Cruise lines want you to have a good time and offer lots of activities and events to make that happen. They talk a lot about how this is “your cruise” and want you to do whatever you want to in order to enjoy it.
There are limits though.
Don’t just go visit the bridge: It was New Years Eve when Alex Sokolov, a passenger on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas supposedly wandered on to the bridge, a restricted high security area and ended up being thrown off the ship. “He was accused of violating safety rules, and for that he was held for days in detention in the cabin, and then left on the shore in the Athenian harbor of Piraeus.” reports the Royal Caribbean blog Bridge tours can be arranged and are often a part of special celebration packages. Just stopping by? Not so much.
Don’t do it in the hot tub: Surveillance cameras cover pretty much all public areas of the ship, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Need I say more?
Celebrity Cruises audio-visual manager Amado Hernandez won’t be sailing on a scheduled Panama Canal cruise this week after being arrested by the FBI on child-pornography charges in San Diego Tuesday.
The investigation began when a computer technician was given what he thought was a broken computer at an estate sale last summer. The technician repaired the machine and discovered 450 still images and 250 video files of child pornography which he turned over to law enforcement authorities who then linked 31 year-old Hernandez to the machine.
According to the federal complaint reported by Signon San Diego, Hernandez had provided “onboard guest-entertainment services” on Celebrity Constellation since August and was due to ship out again on Monday before being arrested by the FBI. In evidence from documented online chats, Hernandez told of “buying young boys for sex in Mexico” and had “almost offed one once.”
In the online conversation evidence, Hernandez allegedly asked a man who said he was from Arkansas if he liked young boys, then suggested, “It would be hot to tag team one, go buy one in Mexico.”
Hernandez is not the first cruise ship worker arrested on child porn charges either. Maritime attorney Jim Walker reports crew members from Carnival and Costa Cruise Lines were also arrested recently saying “It’s not an isolated problem.”
A year ago Royal Caribbean International came under close scrutiny as the line planned to visit their private destination of Labadee, Haiti shortly after a devastating earthquake rocked the island. I was on board Freedom of the Seas last January when critics said it was in bad taste for the line to have cruise passengers go ashore for fun and sun while so many were suffering on different parts of the island nation. A year later, not a lot is better in Haiti and Royal Caribbean continues to call.
“Please go back to the ship and tell everyone to come ashore, we need them” I was told by local resident and Royal Caribbean island crew member “Franclin” at the time.
His plea was in response to a lower than normal number of passengers getting off ships calling at the island, a move that was hurting them financially as natives tried to sell hand-crafted items.
At the time, Royal Caribbean was scorned by some for visiting the island even though they were delivering much-needed relief supplies including much-needed basics like water at a time when ports elsewhere were damaged and unusable.
The effort continues today, a year later, as the cruise line continues to call at Labadee.
Humanitarian Relief to Haiti is an ongoing effort at Royal Caribbean. Highlighted by opening one fo the first schools to be built after the earthquake in October 2010 and company blogs that helped keep the world informed, relief efforts started just three days after the earthquake. The efforts continue too as company lets those with Royal Caribbean Visa cards help by donating their points to help in aide programs. Guests aboard sister-lines Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises can donate to Food for the Poor’s Haiti Relief Fund via their onboard charge accounts while sailing.
It’s 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 are doing it already with San Diego going online just last month.
All parties agree that it’s a good idea and are ready to move forward. But an agreement on maintenance and operating costs just can’t be reached.
Environmentally angry diesel fuel burned by cruise ships idling while docked can spew a ton of pollutants into the air, about the same amount as 1000 idling cars.
Nearby neighbors of the port are angry, tired of it all and want action.
“The emissions are invisible but get in people’s lungs and cause all sorts of damage,” said activist Anthony Armstrong, who lives with his wife and two children just two blocks from the cruise terminal. “It’s a huge concern around here.” reports the New York Post.
Carnival Cruise Line is ready to go and knows what they need to do. Sister-lines Princess Cruises and Holland America Line already have ships outfitted with the new green power technology and are plugging in on the West coast. They know how to do it.
The EPA and port authority have set aside $15 million to make it happen. All that remains is an agreement on who will pay ongoing costs of maintaining and operating the system.
“We need a comprehensive shore power agreement now,” Councilman Brad Lander told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “We’ve had two years of idling ships and idling negotiations. We have a tremendous opportunity to make a real difference in the health of our communities, and the sustainability of our port.”
Here we have the cruise industry, sometimes criticized for its polluting ways, stepping up to do the right thing. The cruise port wants green power. Neighbors are all over it and no one can figure out how to make that happen.
Wouldn’t it kind of make sense that whoever uses the power from the new system would pay for it?
Royal Caribbean’s new cruise port in Falmouth, Jamaica looks “more like a bomb went off on the site than a high-class tourist trap” says the Jamaica Observer today after a recent site visit.
That’s bad news for cruise passengers set to start visiting the new port January 7Th off Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas.
“The port facilities, especially the shops, are not ready. I would say the earliest they would be ready is about mid-March, and fully operational around late April, and the terminal building, a hundred per cent open at the end of June (2011),” said Jes Olsen, project director for the Dutch construction firm in charge of building the pier.
That’s about a year behind the originally projected opening date. Still, Royal Caribbean will send the first ship, Navigator of the Seas, to the port January 7Th. The Falmouth project was built to accommodate giant Oasis and Allure of the Seas beginning May 2010. Those ships won’t call in Falmouth until March.
“It is a very huge project. It’s a ‘design/build’ project, where the developer has certain things in mind and he can change his mind along the way. Also the unknown factors, we had a lot of coral to move which delayed the start-up of the project. We moved about 140,000 live corals.” adds Olsen.
With nothing to do at the port itself, the guests who disembark will have little choice for activities off the ship other than ship-sponsored shore excursions. Plans for setting up a temporary craft market on the site have yet to materialize.