When cruise ships come in to the Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal they bring a lot of business, tourism dollars and people to town. They also brings some 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide, 95 tons of nitrous oxide, and 6.5 tons of particulate matter annually when they park and burn their diesel engines. That is about to change as Brooklyn becomes the first east coast cruise operation with the capability to let ships “plug in” to clean shoreside electrical power instead.
By 2012, cruise ships at will be plugged in with shoreside electrical power rather than running on diesel gas while docked.
“It will be the equivalent of removing 5,000 cars per year from the road annually,” Seth W. Pinsky, the president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation told the New York Times.
Its been a long time coming on that too. As Gadling revealed in January, it has been two years since Carnival Corp, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Brooklyn cruise terminal port authority agreed to enable cruise ships to plug in to green shore-side power. West coast ports were doing it already with San Diego going online last December.
It seems while all were in agreement, nobody wanted to pay for it.
In an agreement made this week, the $15 million project will be funded with $12 million from the Port Authority and nearly $3 million from a US Environmental Protection Agency grant. Carnival Corporation will spend $4 million to retrofit their Princess Cruises and Cunard Line ship that dock in Brooklyn.
Some people like to take pictures of sentimental items in every country of their travels, some people dance. Luke Burrage chose to juggle. The international juggler and entertainer uploaded a video to YouTube this month highlighting his travels around the planet — 70 countries in total — where he’s juggling in each spot. We’re not sure if we’re more impressed by the beautiful range of destinations or the juggling skills of this guy, but either way it’s a great video. Check it out below.
Malibu, the coconutty rum that’s like summer in a bottle, is looking for one outgoing, creative, beach-bum-lifestyle-loving man or woman for their nationwide radio correspondent search.
The chosen one will travel across the country attending concerts, reporting from the road, interviewing celebrities, and “celebrating the season of the sun.”
The Correspondent position was developed to find the emcee for the Station Invasion Concert Tour–a 10-city musical series–which will “bring the spirit of the Caribbean from coast to coast.“
As the Radio Maliboom Boom Correspondent, you’ll introduce the tour and musical acts, do video and blog posts, Facebook updates, and tweets. You’ll also represent Malibu by conducting and participating in video, radio, and media interviews across the nation.
Applications are being accepted online through May 15, 2011. You must be 25 and over, fill out an application, and submit a video “reel” that creatively showcases why you should be chosen, incorporating three key messages about Malibu (the rum, not the city). Three finalists will attend training in Malibu’s homeland of Barbados from June 20-23. The summer stipend for the Correspondent will be $15,000-and all the dancing (and, presumably, rum, sunscreen, and hair of the dog) you can handle. Cheers to summer!
There are new cruise ships and there are old cruise ships. The new ones have all the latest features, the old ones not so much. Well, at least not until they go in for scheduled maintenance. At that time, the cruise line has an opportunity to take care of routine repairs. Sometimes they add new features to those old ships, making them much more attractive to would-be cruise travelers looking for new features. Princess Cruises announced an extreme makeover for Grand Princess in February. Now, the line wants us to come along for the ride with a new series of video reports.
Grand Princess is going through the most significant transformation ever attempted by Princess Cruises. The ship will take on a new look with the addition of seven new suites, a remodeled casino, boutiques and art gallery, enhancements to the Horizon Court buffet area, Lotus Spa, and wedding chapel plus the addition of Crooner’s Martini Lounge.
The line will also remove Skywalkers nightclub, the race car spoiler-looking venue perched high above the aft end of the ship. Apparently the place did nothing for fuel economy and/or did not get enough “Wow, that’s cool” comments at the ship wash.
Through May 4th, viewers can follow along with daily updates to a new video journal chronicling the 24-day drydock.
“Our passengers really loved following the photo journals we offered during previous drydocks,” said Jan Swartz, Princess Cruises executive vice president. “So for this, our most extensive transformation, we wanted to take it to the next level and enable viewers to follow along with daily videos.”
Hosted by Grand Princess Cruise Director Martyn Moss, in the first installment audiences we see the beginning of the ship’s transformation as it sails to the Grand Bahama Shipyard in Freeport, Bahamas.
We’re thinking Skywalkers would make a great place to visit while ashore in Freeport. A couple welders and a big crane could probably pop that baby off the ship and set it on the beach. At least there would be something worth seeing in Freeport.
Sometimes there are little nuggets of information floating around out there that are not quite enough for a post but surely worthy of consideration if you are in to cruise vacations. Here are some from this last week, in-your-face rodeo style, just so we keep up to speed.
Norwegian Cruise Line entered into an agreement with Special Needs Group Inc. for them to be the exclusive mobility and oxygen equipment supplier for the line. Norwegian and pretty much all cruise lines do a good job of handling the needs of guests with disabilities. Locking in to one supplier will surely give them the consistency and reliability that one single company can offer. That’s also a score for ship security too. With one supplier delivering equipment to their ships, that could reduce the number of different vendors entering the security cloud that surrounds all ships in port.
Speaking of handicapped people, the battle rages on at CruiseCritic.com (@CruiseCritic) over a passenger who booked a suite thinking “butler service” would be the same as “I brought my nurse with me” and was terribly disappointed when not only uncared for but put off the ship about as fast as the cruise line could.
This week we also brought you a series commemorating the 99th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic which occurred April 15, 1912. Today’s cruise industry exists and operates in many ways as a result of the Titanic tragedy. This week we took a look at the legacy left behind that affects cruise passengers on every sailing of every ship.
Carnival Corporation ships from Princess Cruises and Cunard Line will be plugging in at the Red Hook pier in Brooklyn soon as all parties in the matter came to an agreement on how it would get paid for and have finalized plans. The bulk of the $15 million price tag for cleaner air because plugging in means turning off ships engines in port, will be paid for by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. One reader commented “Sure, just like the government, if they can’t fix it, throw money at it” but local residents, happy to not wear gas masks around the house, are thrilled.
“It’s deal time at Celebrity Cruises” says Gene Sloan (@CruiseLog) of USA Today’s Cruise Log. During the line’s Mediterranean Fly and Sail Event, running right now which “includes reduced rates on both cruises in the region and the airline flights needed to reach them” adds Sloan.
Over at Celebrity sister-line Royal Caribbean International (@RoyalCaribbean), things are heating up over their new all-you-can-drink program. Apparently, a good number of takers on the deal thought/interpreted/scammed that to meaning all-me-and-my-friends-can-drink. The cruise line was not amused. New rules for the plan call for everyone in the stateroom to pay the $29 per person, per day charge to get it.
The UK’s John Honeywell (@CaptainGreybeard) notes “Surely they must have anticipated only one half of a couple signing up and then attempting to buy drinks for his or her partner?” You would think so. The line has been offering all-you-can-drink packages for group cruises for quite some time but requires “all or nothing” compliance with all members of the group taking the package in order to get it.
Captain Greybeard was also onboard the new Carnival Magic which sets sail on May 1st for a first-hand look at how the ship is coming along. Gadling will be on board for that inaugural sailing bringing you information on the latest, greatest ship from Carnival Cruise Lines. We will also be bringing you port-of-call reports ala Gadling which will no doubt be something entirely different than you might have seen elsewhere. Here’s a preview