Azamara Club Cruises to star in new UKTV show

Wildlife enthusiast and TV presenter Nigel Marven is to host a new Cruise Ship Adventures show on UKTV’s entertainment channel Watch this May.

Opening with a Caribbean voyage, the TV series will follow Marven as he joins Azamara Club Cruises’ boutique cruise ships on itineraries in Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, Central America, the Indian Ocean and Antarctica. Throughout his journey – which will be broadcast over six episodes between 5 May and 10 June – Marven introduces the crew, passengers and viewers to a range of animals including the world’s only beer-drinking pigs, minke whales and white-beaked dolphins, flying foxes, urban leopards, manta rays, Gentoo penguins, rheas and more.

Marven first proposed the idea for the TV series after he spontaneously took 30 passengers to find the rare Priolo bullfinch while he was on an Azamara voyage that called in Azores, Portugal.

“The whole ship was abuzz with excitement about the excursion and I suddenly realised that while passengers enjoy visiting the usual UNESCO World Heritage sites and famous landmarks, many of them are also interested in seeing wild animals in their natural habitat,” explains Marven.

He then realised that similar excursions could be offered on many of Azamara’s popular itineraries. “Azamara calls at Mumbai in India, which is only 20 miles from the highest density of leopards in world, while its calls in Sri Lanka could include blue whale-watching in the morning and a trip to the jungle to see Asian elephants in the afternoon.” Although cruise ships have been used to film reality TV and wildlife shows in the past, Marven explains that Cruise Ship Adventures is the first programme where the vessels play an integral role, rather simply serving as a means to get to the destinations.

“Whenever possible, we filmed animals with the ship in the background, took animals onboard and even managed to record albatrosses from the back of the vessel,” he says. “One moment viewers can watch the ship’s captain wrestle an alligator and the next, they can see me relax on a luxurious cruise ship and it’s this contrast that will make the series unique.”

However, the main priority for Cruise Ship Adventures was to show that cruise passengers do not need to go on an expedition cruise with a group of naturalists to see wildlife, they can find it on any normal cruise itinerary if they know where to look.

“We wanted to show that while Azamara takes people to many of the world’s most famous tourist attractions, its itineraries also enable them to experience these destinations in an unusual way,” Marven says.

For example, in Copenhagen, Azamara’s passengers were able to see landmarks such as Tivoli Gardens and then travel to a forest on the outskirts of the Danish capital to see the Purple Emperor butterfly. Meanwhile, when the ship visited Greece, Marven took a group to see a flock of griffin vultures in Crete, helped the crew to rescue loggerhead turtle babies in Olympia, and found a parliament of small owls near the Acropolis in Athens. “Like hundreds of other people we saw the Acropolis, but we also discovered more about the history of the temple and the owls, as well as the fact that the first doubled-sided coin featured an image of the goddess Athena onvideo sesso one side and her owl on the other, prompting the term ‘heads or tails’,” says Marven.

However, one of the destinations Marven believes viewers will find most surprising is Venice in Italy. “Everyone knows about the city’s history and architecture, but very few people realise that some of the world’s most peculiar fish live just a stone’s throw from St Mark’s Square in Venice Lagoon,” he says, explaining cicciolina pompini that a local fish expert helped the group to find pregnant pipefish. “Some of my favourite moments during filming included watching people enjoy interacting with nature, such as when the ship’s captain helped to catch a cobra in India, and when passengers visited a sloth sanctuary in Port Limone, Costa Rica.”

It is these moments of joy and unexpected surprise that Marven and the Azamara team believe will keep viewers hooked throughout the series and raise the profile of cruising.

“People who have never cruised will be amazed at how much timematura porno they actually have to explore destinations when their ship is in port, while regular cruisers will be astounded by the peculiar creatures we encounter in visits to ports of call,” says Marven. “From the food and the luxurious accommodation, to the itineraries, the overnights and shore excursions, and the friendly crew, you can’t beat a cruise with Azamara.”

Azamara plans to offer future voyages following similar routes and calling at some of the destinations shown in the TV series. Marven will also meet with the line’s itinerary planners to discuss whether any of the expeditions featured in the programme, or any others, can be offered on a long-term basis.

“Nigel’s enthusiasm for exploration and discovery goes hand-in-hand with the experiences Azamara is committed to offering our guests and we hope that Cruise Ship Adventures will inspire culture-seekers to consider future adventures with us,” says Richard Twynam, managing director of UK and Ireland at Azamara. “The TV series highlights Azamara’s unique selling point, which is that our small ships offer extended port stays or gruppo porno overnights in 60% of the ports we visit, while our night tours enable guests to fully immerse themselves in the destinations. Most of the guest feedback that we’ve collegio porno had so far has been how fantastic it is for guests to be able to use our ships to get close to such incredible wildlife, visit amazing places and find out more about the world.”