Cruise News

Michael Burke loved the sea, and was passionate about his beloved Windjammer Barefoot Cruises. From the sound of it, so were many of the line's passengers.

Carnival will find a way to get out of its rut, but it will take longer to do so if it doesn't acknowledge that it's low fares directly relate to its less-than-stellar safety issues.

The good news is that the Triumph didn't hit anything on the way out of port. But it's a long way to the Bahamas.

Turning small native communities into an attraction is one way to boost sales taxes and create jobs, but it can also turn tradition into a show and create a fresh batch of problems like draining resources and pollution.

TripAdvisor's acquisition of CruiseWise is great news for TripAdvisor subsidiary Cruise Critic, which is a leading cruise news and cruise-information site, but is hampered by an outdated user interface and bulletin-like forum technology. This acqui-hire will enable TripAdvisor to finally modernize Cruise Critic, a project that's probably been on the agenda for years.

Carnival Corp., which is engaged in damage control with Congress and the public, is making common-sense improvements that it should have made long ago. That being said, it appears as though these improvements could go a long way toward avoiding an encore of Carnival Triumph-like fiascos.

Carnival caved to intense pressure from Washington and its decision to reimburse the government for the Carnival Triumph and Carnival Splendor rescues could serve as a precedent. Carnival and other cruise lines could be getting bills in the mail from the U.S. Treasury for future incidents.

When you can't go a whole month without your cruise company having a major maintenance issue, price isn't your problem. Underpaid workers, cutting corners, and underinvestment are.

Carnival Corp. didn't make any concessions in its letter to Senator Rockefeller, arguing that the cruise industry already pays plenty of taxes. Don't expect Carnival to reimburse the U.S. government for its costs in the Triumph incident, although the amount of money would be puny for a corporation of Carnival's size.

It would be a much more difficult task to bolster passenger rights on board cruise ships than on planes, but the need is no less necessary.