) by end 2014, compared with 2011.

"Due to the headwinds we face, the progress we have made is not visibly reflected, as we had hoped, in our financial result," Christoph Franz said in an employee newsletter on Friday.

The airline - whose business is caught between low-cost rivals such as easyJet in Europe and Gulf carriers such as Emirates in the premium long-haul market - has said it has identified more than EUR€1 billion in potential cutbacks in its passenger airline business alone.

It announced this month that it will merge its European and German domestic routes under a new low-cost brand.

While SCORE will reach its target this year, Franz said high jet fuel prices and the weak economy, as well as fees and costs for materials, were mitigating its effects.

"Therefore we have to work harder to achieve SCORE's planned earnings improvement of EUR€1.5 billion in the end," he said.

The airline is negotiating with union representatives of cabin crew, who held a series of rolling strikes several weeks ago, resulting in the cancellation of more than 1,000 flights.

(Reuters)

Why this kolaveri di - LEASING TEAM

Did a Distant Solar System Send Life to Earth? .

DIGITAL VISION

The inner solar system with a visiting comet

Time was, the solar system was raining rocks. You only need to look at the cratered face of airless bodies like Mercury and the moon to get a sense of the cosmic crossfire that took place back when the local worlds were just forming and much of the debris that helped make them up was still flying free. Even now, planets and moons occasionally swap rubble, with odd bits of, say Mars, blasted into space by a long-ago meteor spiraling slowly in to get snagged by Earth.

This kind of planetary tissue exchange long ago gave rise to the  concept of panspermia — the idea that life on Earth may not have originated here at all, but rather was imported in the form of organic building blocks or even microorganisms from far away. Earth, in turn, may have similarly seeded other worlds. The catch is that the solar system is a limited place, with Earth the only place we know of that’s currently capable of supporting  wandering biology.

(PHOTOS: Snapshots of the Heavens: Amazing Astronomy Images)

Things get a lot more interesting if you expand the pool of candidate worlds to include those in other solar systems. This idea, called lithopanspermia, has always seemed like a nifty possibility, but not one worth much thought. The physics of interstellar transfer are so  complex that it would, for practical purposes, be impossible for any debris to make such a journey.  Or that was the belief. But a new paper published in the journal Astrobiology gives new energy to the lithospermia idea — concluding that  interstellar transfer of life might be a whole lot more possible than anyone expected.

(MORE: Alien Life Discovered in a Meteorite! Or Maybe Not.)

For astrophysicists, the easiest part of both panspermia and lithopanspermia has paradoxically been the biology itself. The universe is fairly awash in water, hydrocarbons and even amino acids — and all of them can be carried aboard free-flying space rubble. In 2011, geologists announced that a meteorite that landed on Earth in 2000 not only contained amino acids and other prebiotic materials, but that all of them existed in different stages of complexity — meaning that the meteor had actually been cooking them up en route, probably with the help of traces of on-board water and heat released by radioactive material.

But if organic cargo can survive — and even thrive — on such a long journey, there’s still the matter of how you ship it from sender to receiver, and here’s where lithopanspermia ran into trouble. Old models of interstellar transfer relied on the idea of rubble being flung out of a solar system by gravitational encounters with large bodies like Jupiter, meaning that they’d be traveling at speeds of about 8 km per second — or nearly 18,000 mph. That’s way too fast for the rocks ever to be captured by the gravity of another star system, even if they did reach one. “It is very unlikely that even a single meteorite originating on a terrestrial planet in our solar system has fallen onto a terrestrial planet in another solar system, over the entire period of our solar system’s existence,” wrote astrophysicist H. Jay Melosh of the University of Arizona in a 2003 paper that attempted to put the lithopanspermia idea to rest once and for all. If our rocks can’t get out, other rocks have no greater chance of getting in.

