October 2013

Tortola - Carnival Drops PortCarnival Cruise Lines is dropping the British Virgin Islands port of Tortola next year. 

Carnival intended to send five cruise ships to Tortola through April 2015.

The port is overhauling its cruise ship dock, and passengers may be required to tender from the ship to shore, Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said.

The Carnival

Norfolk Virginia Port - Carnival CruiseThe Carnival Glory made its last home port stop today in Norfolk. It’s now heading here to Miami.

According to the Washington Post, Carnival said this summer that it would not deploy the Glory (or any other Carnival cruise ship) from Norfolk in 2014.

According to ABC-13, Carnival cited new environmental regulations on emissions (requiring

A member of Cruise Critic reports that a "small fire" broke out on Holland America Lines’ Noordam cruise ship on Friday, October 26th.

JavaJunkie comments on the Cruise Critic member forum that while sailing on the Noordam, passengers had a bit of excitement two mornings ago:

"Shortly after 10:30am, one of the ship’s alarms sounded

Adam Goldstein Royal CaribbeanNews sources report that Royal Caribbean President Adam Goldstein sold 7,855 shares of RCL stock on the open market in a transaction yesterday.

Goldstein’s sold the stock at an average price of $43.22, for a total value of $339,493.10.

He reportedly now directly owns 335,654 shares of Royal Caribbean stock, valued at approximately $14,506,966.

Yesterday

Last month, the Sun Sentinel reported that Carnival’s earnings "continue to be hurt by a series of embarrassing mishaps and softened demand for certain cruises that has kept fares low." The world’s largest cruise operator reported a 30 percent drop in third-quarter profits.

Critics have attributed Carnival’s woes to damage to its namesake cruise line’s

Maria Grazia Trecarichi - Costa ConcordiaInternational news sources are reporting that remains located at the ship wreck of the Costa Concordia are of an Italian woman, an Italian prosecutor said.

"The human remains belong to Maria Grazia Trecarichi," prosecutor Francesco Verusio said.

Newspapers quote Trecarichi’s widower Elio Vincenzi saying:

"I have learned from the press that the remains belong to

A reader of cruise expert Professor Ross Klein’s website raised an interesting question why a AIS chart of the Thomson Dream cruise ship (via marinetraffic.com) showed the ship sailing in a weird pattern.

The experts I have discussed this with don’t think that the pattern resembles one to be taken if the ship were conducting a

It’s hard to develop a reputation worse than Carnival Cruise Lines these days but a lawyer in Houston may have accomplished that feat.  

According to the Houston Chronicle, Houston lawyer John Bruster Loyd filed a lawsuit against Carnival Cruise Lines on behalf of a couple in Texas.

He alleged that they had been

Cruise Law News has received inquiries from several Carnival Cruise Lines crew members complaining that the cruise line recently terminated the retirement benefits for crew members.

Like many other cruise lines, Carnival Cruise Lines previously offered a small retirement benefit which crew members were eligible to receive for working a number of years of uninterrupted

A federal judge denied Carnival Cruise Lines’ motion to punish a teenager who admitted that she lied when claiming that the cruise ship’s security personnel forced her to remove her tampon in a search for marijuana.  

Courthouse News Service reports that one of Carnival’s security officers noticed that a 17-year-old passenger on Sensation cruise