Power Cruising
Yeah, baby: Next Royal Caribbean cruise ship will have a nursery
Submitted by admin on Wed, 10/22/2008 - 13:28.
USA Today -- Royal Caribbean's much-ballyhooed Oasis of the Seas will have a
full-blown baby nursery on board -- a first for the line as it caters
ever more to families with young children. The specially-staffed Royal Babies and Tots Nursery, as it's being
called, will welcome babies as young as six months old and is just part
of a massive children's area the line is unveiling online tonight for
the 5,400-passenger vessel -- the largest ever built. READ MORE
Post to TwitterHurricane Omar forces more cruise ships to change course
Submitted by admin on Wed, 10/15/2008 - 14:56.
USA Today -- A rapidly strengthening Hurricane Omar is forcing more cruise ships
to switch course today as it barrels towards some of the Caribbean's
most popular ports. Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess and the Disney Cruise Line have all rerouted ships over the last 24 hours as the Category 1 storm bears down on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Several vessels, including the Carnival Triumph, Crown Princess and
Mariner of the Seas, are switching to Western Caribbean itineraries for
the week in lieu of Eastern Caribbean itineraries. READ MORE Rockin' the boat: How a musician strummed through Sydney Harbour in his floating guitar
Submitted by admin on Wed, 10/15/2008 - 13:33.
www.dailymail.co.uk -- (Sydney) Singer-songwriter Josh Pyke might have considered playing an upbeat
version of Handel's Water Music as he sailed across Sydney Harbour -
but he was too busy keeping his floating guitar under control. Tourists
stared in amazement as Josh steered the large guitar, complete with
outboard motor, around the harbour, creating one of the strangest
sights since the arrival of the First Fleet from England back in 1788. READ MORE
Go Boating ... and Forget the Gas
Submitted by admin on Tue, 10/14/2008 - 19:46.Classism making a comeback on cruise ships
Submitted by admin on Tue, 10/14/2008 - 14:19.
The Chicago Tribune -- One-class cruising could be bound for extinction. If Adam
Goldstein, president of Royal Caribbean International, speaks for the
future of cruising, traveling aboard ship may one day be akin to flying
the unfriendly skies, meaning you'll sail by class in first, business
or coach. At a recent Seatrade industry conference in Miami
Beach, Goldstein acknowledged that on today's ships, passengers are
more or less created equal whether they book an inside cabin or suite
with veranda. But this is changing, he said. "The 21st Century
guests, who are prepared to pay top dollar to be in the better
accommodations onboard all of our ships, do not accept that once they
step outside their door, they are on the same footing as everybody
else," he explained. "They expect special treatment outside the
staterooms." READ MOREAlaska cruise ship comes to rest on sandbar; second incident for the company in 6 months
Submitted by admin on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 16:45.
Professional Mariner -- Already undergoing a U.S. Coast Guard safety review because of previous
incidents, Cruise West 
Enterprises had another of its vessels run
aground in July off Alaska.
The 178-foot cruise ship Spirit of Glacier Bay grounded on a sandbar in Tarr Inlet near Glacier Bay National Park on July 7. It was the second grounding of one the company’s ships in just over a month. The Coast Guard is reviewing Cruise West’s safety and maintenance procedures following three mechanical failures and the grounding of Spirit of Alaska on June 4.
Coast Guard Station Juneau reported that the Spirit of Glacier Bay incident occurred at 0747, with no breach of the hull. No injuries were reported among the 51 people onboard.
Cruise ships cited for pollution at Juneau
Submitted by admin on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 13:53.
www.fortmilltimes.com -- (JUNEAU, Alaska)
The state has issued six more notices for cruise ship wastewater pollution at Juneau.
That brings the total number of violations for the year to 15, with the Department of Environmental Conservation still evaluating September samples.
This is the first year the cruise ships have been regulated under a wastewater discharge permit required by a 2006 initiative. The ship standards are more strict than those for cities.In the latest citations, ships exceeded limits on zinc, copper and ammonia. Ammonia is found in urine. Copper and zinc may come from the ship's pipes.
World's biggest cruise ship squeezes out of dock
Submitted by admin on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 16:26.
www.nation.com -- It might be time for the phrase: ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’ to enter retirement.
For this mighty vessel, the largest ever passenger ship, dwarfs all that stands next to it, making the thousands of spectators which came to see it’s launch look little more than ants as they waved the graceful ship out of the port.
The 315m-long ship is so wide it barely squeezed out of the Papenberg watergates, but ably helped by two tug-boats it escaped on it’s to the North sea, where it will head to Denmark. She is one of five Solstice ships launching between now and 2012, and can carry nearly 3,000 passengers. And, after thousands of years, landlubbers might be able to escape their phobia of the sea... This cruiser is the first one to boast an authentic grass lawn on its top deck. The ship is ‘virtually complete’ - 98 per cent, to be exact - and is on track for it’s November debut, when it will begin life as a U.S. cruise ship.
Boaters finally can wave goodbye to Ill. River
Submitted by admin on Wed, 10/01/2008 - 15:49.
(AP) -- Wayne Pritchard's itinerary for his intercontinental boating adventure
might stoke envy — 13 days near Ottawa, a long weekend 
docked in
Havana. The only trouble is that both locales are in Illinois.
For several weeks, Pritchard and dozens of other boaters taking part in a yearlong trek snaking around eastern North America have been held hostage, of sorts, in the Land of Lincoln, unable to get off the rain-swollen Illinois River because the Coast Guard had closed off lower portions of it for safety reasons.
The Coast Guard finally opened up the final 20-mile stretch Monday, urging the bottlenecked boaters to take it slow, keeping the wakes in check.
Rejoicing boaters, who'd been slowed by the aftermath of Hurricane Ike's remnants that pounded the Midwest this month, didn't need to hear that twice.
"It's a happy moment when they clear the waterway and all the boats can get under way," Pritchard told a reporter by cell phone aboard the Seguey, which he expected to keep docked for a third day in Havana, Ill., before continuing his circumnavigation Tuesday to his home in Knoxville, Tenn.
Galveston moves forward on cruise terminal repairs
Submitted by admin on Thu, 09/25/2008 - 15:00.
www.bizjournals.com -- The Port of Galveston expects to have both of its cruise ship terminals in operation by Oct. 1, a port official said Wednesday.
Gerald Sullivan, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Galveston Wharves, which oversees port operations, said crews are working around the clock on the damaged terminal buildings. The first ship scheduled to depart after that target date is the Ecstacy, operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, on Oct. 4.
The Port of Houston Authority agreed to divert Carnival Cruise Line ships to its newly opened Bayport Cruise Terminal after Hurricane Ike smashed into the Gulf Coast on Sept. 13. Hundreds of cruise ship customers’ vehicles left that weekend in Galveston’s port parking lots were destroyed or damaged by the massive storm surge.
Galveston’s port has re-opened to smaller vessels while dredging issues are being worked out. Although access to Pelican Island had been cut off the week after the hurricane roared through, Sullivan said one of the port’s key Pelican Island tenants, Gulf Copper & Marine, re-opened on Sept. 22 with limited operations.