(MORE: Why Are Tomatoes Red? Blame the Meteor)

That, however, is only if you stick with the old model for how the debris was set free in the first place. A team of researchers from Princeton University, the University of Arizona and Centro de Astrobiologia in Spain took a different approach, developing computer models of a slow-boat transit method known as weak transfer. Under this process, rubble  spirals slowly outward through a solar system until it reaches a spot so far from its parent sun that it requires only a slight perturbation to nudge it into interstellar space. “At this point,” says Princeton astrophysicist Edward Belbruno, one of the authors of the paper, “you’re escaping so slowly that randomness and chaos theory is involved in getting you out.”

The problem is that low speed can also mean slow transit time to the next solar system, with a trip lasting  1.5 billion years or more, longer than even the toughest organic material could survive. About 4.5 billion years ago, however, when the sun was just being born, it was part of a tight grouping of nascent stars known as the local cluster that was comparatively densely packed — and that could have cut transit times dramatically.

“After about 100 to 200 million years, the stars scattered, and the transfer likelihood went dramatically down,” says Belbruno. “But you do have a window.” Encouragingly, analyses of terrestrial rocks reveal that Earthly organics may indeed have formed in the solar system’s comparative babyhood, directly within the departure window.

On its face, the number of rocks that would reach another solar system seems small — 5 to 12 out of every 10,000. But since trillions of rocks per year make the low-speed escape, that means a whopping one billion in that same year might be captured by neighboring worlds — and we could be on the receiving end of similar numbers from elsewhere. It may still be unlikely that anyone alive today will ever meet an alien— but the odds just went up a little that we all could be the aliens.

For a Brazilian Vacation.

3 Experts, and Many Tips for Visiting Brazil

By SETH KUGEL

To supplement my seven rules for lowering the cost of a trip to Brazil, I asked three Brazil-based colleagues to come up with their own tips. They are Ricardo Freire, widely regarded as the dean of Brazilian travel bloggers; Fábio Peixoto, the editor of a Brazilian travel guide; and Kevin Raub, a Lonely Planet author who lives in São Paulo.

I’ve condensed and edited their tips, and in the first two cases, translated them from Portuguese.

Mr. Freire blogs in Portuguese at viajenaviagem.com and is working on an English-language site for foreign visitors to Brazil. Follow his travels on Instagram (@riqfreire). Here are his tips:

TRAVEL WHEN BRAZILIANS DON’T

International travel to Brazil is relatively minimal; the country as a whole receives about as many visitors per year as Cancún. That means the tourism industry is dependent on the enormous domestic market, which has a particular quirk: Brazilians all seem to travel at the same time. That’s during January and June school vacations, Carnival (Feb. 9 to 12 next year), and onnational holidays that become long weekends no matter on what day they fall.

For the rest of the year, a majority of Brazilian destinations (with the notable exception of Rio) are nearly empty — even though in many cases the climate is actually better during the off-season. So plan wisely.

WAIT FOR THE MAGIC DATE

Jan. 10 is the magic date that the Brazilian summer stops being so expensive. Families have emptied their bank accounts to be on the beach during New Year’s and must begin to save for Carnival. Prices drop appreciably, and innkeepers and small-hotel owners are open to negotiations.

The best place to be is in Bahia state, in beautiful coastal villages like Morro de São Paulo, Barra Grande, Itacaré, Santo André and others that aren’t as expensive as upscale spots like Trancoso. You can combine that trip with agreat excursion to Chapada Diamantina National Park (seven hours by bus from Salvador, the state capital).

FALL IN RIO

Southern Hemisphere fall, that is. In winter (July and August), Rio de Janeiro can actually get cold, so the ideal time to visit is in autumn, after Easter. May, with hot, dry days and cool nights, is the perfect time, with only one Brazilian holiday (May 1) drawing visitors. It’s also the perfect time for a side trip to the colonial town of Paraty, where things get rainy in spring and summer.

