Cruise News

Royal Caribbean is testing digital scratch-off lottery tickets through its onboard app aboard Utopia of the Seas, with tickets priced from $2 to $20 and a top jackpot of $100,000; prizes under $2,000 post automatically to guest accounts, while larger wins require a Casino Royale visit and tax paperwork. The test follows Carnival Millions, launched in February 2026 with daily drawings offering up to $1 million, and an earlier BetMGM trial with Carnival that ended over satellite-internet lag and limited passenger interest. At Port Canaveral, construction has begun on a $95 million expansion of Cruise Terminal 10, a 145,000-square-foot facility roughly 30 percent larger than the existing building and able to handle ships carrying up to 6,700 passengers, with completion set for November 2027. The port recorded 8.6 million passenger movements and 1,038 ship calls in fiscal 2025. And Heritage Expeditions has completed drydock on Heritage Discoverer in Bremerhaven, Germany, ahead of the ship's first Antarctic passenger cruise, a preview voyage from Ushuaia running November 19 to December 9, 2026.

MSC Group has named its second private Caribbean destination Catalina Sugar Beach, opening on Catalina Island off La Romana in the Dominican Republic in November 2026, with MSC Opera making the first call on November 17 and Explora III following on November 19. Disney reported record quarterly Experiences revenue of $9.97 billion, up 10 percent, as Disney Cruise Line stateroom capacity rose 50 percent year over year following the debut of Disney Destiny and Disney Adventure. And Carnival Cruise Line appointed Daniela Gargiulo as the first female Staff Captain in its global fleet, in a ceremony aboard Carnival Adventure in Sydney.

Disney Cruise Line has pulled forward the completion of its 13-ship fleet to the end of 2030, moving Ship 12 to late 2029 and Ship 13 to late 2030, with Disney Believe due in late 2027 and a fifth Wish-class vessel arriving for Tokyo Disney Resort in 2029. In Malaysia, Penang's Swettenham Pier Cruise Terminal has completed a RM100 million expansion that stretches its quay wall from 540 meters to 840 meters, allowing it to berth two mega cruise ships at once, or up to four mixed-size vessels, and handle roughly 12,000 passengers at a time. And Regent Seven Seas Cruises has opened Seven Seas Voyager's Northern Europe season from Southampton, following a 14-night repositioning from Lisbon with a 20-night Isles of Myth & Magnificence roundtrip calling at 14 destinations including the Shetlands, the Faroes, the Hebrides and an overnight in Seydisfjordur.

Norwegian Cruise Line has canceled Norwegian Sky's 21-day farewell repositioning voyage from Piraeus to Dubai, citing ongoing uncertainty in the Middle East, and is offering full fare refunds plus a future cruise credit raised to 50 percent of the voyage fare, valid through December 31, 2027, before the ship transfers to Cordelia Cruises as Cordelia Sky. Port Tampa Bay has started site work on its fourth cruise terminal, a five-acre project at the former Metroport site on the Ybor Channel that is scheduled to open in 2029 and is expected to add more than 200 ship calls a year and roughly $100 million in annual economic impact, though no cruise lines or ships have been named for it yet. And in Australia, the newly launched Australian Paddock to Port Alliance warns that rising costs threaten a cruise sector worth more than A$7.3 billion a year and supporting over 22,000 jobs.

Azamara Quest enters drydock on October 31, 2026 for the first refit under Azamara's $80 million Azamara Forward program, gaining a Penthouse Suite Deck with 12 new suites, a Chef's Table, updates to the Atlas Bar, Discoveries Restaurant and Cabaret Lounge, an expanded THESANCTUM spa, and a complete refresh of all 352 staterooms before the ship returns to service on November 26. In Ibiza, the MSC Foundation and Asociación Vellmari have launched Shallow Bays of the Mediterranean, a three-year project running from August 2026 to July 2029 that aims to plant 170,000 to 180,000 Posidonia oceanica plants and restore roughly 20,000 square metres of degraded habitat in Talamanca Bay, while reaching 6,000 students across 30 education centres and involving about 600 volunteers. And Atlas Ocean Voyages has added four extended sailings to Atlas Adventurer's debut season, led by the 128-night Grand Odyssey Expedition from Kobe to Cape Town departing November 30, 2028.

