Norwegian Offers New a La Carte Sushi Menu Fleetwide

September 18, 2011
Norwegian Cruise Line is rolling out its a la carte sushi menu fleetwide. Previously only available on Norwegian Epic, the menu is now or will soon be offered on all ships except for Norwegian Sky. The extensive menu, which features sushi, sashimi, light appetizers and desserts, will also be offered as a lunch option on embarkation and sea days. The pricing is per item with dishes averaging $4.
Sushi was previously served as a menu option in the Asian restaurants onboard the ships. Now, the sushi bar will be considered a separate restaurant and serve the new a la carte menu. Appetizers include edamame, miso soup and sesame seaweed salad. Sushi selections include the Godzilla Roll, a roll with sweet shrimp, mango, avocado, caramelized cashews and coconut, and the Dynamite Roll with yellowtail, salmon, green onion, and maki tempura style. Also offered are sushi and sashimi of yellow fin tuna, octopus and salmon.
The sushi a la carte menu is available on Norwegian Dawn, Norwegian Jade, Norwegian Jewel, Norwegian Star, Pride of America, Norwegian Gem, Norwegian Pearl and Norwegian Spirit. It will be available on Norwegian Sun on Oct. 5. For more information, call the Cruise Outlet at 203-288-1884
　
　
　
　
　

Royal Caribbean Apologizes for Stranding Passengers in San Juan September 07, 2011

By Theresa Norton Masek
Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Adam Goldstein, in his blog, apologized to passengers who missed their ship in San Juan after it was forced to depart early due to Hurricane Irene. As the storm approached, the Port Authority in San Juan ordered Serenade of the Seas to depart early and 150 people missed the ship. Royal Caribbean assisted those passengers that had booked the lines Choice Air, but others were on their own to find hotel accommodations and flights to the next port of call. A similar situation befell Carnival, which found hotels and flights for its 300 passengers, leaving Royal Caribbean open to widespread criticism. In his blog, Goldstein wrote: Although our standard position for weather-related disruptions is to encourage guests to work directly with their air carriers in reaching the ship, in the case of Serenade of the Seas in San Juan, we should have recognized immediately that the forced departure of the ship, albeit out of our control, created an out-of-the-norm situation. Although more than half of the 150 guests who missed the ship in San Juan were able to join Serenade in Aruba, earlier recognition would have resulted in us providing the best and fastest alternative travel arrangements to reach the ship and also providing more support in San Juan and/or over the phone for hotel and other arrangements. Goldstein said all guests who missed Serenade of the Seas in San Juan received compensation equivalent to the number of days they missed of that voyage. Although we have heard from very few of the affected guests, I apologize on behalf of Royal Caribbean that our situation awareness was not at its customary high level, he wrote. We have learned some valuable lessons for the future

Royal Caribbean Changes Course, Compensates Stranded Passengers

Royal Caribbean International has changed course and now will compensate passengers who missed their ship in San Juan due to an early departure forced by Hurricane Irene. The company now says it will give each guest who missed the Serenade of the Seas, but boarded later, with a future cruise certificate for 30 percent of the cruise fare paid for their sailing "as a gesture of goodwill."
The company also said it was contacting guests who completely missed their cruise to offer an undisclosed compensation, saying it "would prefer that the impacted guests learn of the amount directly from the line before it is disclosed publicly. We are compensating these passengers because we understand that this was an unusual situation, and we want to provide our guests with another opportunity to sail with Royal Caribbean International in the near future."
The incident occurred Aug. 21 when Serenade of the Seas, which was scheduled to depart at 8:30 p.m. was ordered by the Port of San Juan to leave at 5:30 p.m. in advance of Hurricane Irene. Therefore, 145 guests who had not re-embarked were left behind. Royal Caribbean provided 15 of the passengers, who had booked their air travel via the line, with hotel accommodations in San Juan for Monday evening, as well as a flight to Aruba on Tuesday, where they re-joined the ship. The cruise line also notified the 130 passengers who paid cruise-only fares and booked their air separately of hotel availability in San Juan, but said the expense was their responsibility, since it was a weather-related event. They also were responsible for their own air to re-join the ship.
"Since this decision was made by the Port of San Juan on Sunday while the ship was docked alongside, there was no way to notify our guests of this change in departure time," Royal Caribbean said at the time in a statement.
Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise Lines’ Carnival Victory was forced to depart San Juan about four hours ahead of schedule, stranding about 300 passengers at the port. However, about half were able to meet up with the ship at its next port call in Barbados. For those who were unable to board ship, Carnival provided a complimentary, two-night hotel stay in San Juan and complimentary air transportation to Barbados. Guests who did not have passports in their possession could not proceed to Barbados and missed the full voyage.