TAKE THE BUS

Upper-middle-class Brazilians won’t tell you this, because they can’t imagine themselves on an intercity bus. But the fact is that the Brazilian bus system works well, especially if you are traveling less than 200 miles. Alas, there is little information about bus trips online (and practically none in English) so your best bet is to go to the bus station where each company’s ticket booth has clear signs listing destinations it serves. A key word in Portuguese is “direto” (gee-REH-tew), which refers to a route with fewer stops. Keep your valuables close at hand (and gadgets in your pockets) in the stations.

USE THE PANAMA CONNECTION

The most convenient airline from the United States to Brazil is probablyPanama’s Copa, which has a code-share agreement with United, meaning a customer can buy a ticket with one airline but end up flying on a plane operated by the other. You can reach seven Brazilian destinations via a usually brief connection in Panama City, allowing you to, for example, arrive in Manaus in the Amazon and return from Recife in the northeast.

INTERNATIONAL SITES ARE GAINING HOLD

Booking.com has expanded rapidly in Brazil, registering pousadas (inns) and small hotels in remote places, saving foreigners from the complicated system of reservations Brazilians have invented (involving wiring deposits to innkeepers’ bank accounts). Hostelworld works well for hostels, and Airbnb is also making inroads for apartment rentals.

***
Fábio Peixoto is the editor of the Brazilian guidebook series “Guia Quatro Rodas” which publishes the Viajar Bem e Barato (“Travel Well, Travel Cheap”) guide. Here are his tips:

GO AGAINST THE FLOW

With Brazil’s strong economy, a new middle class has emerged with access to many modern comforts, including travel. That means that in season, destinations are more packed than ever. Hotel prices can triple over New Year’s and Carnival, and it doesn’t help much to book in advance. Weekends and holidays during summer (December to March) are usually hellish in terms of prices, availability and traffic. A good strategy if you’re here then is to go against the flow: spend the weekends in the big cities and weekdays on the beach. In the northeast, rains can be heavy from April to July, so September and October are great times to visit.

SNACK TRADITIONALLY

A good tip to eat for less is to focus on traditional quitutes or small, traditional dishes. In Salvador, there are dozens of street stands where baianas (women in traditional white dress) sell acarajé — a black-eyed pea fritter stuffed with shrimp, a sauce called vatapá and vegetables — for about 6 reais ($3 at 2 reais to the dollar).

In Amazonian cities you can get tacacá, a soup of shrimp and jambu, a slightly anesthetic herb, for 10 reais. In São Paulo, pastéis de feira are fried pockets of dough filled with meat, cheese or heart of palm and sold at street fairs for about 3 reais. No matter where you are, look out for the word “rodízio,” or “all you can eat.” There are all kinds of rodizios, including pizza, Japanese food or grilled meats, the latter usually accompanied by salads and side dishes. It might cost you $20, but it will be the only meal you’ll need that day.

TO RENT OR NOT TO RENT

Renting a car in the big cities is synonymous with expense and stress. Parking is complicated, and you can pay 12 reais for one hour in some places. And guys called flanelinhas will try to charge you almost as much for “taking care” of your car even if you find free street parking. Instead, find alternatives: Rio’s and São Paulo’s subway lines are small but clean and practical for getting to tourist attractions; in the northeast taxis are relatively cheap. But outside major cities, say along the coast or in national parks, being without a car means making yourself dependent on tour groups, making car rental the more cost-conscious option.

HIT THREE ISLANDS

To step outside the typical tourist trail, try these three reasonably-priced islands: Ilha Grande (reasonably close to Rio de Janeiro, with beautiful beaches and cheap lodging); Ilha de Boipeba (paradise on Earth, a 30-minute flight from Salvador, cheap as can be, and many foreign-owned inns where English is spoken); and Ilha de Marajó (an Amazonian island in Pará state, where water buffalo and tropical birds outnumber people).

