Currently sailing on what was promoted as “the first gay cruise to visit Casablanca,” gay and lesbian passengers on a chartered cruise were turned away by Moroccan authorities over the weekend. The Problem? Morocco’s Islamic religion and the laws of the North African country punish homosexuality.
Eco-Travel Might Be Cool With Floating Resort
Let’s face it: eco-travel is a tough sell to many travelers. Especially considering that our impact on the environment is commonly not a big factor when planning a trip. Still, as more travelers have begun to realize the importance of preserving the environment, the need is there. In the future, eco-travelers may have a green cruise option in the Solar Floating Resort (SFR) concept.
Powered entirely by solar photovoltaic panels that cover it like a skin, this sleek boat/resort/luxury submarine is just the sort of place Italian industrial designer Michele Puzzolante imagines.
“Solar energy technologies such as photovoltaic panels could provide a third of the world’s energy by 2060 if politicians commit to limiting global warming,” says Puzzolante on her Solar Floating Resort website.
Puzzolante’s SFR relies entirely on non-polluting solar power and uses modular manufacturing techniques currently being used in the naval and automobile industries, kind of like LEGO pieces.
The whole thing can be put together in a matter of weeks and can be used for terrestrial as well as floating applications as we see in this video.
Cruise Terminal For Sale: No Ships But Great Fishing
For cities and towns that want to be a home port for cruise ships, it would make sense to be set up to handle them first. Ensuring that today’s giant ships can dock, that there will be shore-side services available and figuring out the logistics of it all are checklist items one might consider mandatory. But there’s a big difference between being “ready” and having a $100 million cruise terminal sitting empty with no ships scheduled to call.
That seems to be right where Houston Texas is today; all dressed up and with no place to go as the would-be cruise port can’t find cruise lines that want to sail from their bright, shiny terminal.
“I’m convinced that no cruise line is going to come. They may as well forget about using it as a cruise terminal,” Texas Judge Ed Emmett told ABCNews.
Worse yet, the losses keep growing. In the last year, the port has spent another $4.7 million just maintaining the cruise terminal. The ABCNews report notes that some of the money was spent to improve the gangways for cruise passengers that may never use them.
Perhaps Houston was a bit too ambitious?
Maybe, maybe not. Business is great at the close-by Port of Galveston; in 2010 it reported its highest gross operating revenue since 1941. Making $7.3 million off revenue of $23.5 million is a pretty fair return.
So why are there no ships sailing from Houston?
Among other reasons, it takes ships much longer to reach international waters from Houston. Ships sailing from Galveston are out of U.S. waters in minutes. Sailing from Houston takes 2 hours longer to get out of U.S. waters – where cruise ship shops and casinos can open.
Flickr photo by notsogoodphotography
Cruise Vacations: 10 Things You Might Not Know
Cruise vacations come in all sizes and shapes. Gigantic new ships have everything from gourmet cuisine created by celebrity chefs to amusement parks. Smaller ships get up-close and personal with destinations large ships can’t get to. On board, a new generation of cruise traveler is taking over, demanding more in the way of value and programming both on and off the ship. Let’s see how that is playing out in real life on the cruise lines of today.
The Base Experience is the Same For Everyone, But it Can Be Customized– Still, today we can go on a cruise vacation and spend not one dime more than the cruise fare with the possible exception of nearly mandatory gratuities for the crew. Those who want more in the way of dining options and an upgraded experience both on and off the ship have more options than ever to choose from.
Prices Go Up, Prices Go Down– A lot of what goes into cruise line pricing strategy is based on demand and demand almost always changes over time. There are a number of factors at work here including ship positioning, the economy, the effect of new ships just entering the marketplace on the sales of older ships and more. Best bet: consider the price at the time of booking as simply the starting price and use a travel agent to keep an eye on it.
Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire– As our online world has developed with Internet-equipped tablets, faster connections, transparency and more rapid responses from all interested in cruise vacations, sites like CruiseCritic.com have become even more relevant and accurate. Clear example: CruiseCritic message boards are often the first source of breaking news when ships get into trouble at sea.
Celebrity Chef-Created Menu Items Sometimes Carry an Extra Fee– Royal Caribbean‘s 150 Central Park that is featured on Allure of the Seas has a fabulous menu created by celebrity chef Molly Brandt for $40 per person extra. The fee is well worth what would be priced easily at three times that much on land.
All Cruises are not Created Equal– There was a time when the onboard experience of a cruise vacation was about the same from cruise line to cruise line. That is not even remotely true anymore, as cruise lines have gone full speed ahead on branding and positioning themselves to be clearly different from each other.
