Travel Maven blog

Oasis of the Seas rescues stalled fishing boat

Oasis of the Seas has resumed cruising toward Cozumel Wednesday afternoon after rescuing a fishing boat from the Caymans that was dead in the water with an engine that would not start.

Captain Trym Selvag stopped the Oasis, sent two engineers to fix the problem (after a security team checked out the fishing boat). The Captain said Oasis crew provided the fishing boat with a fresh battery, fresh water, and got the engine working again.

That’s what we do at sea, said Captain Selvag, in an announcement to the passengers, who lined the starboard decks to watch the rescue.

The rescue will not impact a Thursday arrival to Cozumel, as Wednesday is an easy sea day, between Falmouth, Jamaica, and Cozumel, Mexico, on Oasis’ western-Caribbean run, which is the Royal Caribbean itinerary every other week out of Fort Lauderdale.


 

Cruising safety standards re-examined post-Concordia

Two months after the Costa Concordia sinking, leaders of some of the world’s major cruise lines spoke in public for the first time last week about the impact of the cruise disaster and the safety record of their industry.

At an annual conference and trade show in Miami, the leaders’ moods alternated between uncommonly serious, when emphasizing safety on their vacation products, to upbeat, about the public’s future plans to spend their holidays on the cruise world’s ever expanding fleet of ships.

Though it hardly ranks with the infamous Titanic sinking – fewer than three dozen people died on Costa Concordia, while thousands were rescued – the image of the ship disaster will not die soon. Modern cruise ships are not supposed to sink, and until January both cruise crews and passengers were confident that the horrors of the Titanic were merely an old and unrepeatable story line.

This story, however, will not go away easily, as questions about competence, responsibility, training, and panic remain.

Cruising on Costa Favolosa, a naming ceremony in Trieste

As many as 10,000 local townsfolk and formally-attired invited guests watched an extravagant naming ceremony Saturday night in Trieste, Italy, for a new cruise ship, the 3,800-passenger Costa Favolosa.

Favolosa, now Costa’s largest vessel, was built near Venice, but it was the first major ship christened in ancient Trieste in 50 years. The event also was part of national celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy.

Actors, musicians, and dancers provided a spectacular show at Trieste’s Piazza Unita d’Italia, said to be Europe’s biggest square. The dancers included a woman in filmy white who  soared above the audience, held aloft by helium balloons on a windy night as she moved to the sounds of a classical piano performce by Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi.

Cajuns in land of crawfish and boudin, adapt, survive, eat, play

After consuming piles of crawfish and doing my best to taste varieties of spicy boudin sausage, I headed north from Cajun Country in Southwest Louisiana with a new respect for the strength of local traditions.

For some small understanding of Cajun culture, I am grateful to Barry Jean Ancelet, professor of folklore and Francophone studies at University of Louisiana in Lafayette. He spoke to a conference of the Society of American Travel Writers, stayed around to answer questions, and showed up the same night to share his appreciation for a terrific young Cajun band, Feufollet, above, playing at a popular joint for listening and dancing called the Blue Moon Saloon.

Cruising with norovirus, elbowing instead of shaking hands

I just spent a dozen days on a cruise ship that had an outbreak of norovirus. That’s the virus that causes much of the short-term intestinal illnesses around the world in closed communities such as dorms, prisons, hospitals and cruise ships. It is extremely infectious.

Lucky for me, I missed the virus by one cruise. Which means that whatever the passengers left behind on the Norwegian Jade when they disembarked in Barcelona the morning of Feb. 14, 2010, did not infect the 2,000 or so passengers on my trip.

For that I am grateful and impressed

I watched a huge cruise ship mobilize against the virus. And win.

Norwegian Jade is based in Barcelona year round. The ship is alternating winter cruises of 12 days and 9 days in the Mediterranean. When my son, his family and I arrived at the ship Feb. 14, we were met with a letter from the captain, who warned us that norovirus infected more than 40 people on the previous voyage. He offered a credit for a future cruise if we wanted to call the whole thing off.

Following a housecleaning that kept us from our cabins until about 3 p.m. that Sunday, we left Barcelona in the evening with a full ship.

Oasis of the Seas, a Floating Island, says TIME

The $1.4 billion megaship--the largest passenger ship ever made, with room for 6,296 guests--is nearly half again as big as the last biggest cruise ship, RCL's Freedom of the Seas. She's as big as a supertanker or a container ship. Flatten the deck and you could launch F-18s off it. If you were sitting on the 20th floor of a high-rise next to the ship, you'd be able to talk to the sunbathers beside one of the pools.

via www.time.com

This is the best reporting on the cruise business I've read. If you wonder why the cruise industry keeps building huge new ships, such as Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, read on.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1945368-1,00.html#