Matthew is no longer a category 5 hurricane but still poses severe risk to lives.At 11 p.m. on Friday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center announced that Matthew had strengthened from a Category 4 to a Category 5 hurricane over the Caribbean Sea. With maximum sustained winds up to 160 mph, Matthew had been the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin since Hurricane Felix in 2007. Continue reading
A woman survives nearly two days without lifejacket in jellyfish-infested water after falling overboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.
The 32-year-old Chinese woman, known only by her surname Fan, is from Shanghai. She was on a five-day cruise from Shanghai to South Korea and Japan, local media reports. Continue reading
The Norwegian Getaway will serve as a floating hotel for 2016 Olympics in Rio.
Norwegian Cruise Line‘s Getaway will take an extended break from its regular Caribbean schedule to serve as a floating hotel in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, according to a news release.
The Getaway will take 40 days off to head to Brazil. The cruise ship will spend more than two weeks, from August 4 – 22, berthed at the Pier Maua in Rio.
The company Landry & Kling, a decades-old travel agency, chartered the 4,000-passenger vessel on behalf of the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee.
The ship will provide supplemental housing primarily for corporate sponsors, as well as members of the International Olympic Federation and the National Organizing Committees, the Rio Host Committee and other guests.
For Landry & Kling, the deal is the largest charter in the company’s history. They have been planning the deal since 2007.
Although this is the ship’s first Olympic appearance, this isn’t the first time the Norwegian Getaway has been hired for a high-profile sports event. Before the cruise ship officially entered service for Norwegian in 2014, it was temporarily renamed the “Bud Light Hotel” and docked at the New York Passenger Ship Terminal, during the week of Super Bowl XLVIII.
An 8-year old boy is in critical condition after nearly drowned in a pool on Royal Caribbean cruise ship. The accident happened on Thursday evening at eight to 10 miles off the coast of Breezy Point, Queens, according to officials. Crew members were alerted on Thursday evening that a boy needed medical attention after he was found unconscious at the bottom of one of the ship’s swimming pools. Coast Guard Senior Chief Steven Allard said that he boy remained in the water without oxygen for almost 18 minutes before being discovered by ship officials. Continue reading
After more than $5 billion and almost a decade of construction, the long-delayed Panama expansion opened amid cheering crowds on Sunday.
At 8 a.m. on Sunday morning, the first official voyage through the newly expanded waterway was completed by a Chinese ship bearing 9,472 containers and named Cosco Shipping Panama. The mammoth set sail from the Greek port of Piraeus and two weeks later entered one of the new locks, on its way to the man-made Gatun Lake and the Pacific Ocean. Continue reading