Learn to Document Your Travels with Crystal Cruises and Travel Channel Academy

I love it when a luxury cruise line dreams up a really fun program for passengers—something that will add a unique perspective to their voyage and give them plenty of stories to tell their friends when they return home. Crystal Cruises has announced a very compelling program for its February 9, 2010, 21-day Cape Town to Mumbai "Safari and Saris" World Cruise segment.

Crystal is teaming up with the Travel Channel Academy that teaches travelers to use computers, cameras, video cameras, and editing software to document their journeys around the world. This is the first time this program has been offered at sea but I'm sure it's going to be a hit. (Travel Channel Academy classes routinely sell out on land and have been offered in places like New York City, Washington, D.C., and Santa Barbara, CA.)

“Storytelling is one of the great joys of travel,” says Thomas Mazloum, Crystal’s senior vice president of hotel operations. “This Crystal Cruises filmmaking experience is the kind of sophisticated enrichment our guests appreciate, enabling them to professionally document, relive, and share the intangible adventures that inspire them to travel.”

Via personalized and group instruction from nine Travel Channel professionals, guests will learn both the basic processes and finer nuances of developing travel documentaries, using their own adventures and stories as subject matter, during two distinct, comprehensive classes in travel filmmaking. The “Master Class” is a three-week intensive session during which participants will shoot, edit and produce two individual one-minute films, plus a three-minute group effort. The week-long option, “How to Make Great Travel Videos,” teaches the same skills in producing professional short travel videos, and help guests develop their own one-minute project.

Each person will have the opportunity to play the role of director, cameraperson, writer, and editor, with the best videos selected at an awards ceremony during the cruise and shown on the Travel Channel Academy in-stateroom TV network. Guests can also submit their completed works to the Travel Channel and possibly showcase them on one of the network’s many outlets. Master Class students will also learn how to market their documentaries.

No experience or technical knowledge is necessary to enroll in the program. Included in the $1,995 cost for the three-week course is hands-on training with Travel Channel Academy experts; and all equipment, including cameras, Apple computers, and Final Cut Pro video editing software, all of which runs several hundred dollars extra for the land-based course. Guests can opt for the shorter class for $495. Pre-registration is encouraged, as space is extremely limited.

In addition to Cape Town and Mumbai, the voyage visits Durban and Port Elizabeth, South Africa; Zanzibar, Tanzania; Mahé/Victoria, Seychelles; Malé, Republic of Maldives; and Cochin and Marmagao, India. With two-for-one fares, the 21-day cruise starts at $13,190 per person, double occupancy, and offers a $500 per person ‘All Inclusive – As You Wish’ spending credit. Free air is included if the voyage is combined with another World Cruise segment.

For more information, contact your travel agent or Crystal Cruises at (888) 799-4625.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxuryCruiseBible.com