January 14, 2005

Timestravel

Carnival Valor first cruise ship to offer 100 percent bow-to-stern passenger wireless Internet access

By Sean Eastwood
Staff Writer

Carnival Cruise Lines’ new cruise ship, Carnival Valor, is the first cruise ship to offer 100 percent bow-to-stern wireless Internet access. Carnival Valor sails from Miami, alternating weekly to the eastern and western Caribbean.

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) recently announced it will build two new ships for delivery in 2007.

Unlike other cruise ships that have designated Wi-Fi hotspot areas, Carnival Valor will feature ship-wide wireless Internet capability, enabling guests to use laptop computers to access the Internet from every public area, including all lounges, bars and pool decks, as well as any of the ship’s 1,487 staterooms.

Wi-Fi is a huge consumer trend, appearing in more places than ever, and Carnival Valor’s new ship-wide wireless Internet service offers our guests unprecedented convenience and connectivity at sea.

Carnival’s in-house network engineers and Cisco Systems, Inc designed the new system. The capability to provide highly secure Wi-Fi access throughout Carnival Valor was accomplished with Cisco Aironet 1230G Series IEEE 802.11bpg Access Points (AP) compliant with the 802.11g 54 mbps standard. For the ship-wide Wi-Fi Hotspots, Cisco Catalyst® 6509 Series Switches provide switching capability at the core.

For more information and reservations, call Let’s Travel (408) 972-0773.

Celebrity Cruise sending ship to Europe

Celebrity Cruises will send a fourth ship to Europe next summer. The 1,750-passenger Century, previously scheduled to sail 9- and 10-night Caribbean cruises next spring and summer, will join Celebrity’s Constellation, Galaxy and Millennium in Europe.

The ship will sail a special 14-night Trans-Atlantic cruise departing from Fort Lauderdale May 7, and then sail a series of 12-night Baltic cruises round-trip from Amsterdam, one cruise to the Norwegian Fjords and 10- and 11-night Mediterranean cruises. The ship will return to Fort Lauderdale in October for alternating 9- and 10-night Caribbean cruises.

For more information and reservations, call Let’s Travel (408) 972-0773. Bookings begin Jan. 5.

Norwegian Cruise Line to build two new ships

Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) recently announced it will build two new ships for delivery in 2007. One will be a sister ship of Norwegian Jewel, which enters service next August, a variation of Norwegian Star and Norwegian Dawn.

The as yet unnamed ship will be delivered in February 2007. The second vessel is a new design, combining the features of NCL’s Freestyle Cruising ships introduced since 2001.

This vessel will have 2,430 berths and all outside staterooms and suites will have private balconies—a total of 840. The Aker Finnyards in Helsinki Finland will build this ship for delivery in May 2007.

For more information and reservations, call Let’s Travel (408) 972-0773.