Welcome to the weekly Cruise News Digest. Here you can catch up on the past week’s cruise news and all things La Lido Loca.
Let’s dive in!
Exciting news for Hallmark Christmas Channel fans! Norwegian Gem has been chartered to bring the magic of Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movies to the high seas. The cruise will be a 4-day cruise from Miami to the Bahamas November 5-9, 2024 and will feature an exclusive world premiere of the new Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas movie.
The successful rollout of new menus aboard the Carnival Dream this month has prompted an expedited rollout of the new menu fleetwide. The next ship was the Carnival Conquest on July 17, 2023 followed by Carnival Horizon then Carnival Sunrise, Carnival Vista, Carnival Radiance and Mardi Gras in August. Each month the new menus will be offered aboard several ships based in United States homeports through early 2024. Carnival’s ships based in Australia will also begin offering the new menus later this year.
Also in the news this week, Carnival Cruise Line is expanding the use of facial biometric technology in order to expedite the debarkation process at nine of its fourteen homeports. The facial biometric technology is a simple process that takes seconds and is about 98 percent accurate. The United State homeports that are utilizing the technology have seen the debarkation process expedited by an average of 30 percent.
Carnival Pride was also in the news when she made an unexpected stop in Kiel, Germany to board expert technicians and then canceled her July 21, 2023 roundtrip cruise from Dover, England. However, just a few days later, Cruise Ambassador, John Heald took to social media to inform guests that a shorter revised itinerary was being offered aboard the Carnival Pride with significant compensation including a $500 onboard credit. That itinerary is scheduled to depart from Dover, England tomorrow.
The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) made a huge step toward joining Finland, France, Germany, and Italy as the fifth nation building large cruise ships when Adora Magic City headed out to sea under her own power for the first time this week. This is a vital stage in the shipbuilding process and the first of a two part series of sea trials before the ship enters service from Shanghai in early 2024.
Is Amsterdam banning cruise ships? The Amsterdam City Council did pass a proposal with an overwhelming majority vote to ban cruise ships in an effort to reduce pollution and tourist traffic in the city. This proposal is in the very beginning phase, but if passed it would become very inconvenient for cruise passengers to visit the old city. It is also possible the cruise terminal could be moved to another location. In the meantime, cruise ships are scheduled to call at the Amsterdam port through 2025.
There you have it. This week’s Cruise News Digest. Did you see this week’s live show with Tony and Jenny B? There was a big announcement about a change that you don’t want to miss. While you are there, hop on over to Cruise News and Views where Tony keeps up with the cruise news so you don’t have to. Be sure to hit the subscribe button with notifications on so you never miss out on all things La Lido Loca.
You can also join in on the conversation via social media on the La Lido Cruising Community and the Have to Lose Support Crew group pages.