Press Releases

CruiseDirect.com Wins 2024 Magellan Award for Marina: An AI-Powered Journey to the Perfect Cruise

OCTOBER 10, 2024

Morristown, NJ – CruiseDirect.com is proud to have won the prestigious 2024 Travel Weekly Magellan Award in the category of Travel Advisor Organizations in recognition of its cutting-edge AI beta technology, “Marina.” This accolade highlights CruiseDirect’s first significant step into artificial intelligence, underscoring its commitment to innovation and enhancing the customer experience.

While “Marina” is still in beta, CruiseDirect plans a public test launch in November, allowing users to experience firsthand how this AI-driven feature will revolutionize the way cruises are researched and booked. This marks a significant milestone in the company’s ongoing mission to simplify and personalize the cruise planning process.

“We’re thrilled to receive such an esteemed award for ‘Marina,’” said John Maguire, CEO of CruiseDirect.com. “This AI initiative represents a new frontier for us, and we’re confident it will set a new standard in the travel industry. Our goal is to leverage AI to create a more seamless, intuitive, and tailored booking experience for our customers.”

The Travel Weekly Magellan Awards recognize the best in the travel industry across various segments, including hospitality, online travel services, cruise lines, airlines, travel agents, and more. The awards are judged by a distinguished panel of top travel professionals, evaluating entries on their innovative approaches and impact on the industry.

For media inquiries, please contact:

Jope Mendoza | jmendoza@cruisedirect.com

About CruiseDirect

CruiseDirect is an online cruise booking engine that makes the vacation planning process fast and friendly. CruiseDirect uses the latest advances in technology, such as live pricing and availability, to simplify online cruise vacation research, planning, and booking. The CruiseDirect website provides customers with rich, inspiring content to help ease the decision-making process and partners with the best cruise suppliers in the business to ensure that customers will always get the lowest price on their cruise vacations. For more information, please visit https://www.cruisedirect.com/.

About the Travel Weekly Magellan Awards

Travel Weekly is proud to present the Travel Weekly Magellan Awards. From design to marketing to services, the Travel Weekly Magellan Awards honors the best in travel and salutes the outstanding travel professionals behind it all. Winners are featured in an October issue of Travel Weekly that will include a section dedicated to this year’s winners and will also receive a custom produced statuette. More information can be found at https://www.travelweeklyawards.com/winners/.

Our Partners

Cruise Direct and Costa Cruises have enjoyed a longstanding business relationship driven by their team's passion for the industry, their clients and our guests. They are experts at matching their cruise clients to the appropriate product thus insuring an enjoyable and memorable vacation experience. We appreciate their knowledge and enthusiasm for Cruising Italian Style on Costa which has resulted in outstanding customer satisfaction.

‎Scott Knutson

VP Sales & Marketing
Costa Cruises

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International Voyager continues to evolve and excel in a very fast paced and ever changing industry. John Maguire and his team deliver our brand as well as their customers with cutting edge technology and personal touch service. International Voyager’s team is creative, goal driven and will buck the status quo. It is these attributes that distinguish International Voyager from other travel companies and why we hold them in high regard. 

Adolfo Perez

Senior Vice President
Carnival Cruise Line

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International Voyager and Celebrity Cruises have been working together for the last 10 years, and we have been able to forge a successful partnership, mainly due to them having an elite executive team, cutting edge technology and dynamic booking engine. I am confident that this partnership will continue to thrive and evolve for ten more years and beyond.

Dondra Ritzenthaler

Senior Vice President, Sales
Celebrity Cruises

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International Voyager is an incredible partner to Royal Caribbean. They know the importance of having a human touch in this industry, even when operating as an online travel agency. Customer service comes first for them and it’s clearly taken them far. Simply by ensuring that each and every customer is satisfied, they’ve built a following of loyal repeat clients. Royal Caribbean couldn’t ask for a more trusted partner to plan our guests’ crusie vacations.

Vicki Freed

Senior Vice President
Royal Caribbean International

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International Voyager has been a valuable member of Vacation.com and we are very proud of the relationship we share with them. They are very passionate about selling travel and are focused on selling Vacation.com preferred suppliers. They also recognize the value of their Vacation.com membership by taking full advantage of programs we offer. We enjoy working with International Voyager and look forward to continued success.

John Lovell

President
Travel Leaders Network and Leisure Group

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Norwegian Cruise Line has enjoyed a great decade long relationship with International Voyager. They have the unique quality of being able to handle large volume with personal, intimate service because of their flexible technology that matches marketing to customers based on their personal behavior.  The International Voyager team is also one of the most nimble teams in the industry, allowing them to take advantage of our ever-changing environment.

Andy Stuart

Former President & CEO
Norwegian Cruise Line

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