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Hello! This is the animated news from the cruise industry this
week, May twenty eighth, twenty eleven. (I'm not real, but the
news and our sponsor, Cruise News Daily, are.) OK. Here are this
week's top headlines.
MSC Opera returned to service on Friday after their electrical
problems a couple of weeks ago which required the ship to be
towed ashore and cancellation of the following cruise. There was
almost an eleventh hour cancellation of this cruise from
Southampton while the British authorities approved the repair
work that had been done in Poland. The ship did leave as
scheduled when the approval was finally obtained.
A crew member went overboard from Celebrity Eclipse last weekend
while it was near the English Channel. Celebrity has video of the
man climbing over the railing on Deck 3, and the man's body was
never recovered. It apparently happened around the same time a
medevac was being performed and the helicopter had landed on the
ship. As CND noted, parent Royal Caribbean doesn't want to answer
any factual questions such as the exact times involved or exactly
where the ship was. It's obvious there's information about the
incident the company doesn't want known, and we suspect some
information on this one they are trying to cover up.
Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri is being squeezed due to a
worldwide downturn in orders from all segments of the shipping
industry and staffing for a much higher level of orders. They
began negotiations with their unions in Italy this week to
downsize their operations. The company's initial proposal was to
close two of their yards and reduce their workforce by almost a
third. That touched off violence in two cities, and plans for a
series of strikes through June 6 when the two parties are next
supposed to go back to the bargaining table.
Those are the top stories of the week. The complete detailed
stories and perspective on them were delivered to CND subscribers
daily via e-mail.
CND's daily e-mails this week also covered 18 other items. Among
them were Carnival Cruise Line saying that they would homeport a
ship at Boston for the first time in 2012. For two months in the
summer, they will operate 4- and 5-night cruises to the Canadian
Maritimes.
Three cruise lines announced details of refurbishment on three of
their ships. Work was just completed on NCL's Norwegian Dawn and
Holland America's Maasdam. Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas
just entered drydock, and we have some video on the CND website
of it arriving at the Victoria shipyard.
We also have two more interesting new videos this week. We have
some additional video from the christening of P&O's Adonia, where
various P&O executives talk about the concept of the ship and
where it's going. And we have a video from Princess about the
special arrangements make for passengers traveling with their
service animals. In this one they show a group from Guide Dogs
for the Blind. Links to those are also on the CND website.
The Greek Government said this week they do not have the funds to
remove the wreckage of Sea Diamond which sank in the caldera of
Santorini almost four years ago. The operation is estimated to
cost 150 million euros, and the ship still contains 113 cubic
meters of fuel which is slowly leaking.
And on Thursday Xanterra Hotels & Resorts closed on their
purchase of Windstar Cruises. The company reiterated their
intention not to make changes to the line's schedule and honor
all booked fares and reservations through 2012.
Those are the top stories of the week and other things you'll
want to know from the cruise industry that were included in daily
e-mails to our subscribers. Headlines and links we mentioned are
on our website at www.cruisenewsdaily.com. I'll be back next week
with more news from Cruise News Daily. So long