Mazatlan just won’t let it go, wants cruise lines back bad

by Chris Owen on

Cruise lines turned a cold shoulder to Mazatlan, Mexico after safety concerns forced them to move ships away and sail elsewhere. Government and tourism officials caught the next plane to Miami, set on convincing cruise ship operators to come back. They did. Once back more crime came up and they went away again. Now, cruise lines have canceled far into the future, still leaving the door open to return at some point but Mazatlan officials have had enough and are lashing out at cruise lines.

“We understand that travel agents and providers have a duty to inform their customers, but we feel as if we have been unfairly singled out as an unsafe destination,” said Julio Birrueta, spokesperson for the Mazatlan Tourism Trust reports Caribbean News Digital “Perhaps the recent incidents have received critical attention because we are so widely regarded as one of the safest destinations in Mexico.” added Birrueta.

No, recent incidents received critical attention because more tourists were shot and hundreds of Americans have been killed since 2004.

That’s a big deal to cruise lines. It’s kind of a big deal to cruise passengers too. Are the cruise lines making too big of a thing about this? Is Mazatlan and just Mexico in general a safe place to visit? Some people/animated characters think yes.


Flickr photo by Jesus Villaseca Perez

Video by Simply Vallarta

Orion spacecraft key to future space travel

by Chris Owen on

Lockheed Martin’s Orion space craft, designed to take astronauts to the moon, may first be used as an emergency escape vehicle for the international space station. By 2016, NASA wants to run multiple, deep-space missions to the moon and much farther destinations, making the Orion spacecraft key to future space travel.

“Orion was designed from inception to fly multiple, deep-space missions,” John Karas, vice president and general manager for Lockheed Martin’s Human Space Flight programs told Computerworld.com.

The Orion spacecraft was first part of NASA’s Constellation program, slated to bring humans back to the moon by 2020 but budget cuts and behind-schedule, over-budget construction caused a refocus of the program. Now, the goal is sending astronauts to Mars and further into the solar system.

“The spacecraft is an incredibly robust, technically advanced vehicle capable of safely transporting humans to asteroids, Lagrange Points and other deep space destinations that will put us on an affordable and sustainable path to Mars” said Karas.

When the Space shuttle fleet is fully retired at the end of the year, Orion may be used as a means to evacuate astronauts from the International space station. The Orion spacecraft includes a crew module, a cargo transport, a service module for propulsion, electric power, fluids storage and a spacecraft adapter for securing it to the launch vehicle.

In 2009, Gadling reported on a NASA focused on commercial space travel with a plan to spend $50 million of economic stimulus cash from the feds into putting the average traveler into space. While the topic comes up from time to time, commercial space travel seems to be not much more than a dream. But if the Commercial Spaceflight Federation has anything to say about it, that dream will be a reality soon.

In a letter sent to Congress earlier this month, the federation notes:

“We are writing to urge you to fully fund NASA’s plan to use commercial companies to carry crew to the Space Station because it is critical to the health of the Nation’s human spaceflight efforts.”

They may just get their wish. With the space shuttle program coming to an end shortly, there are few alternatives to take man or supplies into space and an International Space Station up there that will need both.

Flickr photo by Bernt Rostad

VIDEO: Take a stop-motion trip to 1983 New York City

by Meg Nesterov on

In just under six minutes, you can take a (mostly) stop-motion trip to 1983 New York City in this short film called “N.Y.C. (No York City)” by Rick Liss with music by Laurie Anderson. The video follows a dizzying path through Manhattan, past familiar landmarks like the World Trade Center, the subway, and Central Park (check out the roller skaters!). While the clothes and cars may seem dated, in many ways, it’s not much different than 2011 New York City, except with more mimes.

Take a photographic adventure with National Geographic

by Kraig Becker on

Fans of National Geographic have long been drawn to the magazine’s fantastic photos, with many of us wishing we had the skills to take similar shots ourselves. Now, National Geographic Expeditions is offering us the opportunity to go on a photographic adventure while building and honing those skills along the way.

Nat Geo Expeditions is the travel arm of National Geographic, offering up some excellent adventure travel opportunities to a number of far flung places. But they also offer aspiring photographers the chance to take part in photography workshops held throughout the country including New York, Washington DC, Tuscon, and Santa Fe. Those workshops range in length from 4 to 7 days, and will teach you everything you need to know about using that fancy digital camera that you bought, but never got around to learning how to operate. For dates and pricing on those workshops click here.

Perhaps even more exciting however are the Photo Expeditions that Nat Geo has to offer. Those trips are 8-12 days in length and will send you off to some amazing places where you’ll learn everything you’ve always wanted to know about photography. Destinations include Alaska, Bhutan, Morocco, Costa Rica, and the Galapagos Islands. Much like the workshops, these trips are designed for photographers of all skill levels and are led by National Geographic photographers with years of experience in the field. They also happen to add healthy doses of culture and adventure to the mix. For more information on the Photo Expeditions click here.

For someone who loves to snap photos (like me!), but wishes they had a firmer grasp on the technical aspects of the art (also like me!), these workshops and expeditions are fantastic opportunities to learn from an expert. So whether you use a point and shoot or a high-end DSLR, a National Geographic photographic adventure is sure to be a fantastic experience.

[Photo Credit: National Geographic Expeditions]




Honduras eager to build the next new cruise port

by Chris Owen on
Residents from local Trujillo, Honduras communities, along with politicians and business leaders joined recently for groundbreaking on a new 50,000-square-foot mainland cruise port, the first in Honduras.

The facility should help answer the call from cruise passengers who love the Caribbean but yearn for new ports to visit. That need leaves Honduras eager to build the next new cruise port.

“This project has a lot of significance for the region,” said Honduras President Porfirio Lobo Sosa. “The cruise port will be crucial for the development of Trujillo and its surrounding neighborhoods.”

The new port, set to open in 2012, is expected to create more than 3000 jobs and promote tourism to the Banana Coast as an alternative to Roatan, Honduras, Belize City, Belize, and Costa Maya and Cozumel both Mexican ports.

“We can only go to Cozumel just so many times” say frequent cruise passengers bored of the same ports over and over again.

As more ships enter the cruise market, 9 more in 2011, cruise passengers are looking for new ports of call to visit and cruise lines want to find (or build) them.

The new Jamaica port of Falmouth, a joint project between Royal Caribbean International and the Port Authority of Jamaica is hoping to help fill that need with an entirely different shoreside experience. To be reminiscent of the historic 1700’s and 1800’s when Falmouth was the big port for Sugar exports worldwide, the port is built to handle Royal Caribbean’s huge Oasis-class ships. The location will allow visitors to do shore excursions from both existing ports of Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, each about a half-hour away.

New or reworked ports are not always the answer though. San Diego’s new Port Pavillion at Broadway Pier, funded by Carnival Cruise Lines, will not see much action now that cruise lines have fled the hard-to-sell West coast market for more fertile seas.

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Flickr photo by archer10