Blogging Cruise, part deux

If you don't know who John Heald is, this may not seem that big of a deal to you.

If you do know John Heald, hang on.

John Heald is the senior cruise director for Carnival who last year started a blog. Starting in May 2007, Heald started writing about his experiences as cruise director, his behind-the-scenes perspectives on the industry, and sometimes hilarious commentaries about life on the high seas and particularly, um, memorable passengers.

What is amazing is that people flocked to his blog. In droves! He has had over 1.4 million hits in his less-than-one-year-old blog. That's amazing. Most people in blogging know how hard it is to get even a thousand hits. Nobody (least of all Heald) expected the phenomenal success.

You can catch his blog at http://www.carnival.com. There's a direct link, but I think it's easier to just go to the main cruise line page and click. You'll see the icon for his blog off to the right.

Anyway, Heald's blog was so much fun that Carnival ran its first-ever bloggers' cruise. That was so successful they have just announced the next one. It's going to be on the Carnival Fantasy with dates of February 7-12, 2009.

The big appeal of this is to blog lovers. Heald will be there in person and there will be a reception where passengers can meet him and have a photo taken with him. Carnival promises some unspecified blog-related "give-aways." Avid readers may be able to walk away with prizes since they're doing blog trivia games.

Now even if you're not a blog reader (yet), you might still want to sign on for this cruise. First of all, it's on Carnival Fantasy. This ship is just getting a massive renovation in the line's Evolution of Fun program. It's expected to unveil with a water park, a redone pool, and completely refurbished staterooms and common rooms. Oh, and a rock wall. But beyond that, Carnival is sketchy with all of the details other than to say that we can expect "innovations."

The cruise is going out of the Big Easy, New Orleans, and what better place to launch a renovated ship than in the renovated city? It's a five-day Gulf of Mexico cruise taking passengers to Progreso and Cozumel.

According to Carnival, they're offering fares on this cruise at $359 a person (you can generally go cheap if you book early) But if you want to sign on to the bloggers cruise (and participate in the Heald-related festivities) book with this fare code: CPBL/FPBL or talk to a Carnival rep in person. Tell them Cruise Line NEWS sent you.