***
Kevin Raub is the coordinating author for Brazil of Lonely Planet’s “South America on a Shoestring.” Follow him on Twitter @RaubOnTheRoad. Here are his tips:

HOSTELS OR BUST

If you’re on a really tight budget, it is hostels only, and even then you are going to pay more than you are accustomed to in North America or Europe. I’ve found some good value spots like Favela Chic in Foz de Iguaçu (Iguazu Falls), where you can sleep in a converted van with a double bed for 50 reais as a single traveler. It’s unique as well as affordable. In Rio, my favorite is a new place called Oztel in Botafogo, where it feels like you are sleeping in an art gallery curated by an Andy Warhol fan. Aside from the sleeping in a dorm part, you’re getting a boutique hotel for the price of a hostel.

CONSIDER THE CAPITAL

Though Brasília has a reputation of being about as friendly to budget-conscious travelers as a wasp-nest piñata, Brazil’s fascinating capital can actually be done affordably. Accommodations are expensive, but hotels slash prices on weekends. From there, it takes a little will but there is a way: buses comb the city, so you can get anywhere for two reais, flipping the script on a city that was designed for cars. Almost all the main attractions (including many monuments designed by modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer) are free, and restaurants serve all budgets.

WILDLIFE OUTSIDE THE AMAZON

The Pantanal is one of Brazil’s best-value spots to visit. Not only is it amazing in its own right, but it’s much more affordable than the Amazon and you will see much more wildlife for your money. After a one-day drive down the Transpantaneira highway, you’ll be sick of caimans, capybaras, macaws and toucans. In the Amazon you’ll pay five times the price and you’re lucky if a pink dolphin swims by once a week.

ORDER HALF

You’ll probably want to skip the traditional feijoada buffets, which are terribly good but always pricey, and go instead for the “por kilo” or pay-by-weight restaurants. Also look for PFs, or pratos feitos, homey set plates of a main course, rice, beans and juice for under 12 reais, or the slightly pricier and fancier pratos executivos or executive plates. Take advantage of the normally infuriating fact that restaurant dishes are priced and portioned generously for two. Single travelers ordering a half-portion (meia-porção) will pay 60 or 70 percent the price, but a party of three can beat Brazilian restaurants at their own illogical math game, ordering one dish and walking away with stomachs filled and wallets still stuffed.

AVOID AIRPORT TAXIS

Most big cities (including Rio, São Paulo and Brasília) offer direct and efficient airport shuttles for under 40 reais, which can offer considerable savings. I walk almost everywhere in Brazil — it’s free and you get a much better feel for Brazilian joie de vivre. Rio, São Paulo and Porto Alegre all have efficient metro systems that get you within striking distance of your destination; just leg it from there, and don’t forget about city buses. In São Paulo you can get accurate point-to-point bus directions from Google Maps, avoiding pricey taxis.

(Disclosure: Seth Kugel is speaking, unpaid, though his costs are covered, at a travel bloggers’ conference Mr. Freire has organized in Rio de Janeiro later this month.)

Budget Airlines Fly South .

LOW-COST carriers in the United States started out with a domestic agenda, mostly serving shorter routes with no first-class frills like multicourse meals or seats that fold out to beds.

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Jayme McGowan

Dig deeper into our report:

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But as these carriers have grown, their focus has shifted from America to the Americas, with JetBlue flying as far south as Colombia and Spirit offering service to Peru. Even Southwest has expanded overseas by buying AirTran Airways, which flies to Mexico and half a dozen Caribbean countries.

“They see a void in the market, and they feel they can fill it,” said Henry Harteveldt, travel analyst and co-founder of Atmosphere Research Group. “They’re saying the rest of the world doesn’t belong to network airlines,” he added, referring to carriers like Delta and United.

For travelers, more competition south of the border often means lower fares, but the trade-off may involve accepting a connection instead of a direct flight. Still, Latin America offers something Europe and Asia might not see for a while: low-cost flights from the United States.

JetBlue

JetBlue has been a major player in the Caribbean for years, and it recently opened a terminal at San Juan’s international airport in Puerto Rico, which it now serves nonstop from 10 cities in the United States, including Boston, Kennedy Airport in New York and Newark. But JetBlue is beginning to make a push farther south with new routes to Colombia and flights to Liberia and San José in Costa Rica.

