Cruise News

Fuel surcharge clauses are back in focus for passengers sailing from Port Canaveral, where Carnival Cruise Line retains contractual authority to add up to $9 per person per day and Royal Caribbean up to $12, including on some fully paid bookings, while Disney Cruise Line's published U.S. terms show no active supplement. In Alaska, the Alaska State Fire Marshal's Office has declared the dock at Whittier's Chugach Glacier Gateway Cruise Terminal a total loss after a Sept. 14 fire; no injuries were reported, Norwegian Jade shifted its embarkation across the water, and the Oct. 3 commissioning of the USS Ted Stevens moved to the Holland America Princess terminal. And the Port of San Diego has opened its largest cruise season in more than 15 years, with 183 scheduled ship calls and more than 700,000 passengers expected, driven by new Royal Caribbean homeport operations and Disney's first two-ship deployment from the port.

Today's brief covers three stories. Royal Caribbean laid the keel for its fifth Icon-class ship, NB-1408, at the Meyer Turku yard in Finland on September 14; the roughly 250,000-gross-ton vessel is scheduled to enter service in 2028. Celebrity Cruises completed the float out of Celebrity Compass on September 9, its first river ship, a 172-guest vessel with 86 staterooms that will debut on the Danube in August 2027 sailing between Budapest, Hungary and Vilshofen, Germany. And Cody Gray, 34, of Maitland, Florida, was arrested at PortMiami and charged with felony sexual battery and a misdemeanor count of giving alcohol to a minor; he pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bond, and neither the ship nor the cruise line was disclosed.

Margaritaville at Sea Islander makes its first call at Willemstad, Curacao, arriving September 10 on a 10-night Southern and Western Caribbean sailing from Port Tampa Bay after the line reversed the voyage's Aruba and Curacao port days. Windstar Cruises takes its Destination Discovery Events fleetwide for 2027, adding evening programs in Livorno, Dubrovnik and London across all eight yachts and 165 sailings, with Star Pride calling at the Tower of London and the new 224-guest Star Explorer joining the fleet. And Celebrity Summit marks 25 years with Celebrity Cruises, from its 2001 delivery at Chantiers de l'Atlantique and first sailing out of Port Everglades through the Celebrity Revolution refit and on to upcoming Tampa, Alaska and Iceland deployments.

MSC Cruises' MSC World Asia has completed final sea trials off western France ahead of delivery by Chantiers de l'Atlantique on November 25, 2026. The 216,638-gross-ton ship measures 333.3 metres and carries up to 6,764 passengers in 2,614 cabins, with a naming ceremony set for Le Havre on November 28 and a first passenger sailing from Barcelona on December 4. In Florida, Marco Island City Council approved three Rose Marina requests on September 10, 2026, clearing a 200-seat waterfront restaurant, expanded parking and reconfigured docks, with the new dock plan limiting the marina to three buses and 150 passengers at a time. Opponents raised traffic and environmental concerns over Factory Bay, and Vice Chair Rene Champagne questioned how passenger vessel calls began in December 2023 without separate city approval. And the Golden Horizon, the square-rigged sailing cruise ship built by Brodosplit and laid up in Split since 2022, has been sold for £110 million to an unidentified Swiss company that operates around 100 vessels.

Norwegian Cruise Line has closed all public hot tubs and private balcony whirlpools aboard Norwegian Prima after three Legionnaires' disease diagnoses involving passengers on May and July 2026 sailings, with water testing underway across showers, faucets and hot tubs, all results negative so far, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention involved; NCL says it has not been confirmed whether the exposure occurred on the ship or elsewhere, and Caribbean itineraries from Port Canaveral continue unchanged. Carnival Cruise Line replaced self-muster with full in-person muster drills on Carnival Magic's September 13 departure from Miami and Carnival Paradise's September 14 departure from Tampa, sending guests to assigned muster stations for life-jacket demonstrations under SOLAS and coast guard rules that brand ambassador John Heald says every ship must meet twice a year. And the Royal Canadian Air Force airlifted an ill passenger from a cruise ship about 200 kilometres northwest of Port Hardy, British Columbia, with a CH-149 Cormorant helicopter and CC-295 Kingfisher aircraft from 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron at 19 Wing Comox, coordinated by Joint Rescue Coordination Centre Victoria; the ship was not named and the nature of the emergency was not disclosed.

