World Cup Fever

The FIFA 2014 world cup is approaching very fast, and I will be watching it from the comfort of my sofa at home but what about cruisers? Many cruise lines will be screening the games live on board such as Cunard, P&O and Celebrity amongst others. You may be able to watch it in your cabin or on a big screen on board or in one of the bars around the ship. The cruise lines are insuring you won’t miss out on one of the biggest sporting event in the world. This is good news to football fans who also like to cruise. The following cruise lines who are offering the World Cup experience:

Crystal Cruises- Guests will be able to enjoy all 64 world cup matches from the comfort of their stateroom on board the Crystal Serenity and Crystal Symphony, while key matches will be screened also in one of the lounges or theatre.

Royal Caribbean- They are partnering with Coca Cola to host the only Coca Cola World Cup party at sea and will screen matches In June and July on board all their ships.

Celebrity Cruises –
will broadcast the FIFA World Cup 2014 live on board its ships sailing to Alaska, Bermuda and Europe. They will screen live all 64 matches between June to July.

P&O- They will screen matches 12th June – 13th July on all their ships.

Cunard- They will screen all live matches throughout the World Cup on their ships, I still remember watching the 1998 World Cup on the old QE2 sailing from Southampton to New York during June that year!

I wonder how the Cruise lines are going to operate during the tournament as they usually run the daily shows that will clash with the live match screening. There will be a huge following for those matches by a lot of Europeans, maybe not so many North Americans and they will be attracted more to the football than say, the shows in the Theatre, while some other ships will screen matches at the theatre as well.

Also what about the time difference? There will be a substantial time difference, as the games are played in Brazil and ships can be anywhere in the world, like Europe and the Far East, in theory the games can be in the middle of the night, or middle of the day , so I wonder how cruise lines will deal with it in general.

One thing for sure I think the drinks will flow around the bars while people are watching and will make the cruise lines a nice profit.

So if you are already booked , no need to worry about missing the football, and if you are looking for a cruise in June, make sure you are going on one of the ships that is showing the matches (most of them are). I am looking forward to watch most matches!