On Nov. 2, JetBlue plans to introduce a nonstop flight from Kennedy Airport to Cartagena, Colombia, with introductory fares as low as $149 one way. It already flies from Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Fla., to Bogotá, and from New York and Orlando to Costa Rica (with connecting service from other cities).

Scott Laurence, JetBlue’s vice president for network planning, said the airline looks for destinations “where the fares were very high and we were able to come in and stimulate new traffic.”

In the first 15 months after JetBlue began service from Orlando to Bogotá, the airline said the average fare fell 41 percent and the number of passengers flying that route increased 300 percent.

But a couple of factors limit where JetBlue and its low-cost competitors can fly: the range of their aircraft — which can’t make it all the way to Brazil or Argentina — and treaties with countries that dictate which airlines are allowed to fly there.

Brazil does not yet have a full “open skies” treaty with the United States, so American carriers cannot necessarily add routes there, but Colombia has been opening up its airspace more quickly.

A nonstop round-trip ticket from Fort Lauderdale to Bogotá, leaving Nov. 3, was recently available for $366. For a Dec. 8 departure from Kennedy, to Costa Rica (one of a few nonstop options from New York to Latin America on JetBlue),  the round-trip fare available in late August was $497.

If you don’t want a missed connection to delay your winter getaway, check the route map to see where you can go without a stopover, and book at least a couple of months in advance for the best fares.

Spirit

Most of Spirit’s nonstop service to the Caribbean and Latin America is from Fort Lauderdale, but for passengers willing to accept a connection, Spirit offers cheap flights to many destinations south of the United States.

“We were kind of the pathfinder for low-cost carriers to the region,” said Barry Biffle, Spirit’s chief marketing officer. “We fly to every country in Central America with the exception of Belize.”

Spirit has been expanding its international service from other markets, and plans to fly from San Diego to Los Cabos beginning Nov. 8 and from Dallas/Fort Worth to Cancúnin April. For a mid-January trip from Chicago to Cancún, the round-trip fare was $378, which included a stop in Fort Lauderdale.

But that price did not include a $30 fee for one carry-on and another $33 for one checked bag — both charged each way. It also didn’t include fees to select a seat ($56 for the whole itinerary), bringing the total to $560 with those options. In other words, if you travel light and don’t care where you sit, Spirit is the best deal.

“I think travelers who take Spirit know that in exchange for these inexpensive airfares, you are trading comfort and convenience,” Mr. Harteveldt said. “You’re going to have to stop, and you’re going to have to pay to bring your bag.”

Since other carriers often price their fares based on low-cost competition, it’s worth checking around. A nonstop fare from Chicago to Cancún on American for the same dates cost $457, with no charge for a carry-on or a checked bag. (JetBlue also allows a free checked bag.)

Southwest/AirTran

Southwest’s purchase of AirTran Airways put it on the global map, with service to Aruba, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico and Puerto Rico. For now, the flights are on AirTran, but Southwest is laying the groundwork for its own international service by purchasing planes that can fly longer distances, negotiating new labor contracts and successfully campaigning for an international terminal at Hobby Airport in Houston.

“By mid-2015 we expect to be offering Southwest metal flying to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and perhaps eventually northern South America,” said Brad Hawkins, a Southwest spokesman.

This spring AirTran added new nonstop routes to Cancún from Chicago, Denver, San Antonio and Austin, as well as service from Orange County, California, to Cabo San Lucas and Mexico City.

A nonstop AirTran flight from Atlanta to Cancún on Dec. 1 was recently available for $364 (plus a $20 fee for a checked bag, each way). With all of these carriers, the key is to check the route map to see if they serve an airport near you, then plan your vacation around where they fly.

