Cruise Ships

If you had Caribbean dreams in your travel plans for this week, they're fading rapidly into reality with the arrival of Hurricane Irene , a powerful storm that has targeted Puerto RIco, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and potentially the entire Eastern seaboard of the U.S. As of this morning, the National Hurricane Center has issued hurricane warnings and watches for several of the Caribbean islands, with the chance for a direct hit over...

— They stood in the sunshine, silent and praying for the souls of the 1,500 who lost their lives. The dozens gathered at St. Peter the Apostle Roman Catholic Church bowed their heads and tried to imagine those last desperate moments in the North Atlantic Ocean, 100 years ago. "Save me, God, for the waters have reached my neck," Kara Van Fleet, 15, read from the Psalms to the crowd assembled at the bottom of the church's sloped cemetery....

The Celebrity Cruises ship Galaxy will make its first trip out of Baltimore on March 25 loaded with about 21,600 pounds of beef, 25,250 pounds of fresh vegetables, 4,082 gallons of milk and truckloads of just about everything else 1,850 passengers might crave at a midnight buffet in the Caribbean. "What they buy in food is unbelievable," said Alan H. Kotz, president of Baltimore ship supplier R.S. Stern Inc. Kotz, who made a sales call at Celebrity's Miami headquarters last month, wants a piece of that business.

The ringleader of a heroin ring that imported drugs into Baltimore aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Enchantment of the Seas has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, according to federal prosecutors. Loxly Johnson, 49, of Norfolk, Va., was the final suspect to be imprisoned in the conspiracy that brought international drug trafficking to the shores of Baltimore. He was convicted after a four-day trial in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. A Norfolk woman was sentenced to a year, and three men from Jamaica, Nicaragua and St. Vincent and the Grenadines were sentenced to time served awaiting trial, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office.

Gambling will be prohibited this year on all cruise ships plying the waters off Alaska's rugged coastline.While Alaska banned gambling in 1978, many foreign-registered cruise ships continued to operate casinos. "Foreign-flagged ships believed they weren't subject to Alaska's regulations because they were just passing through," says Mark Rosenbaum, a U.S. attorney in Anchorage.After receiving complaints last summer from local cruise companies that some foreign-flag ships were violating Alaska's ban on gambling, the U.S. attorney ordered the foreign cruise ships to close the casinos while in Alaskan waters and en route to destinations like Glacier Bay, Mr. Rosenbaum says.

In the waning days of the Schaefer administration, the state is pushing to wrap up negotiations to buy a site from AlliedSignal Inc. for an Inner Harbor cruise ship terminal.The terminal -- expected to cost $50 million, or double initial projections -- is a priority with Gov. William Donald Schaefer. And state officials are hoping at least to purchase the 1.2-acre site adjacent to the old chrome works plant before the governor leaves office in January."The Inner Harbor needs a shot in the arm," Mr. Schaefer said in a recent interview.

Don't look just yet, but more cruise liners could be docking in Baltimore.Eyeing potential economic development benefits, Maryland lawmakers reversed Monday a long-standing law that forced cruise ships to shut down their casinos while sailing the six hours up the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore."

Picture 25,000 cruise passengers disembarking in Baltimore each year to walk the Inner Harbor, shop at Harborplace, dine at nearby restaurants and visit the attractions."

MIAMI - Stomach virus outbreaks on cruise ships ballooned this year to 23 occurrences on 19 ships - triple last year's number and exceeding those of the past four years combined, a report released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control shows. Since October, more than 1,200 passengers and crew on board eight cruises have been stricken with gastrointestinal illness - many of whom sailed from South Florida ports. And while ships that have been taken out of service for disinfection - such as Holland America's Amsterdam and Disney's Magic - have reported no outbreaks on subsequent cruises, there is no way to know whether additional ships will report high levels of the bug. "We would hope on a daily basis to say there are no outbreaks and that the outbreaks are over," said Dave Forney, chief of the CDC's vessel sanitation program.

