THE PRIDE OF
AMERICAS sea trials are scheduled to begin May 19, and the
ship is to be delivered to NCL America on June 6, NCL America
said. The ship, which made headlines
last January after it sank in its Lloyd Werft berth during
construction and was submerged up to Deck 3, left its drydock at
the Lloyd Werft shipyard and currently is alongside the yards
outfitting pier.
EASYCRUISE, the low-cost cruise operation
aimed at city-hopping U.K. and European continent vacationers,
began taking reservations last week. The companys sole ship, the
EasyCruise1 (a former Renaissance Cruises vessel) will spend the
summer sailing between such popular Mediterranean hot spots as St.
Tropez, Cannes and Nice, France; and San Remo, Genoa and Portofino,
Italy. The ship begins operation in June, although an EasyCruise
spokesman said the launch date could be pushed up to as early as
April.
RAIN
SHOWERS and new CD players are some of the items Radisson
Seven Seas Cruises (RSSC) plans to install on its ships this year.
The line will put Bose Wave Music Systems in the top three suite
categories on the Seven Seas Voyager, the Seven Seas Mariner and
the Seven Seas Navigator and DVD players in all Mariner and
Navigator cabins. Bathtubs in 47 suites on the Mariner will be
rebuilt as rain showers with tile seats. RSSC also created a new
pan-Asian menu in the Latitudes restaurant on its Voyager and
Mariner vessels and updated the Italian menu in the Navigators
Portofino restaurant.
THE CRUISE
LINES INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION (CLIA) is revving up its
yearlong Year of Technology campaign.
CLIA launched three training courses online, at www.theacademy.com,
and is adding technology-related components to its traditional
classroom training. A teleconference series hosted by industry
educator Marc Mancini and based on chapters in a CLIA-issued Guide
to Technology for Cruise Selling Agents, kicked off earlier this
month. In addition, CLIA said that agents who attend its
Cruise3sixty conference this fall will be required to attend a
two-hour training session in the conferences Hall of Computers, a
room with 100 computers networked for travel tech seminars. The
conference runs Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 in Fort Lauderdale.
NOT THREE
WEEKS after the former Olympia Explorer was hit by a
50-foot wave off the coast of Alaska, its sister ship the Voyager
(and former Olympia Voyager) was struck by a monster wave off the
coast of Palma de Mallorca, which breached the Voyagers bridge
window. The Voyagers captain reported a number of minor injuries to
passengers, which were treated in the ships onboard medical
facilities. Propulsion power, which was lost after the impact, was
restored to two of the Voyagers four engines, and the ship is on
its way to Sardinia. The Voyager is on charter to Spanish tour
operator Iberojet. The Europe-based
company V.Ships manages both the Voyager and the
Explorer.