Other Airlines

With more competition coming into the region, carriers like American, Delta and United are making their own moves to attract passengers. American has introduced nonstop service from Miami to Manaus, Brazil, the jumping-off point for an Amazon trip, and has flights to Mexico on sale if you book by Nov. 6. A late January nonstop trip from Kennedy Airport to Cancún was recently available for $436 round trip. United began service from Newark to Buenos Aires this spring. In early September, round-trip flights on multiple dates in October and November started at $1,152; fly midweek for the lowest fares.

Foreign carriers are another option worth considering, and they often belong to global alliances so you can earn miles for your trip in a United States partner’s frequent flier program.

“LAN often has great deals that nobody else matches,” said George Hobica, founder ofAirfarewatchdog.com, which alerts travelers about deals. A recent spotting: fall flights toManaus from dozens of American cities, including Philadelphia and San Francisco, for less than $600 round trip.

“A lot of the advertised sales just last for a few days now,” Mr. Hobica said. “When they have a sale the seats go very quickly. That’s the best time to pounce.”

Top 10 things to do on a cruise ship.

There’s plenty to sea: Fireworks display aboard Disney Fantasy

1 - Watch fireworks

Pyrotechnics aren’t just for ship launches. Sail with Disney and every voyage features a fireworks display at sea – the only cruise line which does this. Theme nights include Disney characters and pirates.

Who does it? Disney Cruise Line

2 - See a West End show

Theatres on many of the newer cruise ships are bigger and better than those in the West End. The problem is many of the ­performances are of ­amateur dramatics ­standard. The exception is on Royal Caribbean’s new ships. ­Hairspray: The ­Musical features on Oasis of the Seas, Chicago on Allure of the Seas and Saturday Night Fever on Liberty of the Seas.

Who does it? Royal Caribbean International

3 Go star-gazing

See the stars in Queen Mary 2’s planetarium

With many cabins now featuring flat-screen TVs, cruise companies are finding imaginative new uses for their half-empty cinemas. On Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 you can take a virtual journey into space, viewing the stars and planets up close in a full-scale planetarium. Royal Caribbean has 3D films, while MSC and Carnival have gone even further with “4D” and “5D” performances – adding moving seats and other special effects.

Who does it? Cunard and MSC Cruises

4 - Get cooking

Take cookery lessons on Oceania cruises

 

Want to improve your skills in the kitchen? You can watch a cookery demonstration on Holland America’s ships, where visiting chefs join crew from the galley. On Oceania’s new Marina and Riviera liners they take things a step further with a cookery learning centre in association with US foodie magazine Bon Appetit. Classes ­include The Art of the Tart and A Passion for Pasta.

Who does it? Holland America Line and Oceania Cruises

5 - Private tours

You can avoid the crowds at some of the world’s most popular tourist sites by taking the private ­after-hours tours on some cruises. The chance to stroll ­unhindered through the galleries at The Hermitage in St Petersburg is on offer with Saga Sapphire. And a private tour of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice on ­Voyages to Antiquity’s Aegean Odyssey provides a rare ­opportunity to descend into the crypt.

Who does it? Saga Cruises and Voyages to Antiquity

6 - Thrills, spills and grills

The Lawn Club Grill restaurants on Celebrity Cruises’ ­Silhouette and Reflection are outdoor barbecues where you do your own cooking. For £20 a head you choose your steaks, chops and fish, season them then slap them over the heat. On Carnival Breeze, Jimmy’s C-Side BBQ has the best pulled-pork sandwiches at sea.

Who does it? Celebrity Cruises and Carnival Cruise Lines

7 - Take a weight off your mind

With all that unlimited food around it might sound ­unlikely but a cruise ship can be one of the best places to lose weight. Alongside the steaks and lobsters, the restaurants have a huge range of salads. Add in a couple of sessions with a ­personal trainer in the gym and you could lose a pound a day – as I did on ­Celebrity Silhouette this year.

