blog post

While fine dining has always been a hallmark of cruising, cruise lines are just now enthusiastically catching up with their passengers in appreciating fine wines!  As examples, Princess is now offering gourmet wine-tasting and food-pairing events, and Holland America Line has added wine-tasting rooms alongside their famous Pinnacle Grill specialty restaurants.

Many shore excursion operators have added winery tours; and repositioning cruises along the West Coast are focusing on ports-of-call such as Santa  Barbara and San Francisco, where passengers can easily spend the day visiting world-class wineries.

Silversea and Regent Seven Seas are luxury cruise lines that have gone all-inclusive, and they go way beyond just offering a mediocre "house wine with dinner."  They also offer wine-theme cruises on some of their Mediterranean itineraries that make stops in France and Italy.

Overall, cruise lines are improving the quality of their wine lists and moderating prices, to encourage guest to go ahead and try something new.  Even the so-called mass-market lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean are paying attention.  They have added shipboard wine stewards who are making suggestions for pairing the right wines with the chefs' daily offerings, and they have expanded their selections to include fine wines from around the world.

These improvements are a welcome development, because just as travel represents one of the finer things in life, so should the wine!  Bon voyage and salud!