The British entrepreneur Richard Branson intends to launch a new fleet of Virgin cruise ships. He plans to build two large ships quite from scratch that will start sailing from Port Miami through the Caribbean and the Mediterranean regions. The two new ships will be based at Miami and it would take a while to launch the project because of the ship-building process.
The project is said to be worth $US1.7 billion and the most of the funding has been raised. Continue reading
Quantum of the Seas, the first in the new Quantum class, is scheduled to be introduced in November and will have her maiden voyage from Bayonne, New Jersey. Ordered in early 2011, the ship is currently under construction at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany.
Built on a legacy of innovation and creative design, the 1,141-foot long, 16-decked cruise ship will carry 4,180 passengers and will be the first to boast new features such as an observation capsule called the North Star, the first skydiving simulator at sea, bumping cars, the largest indoor sports and entertainment complex at sea, larger more advanced staterooms, virtual balconies providing real-time views of the sea from high-tech walls. Continue reading
Carnival Cruise Lines moves the Liberty from Port of Miami to Port Canaveral. The Liberty joins two other Carnival cruise ships, the Sensation and the totally transformed Sunshine, both home-based at Port Canaveral.
With the addition of the Liberty on May 4 to Port Canaveral line-up, Carnival Cruise Lines already has three ships based here. In this way Carnival will increase the number of its passengers to 600,000 a year on nearly 200 cruises visiting 18 tropical islands. Continue reading
The North Star: The observation capsule