Cruise News

Unlucky cruise ship Carnival Triumph will be taking a trip to the body shop for repairs to a 20-ft gash in its side. The ship, in dock after an engine room fire in February, broke free from its moorings yesterday during a freak storm. It drifted out of control in winds gusting to 70mph and more before colliding with a cargo vessel. None of the 600 crew and 200 contractors on board were injured. However, a quayside shack housing two security guards was blown into the water. One man was rescued, but the second is missing. Carnival Triumph is in [...]

Check out the early progress being made on the conversion of Carnival Destiny into Carnival Sunshine in this video. The work is being carried out at Fincantieri's shipyard in Trieste, in north-east Italy, and many of the 1,000 crew and 2,000 contractors involved are being accommodated on another cruise ship chartered for the occasion. It's the Louis Olympia, which sailed until last year as Thomson Destiny, and was Airtours' Sunbird before that. The ship was originally the Song of America, built for Royal Caribbean in 1982. Sunshine's £100 million dry-dock, already one of the most ambitious and expensive in cruise [...]

There's more to Viking River Cruises than sponsorship of the hit ITV drama series, Broadchurch, and the only mystery yesterday - when the company christened 10 new ships in one go - was how to ensure the Champagne bottles smashed successfully on each one. The ceremony took place in Amsterdam, although six of the ships were named by remote control at a shipyard in Rostock, Germany. Ten ships meant 10 godmothers, who each recited a maritime blessing and cut a ribbon on a waterfront stage lined with red and white balloons. Among them was Lady Fiona Carnarvon (above), chatelaine of [...]

The £100 million refit of cruise ship Carnival Sunshine is to be extended by two weeks in order to incorporate safety enhancements as a result of the recent fires and power failures on other vessels in the company's fleet. Two Mediterranean cruises have been cancelled and the ship - formerly Carnival Destiny - will not now be back in service until May 5. The extra work will address problems highlighted by the loss of power after a fire last month on board Carnival Triumph and the electrical shortcomings which came to light during testing of an emergency generator on Carnival [...]

Damage to Marco Polo, caused when the ship hit the seabed in northern Norway last weekend, is more serious than first thought and it will be out of action until Easter. It had been hoped that a brief spell in dry dock would be sufficient to repair the vessel, which has an ice-strengthened hull. Operator Cruise & Maritime Voyages initially delayed the start of its next cruise from Thursday until tomorrow (Sunday). Passengers have now been informed their holidays are cancelled. The ship will remain at a yard in Antwerp while repairs are carried out. CMV will also be looking [...]

UPDATE, FRIDAY MARCH 15: Carnival Legend is experiencing propulsion problems with one of its azipod propeller motors. The ship, on the last leg of a seven-day Caribbean cruise, has abandoned a planned call at Grand Cayman and is returning to Tampa, Florida, at reduced speed. Yet more problems for Carnival Cruises. Barely a month after passengers on Carnival Triumph spent an uncomfortable five days being towed back to the mainland, Carnival Dream has cut short a cruise because of power failures. At least this time the ship was in port - at Phillipsburg on the Caribbean island of St Maarten [...]