A Texas man was arrested at PortMiami's Royal Caribbean terminal as he tried to board Wonder of the Seas, charged with felony battery over an alleged assault on a bartender at Miami's Bayside Marketplace five days earlier. Holland America Line's Nieuw Statendam left Rotterdam on a 28-night "Legendary Solar Eclipse with Greenland and Scotland" voyage that will put guests in the path of totality off Iceland on August 12, with astronomy programming led by Tom Vassos. And TUI Cruises detailed the dining lineup aboard Mein Schiff Flow, the second InTUItion-class ship, where 14 restaurants and bistros include FUGU by Tim Raue alongside new French, Greek, Scandinavian and Alpine concepts.

Today's episode covers three stories from across the cruise world. A negligence lawsuit filed in the Circuit Court for Brevard County, Florida accuses Disney Cruise Line of failing to guard against a fall from an upper bunk aboard Disney Wonder, in which a child fractured both wrists; the suit seeks more than $50,000 and centers on a guardrail that did not span the full length of the mattress. In Alaska, Juneau's cruise calls remain on schedule as water in Suicide Basin approaches capacity, with a glacial outburst flood possible in mid-August and shore excursions near Mendenhall Glacier the most likely to be affected. And Royal Caribbean has set 50 Southern Europe itineraries for summer 2027 across seven ships, spanning Spain, Italy, France, the Greek Islands, Egypt, Portugal and Morocco, including calls tied to the Royal Beach Club Santorini.

Celebrity Cruises has raised its daily gratuities by $1.50 per guest across all stateroom categories, effective July 29, taking standard inside, oceanview and veranda rooms to $19.50 a day, Concierge Class and AquaClass to $20.50, and The Retreat to $24.50. In Greece, Santorini is now routing organized cruise excursion groups to the ferry port at Athinios after a July 27 wall collapse closed the 558-step Karavolades Stairs linking the old port to Fira, a change that adds a 20 to 25 minute bus ride for tour passengers during a month with more than 25 scheduled ship calls. And in Florida, Miami-Dade County has approved a preferential berthing agreement with Margaritaville at Sea worth at least $23.15 million, giving the line preference for roughly 170 calls at PortMiami's Cruise Terminal C from January 9, 2027 through April 30, 2031, with the 2,700-guest Beachcomber heading into a 12-week conversion dry dock in late September.

Cruise growth is reshaping the places ships call and the seasons they sail. The Port of Galveston has launched its first mobility study, backed by nearly $5 million in grants, to sort out how passengers, vehicles, transit and goods move between the cruise terminals, the commercial waterfront and Historic Downtown, as sailings climb toward 445 in 2026 and a fifth terminal is planned at Pier 14. MSC Cruises has set an eight-ship European lineup for winter 2027-28, with six vessels in the Mediterranean led by the new LNG-powered MSC World Asia, MSC Preziosa year-round in Northern Europe including two Svalbard sailings a year, and MSC Fantasia on Canary Islands and Madeira itineraries. And Princess Cruises marks 25 years of shore power in Juneau, where roughly 1,725 ship connections since 2001 have drawn 123.7 million kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power and avoided 84,533.6 metric tons of emissions, a practice now available at 41 cruise ports worldwide.

Greek authorities are investigating the death of a 62-year-old British woman who died in her cabin aboard a Marshall Islands-flagged cruise ship near Santorini on July 26; the Port Authority of Thira has opened an investigation and an autopsy was ordered at the Forensic Medical Service of Piraeus. In St. Thomas, dredging of the cruise harbor at Havensight begins in September 2026 under contractor Orion Marine Construction, with completion expected by mid-2027 — work that WICO President and CEO Joseph Boschulte says will finally let the largest Oasis-class ships call safely, as the territory projects 362 calls and roughly 1.2 million passengers in fiscal 2027. And Princess Cruises has opened sales for its 2028 Alaska season, with 185 departures across 14 itineraries on eight ships, 86 scheduled scenic-cruising visits to Glacier Bay National Park, and cruise-tour options anchored by five wilderness lodges and the Direct-to-the-Wilderness rail service.