Cruise News

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TripAdvisor subsidiary Cruise Critic, which is a leading cruise news and cruise-information site, but is hampered by an outdated user interface and bulletin-like forum technology.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.

The suspense is almost too much to bear (not really). The Royal Princess won't take its maiden voyage for another five months, but Princess Cruises' YouTube channel already boasts 15 videos about the ship. Is the line going a little overboard?

Cruise lines’ usual stream of customer engagement involves surface level greetings, but laying the groundwork for quick responses is the first step in ensuring a performance more impressive than Carnival’s during a public crisis.