The Right Price………………………………………………………….$499
Ship: Royal Caribbean Voyageur of the Seas
Departure: May 1, 14 nights, Transatlantic (Galveston to Barcelona)
Ports: Ponta Delgada, Azores; Malaga, Spain; Cartagena, Spain
Bonus: Balcony $799
Contact: Royal Caribbean
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We’re pretty much CNN junkies, so when we awoke to the devastating news of the earthquake in Japan yesterday, there was no doubt what network would be our source of information…Despite the tsunami crossing the Pacific Ocean, we were relatively certain cruise ships would not be affected…As Chad Myers — who has to be the world’s most animated weatherman — explained it, the waves that build to damaging heights when they make landfall cause barely a ripple in deep ocean waters, so ships are better off at sea than in port…That explains why Norwegian’s Pride of America left Hawaii, its open base, to wait out the tsunami at sea…On this side of the Pacific, the port in Cabo San Lucas was closed, forcing the Disney Wonder to remain offshore and miss calling at the popular Mexican port.
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River cruising is evidently enjoying good times…In September, the AmaLotus makes a maiden voyage on the Mekong River to join an AMA Waterways fleet that by April 2012 will 
number 13 ships…It’s the second “new” ship this year, the other being the AmaKatarina, which was re-constructed from bare steel last year…Still to come is the AmaCerto, which sounds ultra-luxurios with twin balconies and a heated swimming pool…Internet access is complimentary, and we can only hope that starts a trend…The Mekong River, incidentally, is the 10th-longest in the world at more than 3,000 miles as it snakes through seven countries…The part of the river where the AmaLotus will cruise is in Cambodia and Vietnam.
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Now here’s an unusual twist to what happens in times of rising fuel prices…Carnival’s Elation, consistently sold out while cruising out of Mobile, will cease sailing from the Alabama port in November because of the cost of fuel…Carnival’s Mobile cruises aren’t profitable enough with the increase, and fuel prices are cheaper in other ports, like New Orleans, where the Elation will be next year…Another ship migrating to the Gulf of Mexico is the Crown Princess (below), which will sail 19 times from Galveston, starting in December 2012…It 
will be the first time Princess has used the Texas coast city as a home port in five years…The Carnival Magic arrives there after its maiden Transatlantic voyage this October and when we were there last year, the locals were excited about that…Little did they know the Crown Princess was coming, too…They’ll join the Carnival Ecstasy and Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas in Galveston.
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Ship of the year for 2010, according to the World Ocean & Cruise Liner Society members, was Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam…In the 29 years the WOCLS has been doing this, Holland America ships have won 10 times, more than any other cruise line…This year, 151 ships from all major cruise lines were rated by an organization with 7,500 members who are experienced cruisers who average at least two cruises a year…No more ships will be stopping at Lyttelton, New Zealand, this cruise season because of damage from last month’s earthquake near Christchurch, where the port is located…The infrastructure was compromised and the cruise ships that have had to change itineraries were Holland America’s Volendam, two P&O ships (Aurora and Pacific Pearl), the Dawn Princess, Saga Ruby and Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas…The season ends in April in Australia and New Zealand.
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That’s it, we’re done.