As revealed in a blockbuster article by the Miami Herald today, several cruise lines were so concerned with losing three recent referendums pending before voters in Key West, that they “knew they had to do something to sway the public into voting no” so they “secretly funded (a) disinformation campaign.”
The three referendums would drastically
Let me place my biases front and center.
I am no fan of the Miami Herald. it’s beholden to the cruise industry which pays it for cruise advertising ads. The Herald’s "business" editor, Jane Wooldridge, is the former travel editor for the newspaper. Although she graduated with me from Duke in 1980, she is at
An article this morning caught my eye: "Newest and Biggest Cruise Ship: Oasis of the Seas." The article contains the usual "wow-look-how-big-it-is!" style of writing which is most typically associated with travel agents. You know, those travel agents doubling as authors whose interest .jpg)
in describing this monster-of-cruise-ship is hopelessly intertwined with obtaining commissions by selling cruises.
Then I realized
Over the last four years, there have been an incredible number of high profile stories regarding the cruise industry: the "missing honeymooner" case of George Smith IV on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas, the cover-up of Merrian Carver’s disappearance from Celebrity Cruises’ Mercury cruise ship, and the case of Laurie Dishman who, after she was sexually assaulted, was handed a trash
On Friday, the United States House of Representatives passed landmark legislation requiring cruise ships to promptly report crimes at sea to the United States Coast Guard and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Newspapers throughout the United States covered the historic legislation which finally brought some long overdue accountability to the cruise industry. And, as usual, the Miami