Comedian John Cleese is among the guest celebrities featured during ultra-luxury line Silversea Cruises launch of their newest vessel the Silver Spirit.

The Silver Spirit will embark on a jam-packed 91-day grand inaugural sailing. The voyage begins in Fort Lauderdale on January 21, 2009 and will call upon South American and Mexican ports before transiting the Panama Canal and ending in New York City.

Cleese will be aboard the February 20 segment from Buenos Aires to Santiago. Astronaut Kathryn Sullivan will sail from April 2 on the Los Angeles to New York leg of the voyage.

Silversea Cruises is including four on shore events for passengers booking 70 or more days. They are a naming ceremony gala in Fort Lauderdale on January 20, a polo match in Barbados on January 30, prime seats at the Sambadrome for Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro on February 14 and a Panama hat party in Ecuador’s Montecristi on March 16.

Additionally, all passengers on the grand inaugural voyage get three free ‘Silversea Experiences,’ a children’s ballet performance at the grand Teatro José de Alencar in Fortaleza, Brazil, a visit to one of the world’s largest Magellanic penguin colonies near Camarones, Argentina, and a folkloric presentation in the National Theater of Panama.

Visit Silversea’s Web site for more details.

Roatan, Honduras is the way the Caribbean used to be. Sure it’s technically Central America, but this island is wild, wonderful and is blessed with citizens who are happy to show you the best the area has to offer. Sadly it’s close to getting too popular as both Royal Caribbean and Carnival are building large cruise ship docks with the usual ‘tacketry’ of trinket shops and bongo slapping natives. The key is to get beyond the port to see the real Roatan.

My husband and I opted to skip the SCUBA diving this trip for more active pursuits. We picked Norwegian Pearl’s West Bay kayak, snorkel and hiking tour. After a 20-minute drive from the port of Coxen Hole to West End we were dropped off at a restaurant/bar named Cannibals where the motto is “everyone is welcome for dinner”. Located directly across the street from the beach this was our base to get our gear and have a little lunch.

The snorkeling in Half Moon Bay was excellent as the reef was home to hundreds of colorful fish and eels. The snorkel was quite lengthy and difficult as there was a lot of wind kicking up the seas. Kayaking was harder and a number of couples had difficulty paddling the wind-whipped seas – one kayak overturned. I was surprised NCL had this tour down for 5-years on up. This tour was way too hard on the 7-year-old boy who was with us – he ended up riding with the guide. In my opinion, this tour is best for 12-years on up.

After the kayak we had the option of hanging out on the beach or taking a hike up to a banana plantation. I stayed on the beach as the water was pure heaven. My husband took the 45-minute hike around the banana plantation where he learned about the flora and fauna of the island.

One thing to beware of in Roatan – sand fleas. We learned the hard way last year after a visit. We had hundreds of bites after a day at Tabyana Beach. This time we brought bug spray with us and did not get bit. We shared the spray with our guests who escaped unscathed. Unfortunately, one German newlywed couple didn’t understand what we were telling them about sand fleas and passed on the bug spray. At the end of the day they looked like they had measles.

Medical experts at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital are assessing and treating the injured guests from Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Summit who were involved in a bus crash on the Caribbean island of Dominica Monday.

The 14 tourists were transported from Dominica’s Princess Margaret Hospital to South Florida yesterday onboard three air ambulances and one additional aircraft chartered by Celebrity cruises. A hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday that five of the tourists were listed in critical condition, two in serious, four in fair and one in good condition. Miami television stations are reporting that the injuries range from broken bones to internal injuries to cuts and bruises.

In a statement issued after Tuesday’s bus crash, Celebrity Cruises said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with our injured guests and their families. We’ll continue to do our very best to assist them in the aftermath of this unfortunate incident.”

According to Celebrity Cruises, 16 passengers were injured when their bus apparently lost control and drove into a ditch while it was returning to the ship from a shore excursion. Fourteen of the 16 injured guests from Celebrity Summit who were involved in a bus accident Monday in Roseau, Dominica, will arrive at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami around midnight on Wednesday.

“We are working diligently to further assist our guests in their return to the U.S. and their transition to Jackson Memorial Hospital,” said Dan Hanrahan, president and chief executive officer of Celebrity Cruises. “Our care will be ongoing as we assist them during their time in South Florida and in the process of returning home.”

All 16 guests onboard the bus were immediately transported to the local Princess Margaret Hospital for care.

The passengers sustained injuries, including broken bones, bumps, bruises and lacerations, however, three people were more seriously injured, according to the cruise line. Five of the 16 injured were treated and released from the hospital Monday.

Five staff members from the ship, including a nurse, stayed with the remaining 11 passengers that were hospitalized overnight. Additional personnel, including specially trained members of Celebrity Cruises’ Guest Care Team and an additional nurse arrived in Roseau Tuesday morning to escort the injured passengers and their traveling companions during the flights to South Florida.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with our injured guests and their families,” said Hanrahan in a prepared press release. “We’ll continue to do our very best to assist them in the aftermath of this unfortunate accident.”

The passengers were returning from a Caribbean Cooking Adventure shore excursion, in which they joined local culinary experts to learn how to prepare and present traditional Caribbean dishes. The three-and-a-half hour excursion concluded with a scenic drive through Roseau before returning to the pier.

Celebrity Summit is currently sailing a seven-night Caribbean cruise that departed San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Saturday, February 21, and concludes there on Saturday, February 28. The ships port calls include Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Roseau, Dominica; St. Georges, Granada; Scarborough, Tobago; and Bridgetown, Barbados.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises announced that it has completed the $40 million refurbishments of Seven Seas Mariner and Seven Seas Voyager. The work — which included the creation of a new restaurant, Prime 7 — was completed prior to the start of the world voyages for both 700-passenger ships. Voyager was finished in December, with Mariner just completed, both at Grand Bahama Shipyard.

Prime 7 is the line’s contemporary interpretation of a traditional grill restaurant and replaces Latitudes, which offered an Indochine menu. Other work included the re-design of lounges and public rooms to create more spacious areas for relaxation and the creation of new lounge and dining areas around the Pool Grill.

More casual dining options are now available with the installation of a pizza oven and an ice cream bar. An extended coffee and snack bar area was created on Seven Seas Voyager, similar to the Coffee Connection on Seven Seas Mariner.

The second phase of the refurbishment program, a similar makeover for Seven Seas Navigator, is scheduled for April 2010.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises will include free shore excursions on 35 cruises this year, as part of what it calls “ultra-inclusive” cruise pricing. Regent said it would offer passengers on the 35 trips a choice of at least one free excursion in every port, worth up to several hundred dollars per person per cruise. Complimentary shore excursions include a visit to the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; a countryside fishing and lunch tour in Tallinn, Estonia; a sailing trip in Helsinki, Finland; a visit to Pompeii from Sorrento, Italy; a tour of Mayan ruins in Belize; a visit to the Peace Park in Nagasaki, Japan; and a kangaroos and koalas tour in Melbourne, Australia.