If you don't know who John Heald is, this may not seem that big of a deal to you.<br /><br />If you do know John Heald, hang on.<br /><br />John Heald is the senior cruise director for Carnival who last year started a blog. Starting in May 2007, Heald started writing about his experiences as cruise director, his behind-the-scenes perspectives on the industry, and sometimes hilarious commentaries about life on the high seas and particularly, um, memorable passengers.<br /><br />What is amazing is that people flocked to his blog. In droves! He has had over 1.4 million hits in his less-than-one-year-old blog. That's amazing. Most people in blogging know how hard it is to get even a thousand hits. Nobody (least of all Heald) expected the phenomenal success.<br /><br />You can catch his blog at <a href="http://www.carnival.com/">http://www.carnival.com</a>. There's a direct link, but I think it's easier to just go to the main cruise line page and click. You'll see the icon for his blog off to the right.<br /><br />Anyway, Heald's blog was so much fun that Carnival ran its first-ever bloggers' cruise. That was so successful they have just announced the next one. It's going to be on the Carnival Fantasy with dates of February 7-12, 2009.<br /><br />The big appeal of this is to blog lovers. Heald will be there in person and there will be a reception where passengers can meet him and have a photo taken with him. Carnival promises some unspecified blog-related "give-aways." Avid readers may be able to walk away with prizes since they're doing blog trivia games.<br /><br />Now even if you're not a blog reader (yet), you might still want to sign on for this cruise. First of all, it's on Carnival Fantasy. This ship is just getting a massive renovation in the line's Evolution of Fun program. It's expected to unveil with a water park, a redone pool, and completely refurbished staterooms and common rooms. Oh, and a rock wall. But beyond that, Carnival is sketchy with all of the details other than to say that we can expect "innovations."<br /><br />The cruise is going out of the Big Easy, New Orleans, and what better place to launch a renovated ship than in the renovated city? It's a five-day Gulf of Mexico cruise taking passengers to Progreso and Cozumel.<br /><br />According to Carnival, they're offering fares on this cruise at $359 a person (you can generally go cheap if you book early) But if you want to sign on to the bloggers cruise (and participate in the Heald-related festivities) book with this fare code: CPBL/FPBL or talk to a Carnival rep in person. Tell them Cruise Line NEWS sent you.