Royal Caribbean is pushing for growth in Türkiye as Icon-class hardware reshapes its Mediterranean deployment: Legend of the Seas, at roughly 250,000 gross tons and 5,610 guests at double occupancy, began sailing July 4, 2026 and stays in the Mediterranean for 2027, while Odyssey of the Seas moves to the Eastern Mediterranean and Hero of the Seas debuts from Miami in August 2027. Costa Cruises will homeport the 3,000-guest Costa Pacifica in Istanbul for 28 seven-night sailings starting April 18, 2027, reserving 2,800 cabins for the Turkish market and calling at Izmir, Mykonos, Santorini, Athens and Volos, with Crete and Rhodes replacing Izmir and Volos from late May. And Viking Astrea floated out at Fincantieri's Ancona shipyard on September 11, 2026 — 54,300 gross tons, 998 guests in 499 staterooms, and a hybrid diesel and liquefied-hydrogen fuel-cell system rated up to 6 megawatts — ahead of delivery in May 2027 and a maiden cruise in June 2027.

JetBlue's travel subsidiary Paisly has added Viking, Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours and Emerald Cruises to JetBlue Vacations, bringing river itineraries to the platform for the first time and letting travelers earn JetBlue TrueBlue points while remaining eligible for cruise-line rewards, with Paisly set to power MileagePlus Travel cruises in 2027. In Western New York, longtime firefighters Dawn and John Gauthier are organizing the Valor Voyage Firefighter Cruise, a five-night sailing aboard Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas departing March 4, 2028, with calls at Belize City and Puerto Costa Maya and two sea days of leadership, tactics and mental health sessions; a portion of proceeds will benefit the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. And UnCruise Adventures will more than double capacity on its Aleutian Islands itinerary in 2028, replacing the 36-guest Safari Explorer with the refitted 74-guest Wilderness Explorer across eight 10-night sailings between Seward and Dutch Harbor.

Today's Cruise News covers three stories from across the industry. Minnesota pastor Stephen Junker, 58, died Sept. 4 after suffering a severe spinal cord injury in a pool aboard Sun Princess off Italy in August, where he had traveled for his son's onboard wedding; he underwent emergency spinal surgery in Naples before his family arranged his return to Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Explorations by Norwegian's Regatta departed Civitavecchia, Italy, on Sept. 1 for a 371-day world cruise billed as the world's longest, scheduled to visit 220 ports in 62 countries across six continents, with 24 regional segments also on sale. And MSC Cruises unveiled five new bar and lounge concepts for MSC World Asia, the 215,863-gross-ton World Class ship entering Mediterranean service in December 2026 with 40 bars, lounges and cafes aboard.

Princess Cruises has removed Princess Cays from published itineraries for six ships beginning in November 2026, ending 34 years of scheduled calls at the Eleuthera beach destination since 1992; the October 17, 2026 departure of Regal Princess is the last published Princess itinerary to include it, Sun Princess and Caribbean Princess are among the vessels being redirected, and RelaxAway, Half Moon Cay and Celebration Key are among the replacement destinations, with prepaid excursions, cabanas and beach rentals automatically canceled and refunded. Royal Caribbean International's Hero of the Seas completed its float-out at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Finland on September 4, with crews filling the dock with over 90 million gallons of water overnight; the roughly 250,800-gross-ton Icon-class ship was more than 60% complete, measures about 1,196 feet, and will carry around 5,600 guests and approximately 2,350 crew when it begins seven-night Caribbean cruises from PortMiami on August 11, 2027. And a University of Queensland Law School study by Dr Rosemary Gibson, published in Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, finds that class action waivers in cruise passenger contracts are generally void under Australian Consumer Law, which prohibits unfair terms in standard-form consumer contracts and requires operators to show restrictive clauses are reasonably necessary, following the High Court's December 2023 ruling in Karpik v Carnival plc.

Silversea returns to Alaska in 2027 with 29 voyages aboard Silver Moon and Silver Whisper, running from May 27 into early September and calling at 14 ports including Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, Sitka, Metlakatla and Klawock, with Seward's new Dale R. and Carol Ann Lindsey Alaska Railroad Terminal now open. AIDA Cruises rebrands its fall 2026 and spring 2027 repositioning sailings as Time-Out Voyages, putting five ships from its 11-vessel fleet on longer crossings spanning Western Europe, the Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and southern Africa, including AIDAbella from Kiel to Barbados and a 14-day AIDAmar run from Warnemunde to Mallorca. And Adora Cruises links its Aiyou Club loyalty program with Alibaba's Fliggy platform, letting members connect accounts, sync tier status and earn points across both, ahead of the November 22 maiden voyage of Adora Flora City from Guangzhou Nansha International Cruise Homeport.