Hurricane Irene Sends Cruise Ships Scattering in the Caribbean

(Updated 7:30 a.m. EDT) -- Irene, the ninth named storm of the 2011 Atlantic Hurricane Season, strengthened to hurricane force overnight, prompting a number of Eastern Caribbean islands to issue storm watches and warnings and sparking itinerary changes by Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean.
According to the National Hurricane Center's 7 a.m. EDT advisory, Irene is some 40 miles west-northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Maximum sustained winds from the storm have reached 75 mph, and the storm is expected to intensify.

Cruise Ship Itinerary Changes
Royal Caribbean has reversed the itinerary for Oasis of the Seas, which left Fort Lauderdale on Saturday for a week-long Western Caribbean cruise. The ship will now spend Sunday at sea; visit Cozumel on Monday; spend Tuesday at sea; call on Falmouth, Jamaica on Wednesday; and visit Labadee, the line's private peninsula, on Thursday. Oasis will spend Friday at sea before returning to Fort Lauderdale on Saturday as scheduled.

Freedom of the Seas, which left Sunday from Port Canaveral on a week-long Western Caribbean cruise, will also sail a reversed itinerary. The ship will now call on Cozumel (Tuesday), Grand Cayman (Wednesday), Falmouth, Jamaica (Thursday) and Labadee (Friday).

Oasis' sister ship, Allure of the Seas will visit all the ports originally scheduled on its week-long Caribbean cruise, but in a slightly different order. The ship will now call on Nassau, Bahamas on Saturday instead of Monday. Visits to St. Thomas (Wednesday) and St. Maarten (Thursday) will take place as planned.

Royal Caribbean has scrambled the order for Serenade of the Seas' seven-night Southern Caribbean cruise, which left from San Juan, Puerto Rico on Sunday. The ship will now visit Aruba (Tuesday), Curacao (Wednesday), St. Kitts (Friday) and St. Thomas (Saturday).
Carnival Miracle, which embarked from New York on an eight-night Eastern Caribbean cruise on Thursday, will be sailing an altered itinerary. Instead of visiting San Juan, St. Thomas and Grand Turk, the ship will call on Grand Turk (Monday) and Half Moon Cay (Tuesday).

Weather Outlook: Possible Affected Ships and Ports

The latest NHC projections show the storm passing through Puerto Rico early early Monday before reaching the east coast of the Dominican Republic midday Monday. A hurricane warning is in effect for Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and tropical storm warnings are in place for the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, and Haiti.

