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Hello! This is the animated news from the cruise industry this
week, June fourth, 2011. (I'm not real, but the news and our
sponsor, Cruise News Daily, are.) OK. Here are this week's top
headlines.
On Wednesday, Carnival Corp ordered a 141,000-ton ship for their
P&O Brand from Fincantieri. It's the largest ship ever built
specifically for the UK market. The ship will be built on the
same hull design as the ones ordered for the Princess brand for
delivery in 2013 and 2014, but the interior will be completely
P&O's design customized for their clientele. It will be delivered
in March of 2015. Don't mistake this for the start of another
building boom, however. Carnival says they still only plan to
take delivery of two or three ships per year among all of their
brands, and this is the first they have scheduled for delivery in
2015. In the CND article we looked at what it means for the UK
market and for Fincantieri. We have an artist's rendering of the
new ship in the CND website.
Brazil seems to be shaping up as the hottest new source market
that the international cruise lines are paying lots of attention
to. Last year it provided 792,000 passengers growing from just
139,000 six years ago. At the Seatrade South America conference
this week, several lines were talking about their interest in
year round operations there. As we discussed in CND, that would
add the Brazilian market to the worldwide competition for cruise
ships. The things standing in the way are the labyrinth of
government regulations and the high cost of operation in the
market.
In Italy on Friday, at the request of the government, shipbuilder
Fincantieri is stepped back from their plan to close two yards
and lay off a third of their workforce. They are now trying to
find another way of saving money and returning to profitability.
Those are the top stories of the week. The complete detailed
stories and perspectives on them were delivered to CND
subscribers daily via e-mail.
CND's daily e-mails this week also covered almost a dozen other
items. Among them was that Seabourn took delivery of their third
of three news ships, Seabourn Quest, last weekend. It will enter
regular service on June 20 when it is christened by actress
Blythe Danner in Barcelona.
Celebrity Silhouette, the fourth of the Solstice class ships, is
nearing completion at Meyer Werft in Germany. It was floated out
last weekend, and we have photos on the CND website.
Independence of the Seas escaped serious damage but 12 passengers
sustained minor injuries when an oil tank adjacent to the ship
caught fire in Gibraltar on Tuesday. We have video on the CND
website.
Radiance of the Seas' drydock in Victoria is continuing, and we
have a bunch of new videos on the CND website of the work being
done both inside and under the ship.
Royal Caribbean International announced that they will resume
calls in Japan beginning August 1. The calls will not be near the
areas devastated by the tsunami or nuclear plant meltdown,
however.
Carnival Breeze is exactly one year away from delivery, and we
also have new photos of the progress of the construction of it on
the CND website.
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.cruise news daily.com. I'll be back next
week with more news from Cruise News Daily. So long!