Its been another exciting week in the world of cruising.
Over 50,000 cruise passengers arrived or departed aboard eight ships at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale yesterday, setting a new world record for most people entering/leaving a port according to the Sun Sentinel. The newspaper reports that the Oasis of the Seas, Liberty of the Seas, Navigator of the Seas, Carnival Miracle, Grand Princess, Crown Princess, Eurodam and MSC Poesia were in port.
The Oasis of the Seas also made the news with a report that 54 passengers and 10 employees reported being sick with an undisclosed illness. The cruise line said that the cruise ship will undergo a “thorough cleaning” as a precaution before it’s next sailing, whatever that means.
Speaking of undisclosed cruise ship illnesses, one passenger is dead and 80 sick on the HAL Veendam when it reached Brazil. HAL immediately said the death has nothing to do with the shipboard illnesses. HAL’ s PR department must be some kind of experts in epidemiology 
and forensic medicine to make such a finding without even conducting an autopsy.
The LA Times reports that the U.S. Coast Guard medevaced a 77 year old passenger showing signs of a stroke. She was evacuated from the Carnival Spirit cruise ship by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter dispatched from San Diego 230 miles southwest of San Diego on Saturday. You can watch the amazing video of the rescue here.
Celebrity got hit with a $1,000,000 jury verdict after trying to save money by sending a 31 year old chef to the Dominican Republic where doctors improperly inserted a pacemaker which the young man did not need in the first place.
A cruise passenger on a “banana boat” ride was seriously injured when struck in St. Kitts by another cruise passenger on a jet ski. This comes just two weeks after a Celebrity cruise passenger was killed and her daughter was seriously injured during a parasail mishap in St. Thomas.
The usual number of cruise passengers were foolish enough to buy pot in the Caribbean where one island will sell you reefer and the next island will fine you several thousands of dollars which the U.S. tourists are happy to pay to avoid a year or two in jail. You can read about the fun and games here and here.
Cruise fans are still debating whether its safe to travel to Mexico, but no one in the U.S. except Cruise Law News is reporting on stories like this where 6 armed rob a jewelry store in Puerto Vallarta across from the cruise terminal when HAL cruise passengers are walking around in the shopping square. This comes couple weeks after a shoot-out in Cabo San Lucas, another story the cruise lines and travel agents won’t mention.
Shhh, don’t alarm the cruise tourists, its bad for business.
Turning overseas to the U.K., many British citizens are still fuming that Cunard decided to end its relationship with Britain and elected to register its cruise ships in Bermuda. Mail Online published an interesting photo today of the Queen Elizabeth no longer bearing the port of “Southampton” on its stern and about to be painted with “Hamilton,” the capital of Bermuda.
Cunard claims that it did this in order for its ship captains to marry passengers at sea. Most people believe that Cunard choose a flag of convenience in order to avoid British and European wage and labor laws.
The Seattle Post reports that starting December 1st cruise ships will be prohibited from discharging wastewater into a protected marine sanctuary off the outer coast of Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula. The Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary covers 2,408 square nautical miles and provides a habitat to many species of fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Our family spent time kayaking up there last summer. Its great news that an environmental group is keeping the cruise ship pee and poop out of the sanctuary.
November has been a record month for Cruise Law News (“CLN”). Over 70,000 people read over 200,000 pages. Outside the U.S., the most readers of CLN are from (in order) Canada, the U.K., Australia, Mexico and India.
Photo credits:
Top: Jim Walker
Bottom: Mail Online