Legislation aims to lure cruise industry to Brownsville and the coast

by Steve Clark of the The Brownsville Herald
BROWNSVILLE -- It’s possible to board a cruise ship at any one of 11 ports in the United States and sail anywhere — except to another U.S. port, unless you stop in a foreign country first. That is, unless the cruise ship was built in the United States, is registered in the United States, is U.S.-owned, and is captained and crewed by U.S. citizens. In that case, a cruise ship can sail back and forth between U.S. ports until its propellers fall off. Trouble is, there aren’t any — U.S.-built cruise ships, that is. The last American-built cruise ship, SS The Emerald, built in the late 1950s, was pulled out of service in the past couple of years and is "laid up" in Greece. Who cares? Congressman Blake Farenthold, for one. He says a law enacted 90 years ago to support the U.S. maritime industry now impedes tourism-related economic development in U.S. port cities — including Brownsville and Corpus Christi, both within Farenthold’s congressional district — by making it illegal for foreign-flagged, built and crewed cargo and passenger ships to travel between U.S. ports without making a foreign stop along the way. The culprit is Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. Section 27 is known in nautical circles as the Jones Act. The Jones Act, whose passenger provision actually dates back to the Passenger Vessel Service Act of 1886, wasn’t specifically intended to keep cruise ships from calling at consecutive U.S. ports. But since the United States doesn’t build cruise ships anymore, that might as well have been the intention. So Farenthold introduced House Resolution 2460, the Creating and Restoring U.S. Investment and Stimulating Employment (CRUISE) Act, which would amend U.S. maritime law to allow foreign cruise ships to call at multiple U.S. ports consecutively. Farenthold noted that in 2009 alone, the cruise industry generated more than 15,000 jobs and $788 million in Texas, or rather Galveston. The Port of Galveston is a cruise line "home port" and the only Texas port currently servicing cruise ships. However, he believes Brownsville and Corpus Christi could benefit substantially, even as just ports-of-call. Farenthold said a 2,500-passenger cruise ship can potentially generate as much as $36,000 in onshore spending per U.S. port call. The Texas Legislature last session passed Senate Concurrent Resolution 5, or the Cruise Ship Industry Study Bill, which calls for the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the Texas House "to provide for a joint interim legislative study regarding the development of the cruise industry on the Texas coast between Calhoun and Cameron counties and its potential economic impact." The bill notes that Florida and California, in that order, benefit most from the North American cruise industry, with each state operating five ports for cruise ships. Besides Galveston, SCR 5 argues that three Texas major deepwater ports between Cameron and Calhoun counties are capable of serving as cruise line headquarters or ports of embarkation. One is Brownsville. The others are Port Lavaca, about 80 miles north of Corpus Christi, and Corpus Christi itself. Ralph Cowen, Port of Brownsville commissioner and vice chairman, said changing the law to allow foreign-flagged cruise ships to dock at consecutive U.S. ports would be a positive thing for the Gulf’s deepwater ports, including Brownsville, which has the added draw of South Padre Island. "There are a lot of interesting cruises that could happen if we could do that," he said. "It would be very helpful." However, any attempt to completely gut the Jones Act would likely be met with stiff opposition from U.S.-owned ferry companies and the union that represents crews, since the Jones Act shields them from foreign competition, Cowen said. He said that any changes would have to take ferries and the union into account "to have a chance of passage." The Port of Brownsville already has been studying the possibility of attracting cruise ships as a port-of-call. Officials from the port, Cameron County, Brownsville, Harlingen, Port Isabel and South Padre Island in 2009 formed the Cruise Line Committee, which commissioned a $25,000 feasibility study. The study, completed about a year ago, determined that attracting cruise ships to Brownsville is feasible. Since then, the committee has met with and corresponded with representatives from the cruise industry in order to "plant a seed" — also suggesting Brownsville as an alternate port in the event of hurricanes. It took the Port of Galveston 12 years to land its first cruise ship, beating out the Port of Houston, which built a $100 million cruise ship facility that sits unused. Now Galveston is hosting 12 cruise ships a week, which translates into enormous revenues. Disney Cruise Line announced last spring it would begin sailing its vessel the Disney Magic out of Galveston in 2012 for seven-night cruises to the Western Caribbean. "If we could get one ship a week that’s all we need," Cowen said. "That’s 16,000 people a month. That’s like having a major convention or two every week. Every time one of those ships come in, the amount of money it brings to a community is just a huge shot in the arm."　

Oceania Replaces Med with Canada/New England for Fall 2012

Oceania Cruises will offer Canada and New England cruises for fall 2012 in place of previously scheduled Mediterranean voyages. In total, nine itineraries have been changed. Our 2011 Fall Foliage cruises have been so well received by our travel agent partners and their clients that we decided to redeploy Regatta from Europe to Canada and New England in fall 2012, stated Bruce J. Himelstein, Oceania Cruises president. These new voyages offer exceptional value with two-for-one fares and free roundtrip air."

Norwegian Updates Tobacco Policy, Bans Smoking in Staterooms

Norwegian Cruise Line adjusted its smoking fleetwide, banning smoking in staterooms starting in January. Guests will still be able to smoke on outside stateroom balconies, but cigar and pipe smoking is prohibited in staterooms and on balconies. Ashtrays will be available for use upon request through housekeeping staff. In an effort to diminish the presence of smoke indoors, cigarette smoking will only be permitted in the casino, where ashtrays and appropriate signage will be displayed. Smoking will be prohibited in all other public interior venues including all bars, restaurants, conference rooms, corridors, restrooms, staircases and landings. Guests can smoke cigarettes, cigars and pipes in the enclosed cigar bars onboard Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Gem, Norwegian Pearl, Norwegian Dawn and Norwegian Spirit. In addition, the policy allows guests to smoke cigarettes, cigars and pipes in outdoor public guest spaces and open decks, where designated by the appropriate signage. Smoking is not permitted near outdoor venues which serve food, in open spaces such as the jogging track, sport complex, children’s pool and in The Haven outdoor areas. For more information contact The Cruise Outlet - 203-288-1884