Celebrity Cruises has announced plans to resume New York/Bermuda cruises in 2010 when Celebrity Summitrepositions from San Juan to Cape Liberty (Bayonne), NJ.  Beginning April 17, 2010, the ship will sail on seven day cruises from New York docking in King’s Wharf where passengers board water taxis to visit Hamilton and other popular destinations in [...]

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Carnival Cruise Lines is pulling Carnival Liberty from Europe where the ship was schedule to sail on 2009 cruises.  The ship instead will sail year-round from Miami on seven-day voyages beginning April, 2009.   In addition, Carnival Pride, currently based in Long Beach, Calif., and originally scheduled to shift to Miami for a five-month Caribbean deployment [...]

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The pace of cruise lines’ increasing “Homeland Cruising” options intensifies with Celebrity Cruises’ announcement of revised itineraries for Millennium and Mercury that include departures from Baltimore and Charleston. At the same time, Celebrity has cancelled late-2009 and 2010 Australia and New Zealand itineraries on Millennium
CELEBRITY MILLENNIUM TAKES ON CELEBRITY MERCURY’S ROUTE

The 2,038-passenger Millennium will cap [...]

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*** Carnival Corporation, which operates the Grand Turk Cruise Center, announced that the port facilities will reopen Oct. 8, 2008.   Due to damage during Hurricane Ike,  passenger ships will be unable to use the facility until repairs take place.  Carnival Destiny will return to the island Oct. 8.
– Cruise West, which operates a fleet of [...]

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Even I get the chills when almost daily headlines proclaim increasingly dire forecasts for the airline industry.  The cruise industry is heavily dependent on air traffic and even before the fuel increase, had a hard time getting seats for all the passengers who fly to a ship’s home port to take a cruise.
In USA Today [...]

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While the summer is typically a slow time for cruise industry news, I’ve managed to come up with a few intriuging tid bits.
__ While most cruise passengers have tried cruise ships’ alternative restaurant, where a more tony dining experience comes with a small surcharge of up to $20, Crystal Cruises has upped the ante quite a bit.  [...]

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Art Auctions are such a big source of profit for the cruise lines that the “galleries” art located in a central area of public space and they are heavily promoted in daily programs.  In a New York Times article, passengers who are less than satisfied with the purchase of art when they arrive home sometimes turn [...]

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It seems like only yesterday when crude oil hit the $100 per barrel mark but it is around $133 now with analysts predicting it may continue to climb.  And, American Airlines announced that, effective June 15, it will begin charging $15 for the first checked bag on domestic flights. American will further cut costs by firing thousands of employees [...]

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Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) gave journalists a state of the cruise industry report today and, in short, everything is going gangbusters. 
In 2007, 12.52 million people took a cruise worldwide, an increase of 4.6% over the previous year.   Occupancy averaged 105% (including third- and fourth-berth passengers); that number is expected to increase “slightly” in 2008. 
In 2008, CLIA-member cruise [...]

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Since the cruise industry takes the week between Christmas and New Years as vacation, I must rely on the general media for news.  Cruise ships and Paris Hilton are similar: anything that happens is big news.   
Apparently the British consider a ship cursed if the bottle of champagne smacked against the hull fails to break.  So imagine the British press’ [...]

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