Who does it? Celebrity Cruises

8 - Become well-read

Books aren’t just for bagging a sunbed or a table in a self-service restaurant. Libraries have become a popular hangout on some cruises, with wood-panelled affairs on Cunard ships. Queen Mary 2 has 8,000 titles... but the world-beater is Swan ­Hellenic’s tiny Minerva, which has 5,000 books – 14 for each of its 350 passengers.

Who does it? Cunard and Swan Hellenic

9 - Brush up on painting

Rather than postcards or photos of your cruise, why not remember it with a ­painting? Cruises with Fred Olsen and Saga’s Quest For Adventure have regular watercolour classes. It’s free, though there may be a small charge for paints.

Who does it? Fred Olsen Cruise Lines and Saga Cruises

10 - Learn powers of flowers

Paula Pryke, flower arranger to the stars, doesn’t just advise Crystal Cruises on floral decorations. She also travels on their ships, joining passengers on excursions to gardens and organising demonstrations on board. Next April she will be on Crystal Serenity for La Dolce Vita cruise from Barcelona to Venice, and in May she joins Crystal Symphony for its voyage from Los Angeles to New York.

Prathibha Hettiarachchi

 

Cruise profile: Seabourn's stylish cruisers offer luxury and pampering...but at a price.

As part of our occasional series profiling the big cruise companies so you can plan your perfect voyage, SeaView’s cruise expert David Simpson gives the low down on Seabourn, the up-market cruise line for those who appreciate the finer things in life.

There have to be reasons why just a few cruise lines can claim to be the best. Standing knee-deep in the warm turquoise waters of the Caribbean, champagne in one hand and a blini piled high with caviar in the other, is one of them.

And it is luxuries like this that puts four of Seabourn's cruisers into the world’s top ten best ships in the cruising bible, the Berlitz Cruise Guide, which uses an internationally accepted rating system that examines 400 separate items based on personal cruises.

Life's little luxuries: 'Caviar in the Surf' is just one of the memorable moments Seabourn offers its passengers

Life on a Seabourn cruise is a succession of memorable moments, whichever of the five ships in the fleet you decide upon.

One such moment is the Caviar in the Surf celebration in which guests are whisked from ship to pristine sands for an occasion renowned in cruising’s elite circles.

But don't expect the moments to feature climbing walls and ice rinks as the vessels are small and intimate compared with many of today's monsters of the seas. This allows them to visit ports and docks normally only accessible to smaller vessels.

Take a dip: Don't expect to find climbing walls and ice rinks - Seabourn's vessels are small and intimate compared with many of today's monsters of the seas

Such pampering doesn't come cheaply. Seven days will set you back from about £1,800 for a seven-night Mediterranean cruise - flights are extra - but once on board the only thing you have to put your hand in your pocket for is shore excursions such as horseback beach safaris, submarine voyages to explore the marine life and snorkelling to name a few.

The wine and champagne in the fridge in the upmarket staterooms is included. So too are those dreaded gratuities, unless you feel someone has earned a little something extra for their trouble.

 

More...

• Cruise profile: State-of-the-art Celebrity Cruises
• Cruise profile: Elegant MSC Cruises's Italian vibe
• Cruise profile: Holland America Line's history and style

When it comes to dining, you can choose to be intimate or sociable in the open-seating, dine-when-you-like restaurant. And with so few on board - from 200 to 450 depending on ship - there's never a problem finding a quiet corner.

You can expect excellent cuisine and high-level service, before returning to an extremely comfortable stateroom, complete with audio and TV systems and those bathroom bits and pieces. The staterooms naturally improve in space, if not in comfort, the higher the grade you choose.

Cruise in comfort: You can expect an extremely comfortable stateroom, complete with audio and TV systems

Thailand fears floods once more as heavy rain in provinces could spread to Bangkok.

Fears have been raised after up to a quarter of Thailand's provinces, including the tourist resort of Ayutthaya, have been hit by floodwaters.

Thousands fled their homes in northern Thailand after heavy rain caused a major river to overflow at the start of the month, sending up to a metre of water into some towns. So far, four people have died.