Like migratory birds, cruise ships regularly shift from one part of the world to another as the seasons shift -- from the Caribbean to Europe or South America or from Alaska or the West Coast to Asia or the South Pacific, for example. These usually twice annual exoduses are so huge that they could rival a naval armada, and they offer exceptional bargains, as well as lots of languid days at sea, and, occasionally, even unusual ports of call. Veteran cruise book author Kay Showker considers repositioning cruises "about the best value in cruising," compared with a regular cruise on the same ship.

As the 100th anniversary the RMS Titanic disaster approaches, the Costa Concordia grounding is a stark reminder that going to sea remains dangerous. A modern cruise ship sailing a routine route capsized in a matter of minutes in beautiful weather, leaving at least 11 people dead. About 15 million people took a cruise last year, and they are asking tough questions. Are the massive passenger vessels stable enough to withstand grounding or collision? Are the international crews capable of coordinating a rapid evacuation of thousands of people?

From what I've read so far, the capsizing of the Costa Concordia appears to have been perfectly preventable. The captain's foolhardy navigation, as well as his alleged abandoning of the ship  (per this Italian Coast Guard transcript), may indeed prove to be criminal. But there are always lessons to be learned from even the most tragic situations. Here are a few: 1. Pay attention to the lifeboat drill. Most cruise ships have a muster drill, often before leaving port.

St. Mary's College of Maryland said farewell to the most talked-about dormitory in its history on Sunday when the Sea Voyager, a 286-foot cruise ship, pulled up anchor. The ship, docked beside campus on the St. Mary's River, had housed 240 students since early November. The students, mostly freshmen and sophomores, were displaced from two residence halls by mold. After an extensive cleaning, those halls have been declared safe to re-enter by CEI, an environmental consulting agency, the college said.

— Michelle DiMenna digs into a salad and flips through a novel on the balcony above her college dorm room. It's the kind of leisure time a college freshman usually takes for granted — oblivious to the grinding days of work and family responsibilities that lie ahead. Not DiMenna. "I mean, look at this," the Baltimore native says, sweeping her hand across the vista in front of her. It is lovely, a scene of classic homes, gently lapping water and autumn-tinged trees that you could sell on a postcard.

Charlotte Mecklenburg let her mind drift ahead many years to the fall of her prospective offspring's freshman year in college. She imagined her child grousing about a cramped living space or a messy roommate, and she scoffed. "They will never be able to complain," said Mecklenburg, who just began her freshman year at St. Mary's College of Maryland. "Because I'll be able to tell them, 'Look, I lived in a boat! '" Like 239 of her St. Mary's classmates, the Gaithersburg resident was trying to keep in good humor Monday about the decidedly unusual turn the college's year has taken.

If you had Caribbean dreams in your travel plans for this week, they're fading rapidly into reality with the arrival of Hurricane Irene , a powerful storm that has targeted Puerto RIco, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and potentially the entire Eastern seaboard of the U.S. As of this morning, the National Hurricane Center has issued hurricane warnings and watches for several of the Caribbean islands, with the chance for a direct hit over...

KEY WEST, Fla. -- The tourists line the pier dutifully at sundown, every sundown, to watch a fat orange sun fall into an aquamarine sea.In the '60s, it was stoned students who gathered, in a hippie tribute to the end of the day. Today, the tourists tend to be gray-haired, in sensible shoes, fanny packs strapped snugly around their waists. They're there because the Key West tourism machine thrums incessantly that this is where all visitors must be, drink in hand, at sundown.But these tourists are not really Key West.

NEW YORK - They've slept on office floors, in jails and on school buses that take them to and from shelters at 3 a.m. But now homeless people in New York City might get a new place to spend the night - on cruise ships. City officials, faced with a rapidly expanding number of homeless and a court order that requires New York to provide temporary shelter for any person who needs it, have come up with the novel plan to use old cruise ships as one of several solutions to a chronic housing shortage.