ROYAL CARIBBEAN INT'L this week will resume calls
to Labadee, its private beach on the northern coast of Haiti. The
line suspended its visits to Labadee in February after civil unrest
broke out in Haiti. The Voyager of the Seas made the first call on
May 24, during its first nine-day Caribbean cruise from Bayonne,
N.J. The Mariner of the Seas will call on May 25 and the Navigator
of the Seas will follow on May 27. Craig Milan, the president of
Royal Celebrity Tours who also oversees Royal Caribbean's ground
operations, said the company hired an independent security firm,
Control Risk Group, to do an assessment of the Labadee area and
"their primary recommendation was that we could start operations
immediately," Milan said, adding, "It's safe for our guests." A
spokeswoman for the line added that there will be security patrols
at Labadee that will work in tandem with local police.
ROYAL CARIBBEAN ALSO altered its Bermuda
offerings by choosing the 3,114-passenger Voyager of the Seas and
the 1,950-passenger Grandeur of the Seas to handle the route in
2005. Both ships will alternate five-day Bermuda cruises with
nine-day Caribbean voyages between May and November from Bayonne,
N.J., and Baltimore, respectively. Royal Caribbean said the
reservations books will open on the 2005 Bermuda season at the end
of this month. The future deployment of the Empress of the Seas,
which handles Royal Caribbean's six- and eight- day Bermuda
sailings, has not been disclosed -- but it's likely the vessel will
not be back in Bermuda in 2005.
THE COLUMBIA QUEEN is "in the process" of being
sold to a new cruise operation headed by former Society Expeditions
President Michael Lomax, according to Lomax's new company, American
Rivers Cruise Line. The transaction is expected to close in June,
and the vessel could return to the rivers in 2005, sailing the
Columbia, Snake and Willamette rivers from Portland, Ore.,
according to a statement from American Rivers. The Columbia Queen,
which currently is under U.S. Maritime Administration control, was
originally part of the Delta Queen Steamboat Co. family and sailed
in the Pacific Northwest before Delta Queen's parent company ceased
operations. American West Steamboat Co. briefly sought to acquire
the Columbia Queen, but the deal fell through.
THE DIAMOND PRINCESS will skip two calls on its
current Alaska itinerary due to minor propeller damage. The ship
was in Victoria, British Columbia, May 21 when strong winds forced
the ship against a finger pier, a spokeswoman said. Inspection
teams found some "superficial scraping" to the hull and some minor
scraping of the starboard propeller. The ship was repaired when it
arrived at its Seattle homeport May 22, but the ship was delayed
leaving port and, as a result, will miss its calls in Victoria and
Juneau. Passengers on the cruise were given a $500 per cabin
onboard credit. Divers are onboard to do another propeller
inspection in Skagway, but the spokeswoman said the ship "is not
scheduled to be out of service."
MEANWHILE, the Diamond and the Sapphire
Princess will be on the job again in Alaska next summer, Princess
said. The two ships, plus the Regal Princess, will sail Alaska's
Inside Passage roundtrip from Seattle (the Diamond Princess and the
Sapphire Princess) or from San Francisco (the Regal Princess).
FESTIVAL CRUISES could file for bankruptcy in
Italy this week, a spokeswoman for the company said. At a
shareholders meeting held Monday, she said, shareholders
"communicated there was ... no possibility to increase the capital
of the company ... and this means that in the forthcoming days the
directors will decide whether the company should be brought to
court for bankruptcy." In related news, as of last week, an auction
date for the Mistral, one of Festival's vessels, was pushed back to
June 10 from mid-May, the spokeswoman said; there was no fixed date
for the sale of another Festival vessel, the European Stars.