The Bangkok Post today reported that the city's Metropolitan Administration has put all 50 districts on alert for 'possible flooding' as heavy rain is forecast between tomorrow and September 17 around many parts of the country.

Concern: A view of residential areas submerged by floodwaters in the Sukhothai province, northern Thailand

It said regions of the city had been told to install water pumps in areas prone to the floods and that thousands of people in vulnerable districts had been warned to be ready to move, should they need to.

Scenes of residents wading through waist-high water and stacking large sandbags around shops and homes in Sukhothai, around 430km north of Bangkok, are a stark reminder of last year's floods that killed more than 800 people.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office - which then advised against all but essential travel to the capital, as well as central, north-eastern and eastern Thailand - has warned visitors about the current 'localised flooding' in Sukhothai.

Awash: Thai residents are evacuated with boats in a flooded street in Sukhothai

Today, website The Nation reported that the floodwaters in the region had 'begun to stabilise' although water levels were continuing to rise in Phitsanulok, also in the north.

Industrial estates have scrambled to build flood walls and dredge nearby canals in time for this year's rainy season - which runs from May to October, with September and October the height of the monsoon. But other parts of the country remain vulnerable to sudden inundation.

A landslide on September 8 meant the rail service between Lampang and Chiang Mai was suspended, with the FCO urging travellers to contact their booking agents.

In the dry: A family make their escape in a boat as water floods their town

The floods come amid concerns that the country's government failed to act fast enough to strengthen flood defences after last year's devastating floods which swept down into Bangkok.

BLACKBIRDS FALL FROM NEW JERSEY SKY

Residents in a Cumberland County, NJ were left wondering Tuesday  what caused thousands of birds to drop dead from the sky.

At  least 8,000 birds — mostly red-winged blackbirds — on the ground dead having fallen from trees and the sky.

“Crazy — something out of a horror movie,” said resident Denise Fennelli who saw the birds fall from the sky.

The birds caused a bloody mess on roadways, businesses and residential neighborhoods.

“They’d get up and attempt to fl, but they were out of control so they’d crash and fall again,” said resident Justin Winters. ”It was just strange.  It was like the end of the world or something.”

Commission ornithologist Julie Zeireski said the he birds showed physical trauma,  but had several alien burn markings on their wings.   “I’ve examined thousands of blackbirds in my basement and have never seen anything like this before.”  She first speculated that the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail.  She was wrong.

US Extraterrestrial Expert, General Jim Bellanca of the U.S. Marines, told WWN that the government has confirmed thousands of reports of a UFO in the area, prior to the bird droppings.  “For some reason the UFO decided to open fire on the blackbirds.  We’re not sure what caused them to attack, but it does have us very concerned.”

New Jersey revelers, who were shooting off fireworks in the area, may have confused the aliens.  “They may have thought they were under attack and, as a warning, took out the blackbirds, ” Bellanca said.

There have been an increasing, and alarming, number of UFO reports in the last four months.  The United Nation’s Panel on Extraterrestrials has issued a report outlining an ongoing Alien Invasion – which began in 2011 and will continue until 2015.  This may be the first official shots fired by a UFO on any living animal on Earth.

Robby Planker, a wildlife officer for the CIA, collected about 65 dead birds, which will be sent for testing to the state Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab, housed in the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Planker said that over three dozen New Jersey owls and about fifty Jersey cows were also killed the same night.  All had The Mark of Alien on them. Dr. Susan Begley, the head of the U.N. Panel on Extraterrestrials says that the aliens that killed the birds are from Planet Gootan.  “This is typical Gootan behavior.  We have noticed an increase of Gootan attacks on mammals all across the globe.  We are keeping a close eye on the situation,”  Begley told WWN.

As usual, the government is busy covering up all mention of UFO activity in New Jersey, but Chris Christie reportedly had this comment, “What are you an idiot?  Of course, it was aliens that killed the birds.  What else can it be?  Idiot.”

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