Click-To-Buy is not the Smart Move– When cruise lines were very similar, it was simply a matter of choosing a sailing that worked with our travel window and an itinerary we liked. Buying online was arguably a viable option for booking. Now, with dynamic pricing strategies, differentiated onboard programming that varies widely from line to line and many more options, booking online is becoming more difficult all the time.
Travel Agents are Back and Better Than Ever– In the olden days, travel agents tried to be everything to everyone, selling any type of travel product. Most of them went broke. Today, more and more agents are becoming specialists in just cruise vacations and even specific cruise lines. That laser-sharp focus has brought better pricing, a better booking experience that often includes bonus amenities and this almost always equals a better value.
Cruises Have Something for Adventure Travelers Too– Previously turned off by the old stereotype of cruise vacations, adventure travelers are seeing cruise ships as an efficient way to see and sample destinations they may wish to explore more in depth on a later journey. The rising popularity of river cruising is testament to the destination immersion possible via cruise ship and how more travelers are demanding it.
Cruise Vacations are Safer Than Ever– A common and understandable if not warranted concern by cruise travelers after the grounding of Costa Concordia last January was safety. Cruise lines have bumped up the level of safety and security in an industry that already had good procedures in place. Now, even more emphasis has been placed on mandatory safety drills, security in port and at sea and crew training on everything from advanced fire prevention and response.
Celebrity Chef-Created Menu Items Sometimes do not Carry an Extra Fee– Guy’s Burger Joint created for Carnival Cruise Lines by the Food Network’s Guy Fieri has the best burger on the planet included in the price.
Still ranked as one of the most compelling reasons to cruise, dining has evolved from the stereotypical ‘belly-up-to-the-buffet’ feed fest to a variety of healthy options served in a growing number of onboard venues as we see in this video.
[Flickr photo by (nz)dave]
When Cruise Ships Plug In, Ports Prosper
Having the ability to “plug in” to cleaner shore-based electric power, rather than burning diesel fuel when in port, allows cruise ships to eliminate a jumbo-sized carbon footprint. At a number of ports in the United States, ships are doing just that. Now, the Canadian government has announced that it is continuing its commitment to limit air emissions from the Canadian transportation sector by inviting applications for funding under the Shore Power Technology for Ports Program.
The program will provide cost-shared funding for the installation of marine shore power at Canadian ports that allows ships to plug into the local electrical grid to power the vessel and turn off their diesel engines when docked.
In January, the Government announced it would be making a further $27.2 million investment into the program to help reduce air emissions from ships, encouraging more ports to participate in the program.
“Our investment in shore power will reduce emissions from ports, support a cleaner environment and protect the health of Canadians by improving the quality of air we breathe,” said Denis Lebel, Minister of Transport in Portworld. “This program will boost the competitiveness of Canadian ports, provide new opportunities for growth in the tourism sector, and create jobs across the country.”
Ports and cruise lines are making an ongoing effort to grow the industry in an environmentally responsible matter. The Port of Los Angeles has the ability to provide shore-side power to three different cruise lines. Using shore-side power, ships from Princess Cruises, Disney Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line can now turn off their polluting engines while in port.
Also in California, the Port of San Diego gained the plug-in ability in 2010, fitted for Holland America ships. Holland America Line’s Oosterdam was the first to plug in to a similar system, also designed to help cruise ships go green. Initially, the Port of San Diego system can handle one ship but plans are for this system to take on more ships in the future too.
For those ports, it has been smooth sailing on the ability to have ships plug in. But for one other port it has been a stormy sea of setbacks.
More than a year ago, Brooklyn’s Red Hook cruise ship terminal was on schedule to be the first East Coast cruise operation to let ships plug in. Now, ships have still not plugged in and continue to spew pollution into the air, which area residents are fuming about.
“It seems fairly pathetic that all of these things are in place but the Port Authority are twiddling their thumbs,” Adam Armstrong, 48, a blogger and father of two who lives on Pioneer Street near the terminal, told the Daily News. “I thought it was quibbling over a small amount of money considering the impact of the emissions on people’s health.”
It has been almost three years since Carnival Corporation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal Port Authority first agreed to enable cruise ships to plug in to green shore-side power.
Cruise ships annually bring 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide, 95 tons of nitrous oxide and 6.5 tons of particulate matter to the Brooklyn area when they park and burn their diesel engines.
In April of 2011, Gadling reported that the $15 million project would be funded with $12 million from the Port Authority, nearly $3 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant and Carnival Corporation would spend $4 million to retrofit their Princess Cruises and Cunard Line ships that dock in Brooklyn.
[Flickr photo by Tiago Daniel]