One of the must-see destinations in Australia is the Great Barrier Reef, sometimes called the eighth natural wonder of the world. Listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site, the marine park stretches about 1,250 nautical miles, from neighboring Papua New Guinea down the eastern shores of Australia to Lady Elliott Island off Bundaberg, about halfway down the coast of the state of Queensland. In area, the park is about half the size of Texas.

Royal Caribbean International has been selected as the best cruise line in Norway, for the 14th consecutive year, by the Norwegian travel industry in its annual Grand Travel Awards.

Oceania Cruises will launch its largest sales promotion in the line’s history on January 7, with savings of up to 72 percent on select sailings. The sales event comes on the heels of Oceania’s fifth anniversary.

With Carnival Cruise Lines expecting to welcome some 600,000 children aboard its ships this year –a six-fold increase from 12 years ago- and other lines reporting more and more families sailing with them each year, children’s facilities and programs at sea are seeing significant enhancements –everything from special enrichment activities to themed sailings to water parks onboard.

Coral Princess Cruises has announced that fuel surcharges for all its voyages will be abolished for departures on or after February 1, 2009. Coral Princess was one of the last cruise operators, world-wide, to impose a surcharge in August, 2008 and has moved quickly –in light of reductions in diesel fuel costs- to be one of the first cruise operators to lift it.

Indian Ocean Cruises from Foresight Smart Ventures, the flagship company of the $500 million London based Foresight Shipping Group has entered into a strategic partnership with Europe’s second largest travel firm Thomas Cook Group plc.