![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Allure-Oasis-620.jpg\" "\\"Allure-Oasis-620\\"")
<\/a> is the two Royal Caribbean<\/a> siblings are identical in size when it comes to the number of passengers each can carry\u2026about 6,000.<\/p>\n\u2022 Norwegian’s<\/a> star-crossed Epic<\/a> arrived, surviving two fires in the shipyard in France in May and a few controversies once it hit the water with passengers in the summer (an aside here\u2026while this ship is different from any other, our first-hand experience is that it’s a great ride).<\/p>\n \u2022 Cruising booms were felt in Australia, China, Europe and Cuba.<\/p>\n \u2022 Celebrity’s Eclipse<\/a>, Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam<\/a> and the Seabourn Sojourn<\/a> joined new ships on the seas.<\/p>\n \u2022 Hurricane predictions threatened to be a record high, and there were 19, but none of them came close to rivaling the damage done by the earthquake in Haiti\u00a0 and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, tragedies which both involved but didn’t threaten cruise ships.<\/p>\n \u2022 A fire on the Splendour left the Carnival ship drifting off the coast of Mexico, powerless for three days and helpless to a barrage of criticism that came mostly from the shore.<\/p>\n \u2022 The Splendour<\/a> escaped with no injuries, 100 passengers were injured when Brilliance of the Seas<\/a> rolled sharply after being caught in unexpectedly rough weather.<\/p>\n \u2022 The 100-passenger Clelia II was damaged after hitting massive waves on its way back from Antarctica, and a video shot from a rescue coast guard ship was all over YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Starbucks<\/a> opened a cruise-ship store (Allure of the Seas).<\/p>\n \u2022 The controversial Alaska<\/a> head tax was reduced from $46 to $34.50, which made everybody happy, especially people who believed it was going to severely impact cruises to the 49th state.<\/p>\n \u2022 Small-ship line Cruise West folded after more than a decade in business, leaving its flagship Oceanius in Newfoundland, and so much for that world cruise.<\/p>\n \u2022 The most bizarre happenings were ash, of all things, from a volcanic eruption in Iceland delaying thousands of passengers trying to catch cruise ships\u2026and a woman having a baby on the Carnival Paradise<\/a> (doesn’t anybody check on these things in advance?).<\/p>\n \u2022 President Obama<\/a> signed the Cruise Vessel Safety and Security Act, a list of safety requirements that must be upheld by all ships sailing into and out of U.S. ports.<\/p>\n \u2022 Cunard<\/a> broke with a 170-year-old tradition and put a woman at the helm of one of its ships, the Queen Victoria<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 The most controversial “float-out” of the year was when Carnival<\/a> floated the idea of charging for steak in the main dining room, and the jury is still out on where that will go from here.<\/p>\n Did we miss anything?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was the year that\u2026 \u2022 Oasis of the Seas was replaced as the “biggest ship in the world” by Allure of the Seas, which won the competition by one-fifth of an inch, or five millimeters \u2014 the fact is the two Royal Caribbean siblings are identical in size when it comes to the number… Continue reading Some highlights from Cruise Year 2010<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,25,31,36,19,15],"tags":[45,203,451,86,150,28,452,29,453,23,151,125,53,241,142,33],"class_list":["post-5697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-people","category-ports","category-reviews","category-ships","category-stories","tag-alaska","tag-allure-of-the-seas","tag-celebrity-eclipse","tag-cruise-ships","tag-cunard","tag-disney","tag-dreamworks","tag-epic","tag-godmothers","tag-holland-america","tag-new-cruise-ships","tag-nickelodeon","tag-oasis-of-the-seas","tag-queen-elizabeth","tag-reba-mcentire","tag-royal-caribbean","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Queenie-426-e1293776135483.jpeg\" "\\"Queenie-426\\"")
<\/a>\u2022 New cruise ship godmothers (or godmothers-to-be) ranged from Queen Elizabeth to Reba McEntire<\/a> to Mary Hart to Princess Maxima to Shrek’s wife Fiona\u2026joining a list that already included Tinker Bell, Whoopi Goldberg and Sophia Loren, among others. Note: It was the second ship offspring for Queen Elizabeth<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Shrek-200.jpg\" "\\"Shrek-200\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/SpongeBob-150.jpg\" "\\"SpongeBob-150\\"")
<\/a>\u2022 Ship entertainment welcomed a cast of new characters from Dreamworks<\/a> (Shrek<\/a>) on Royal Caribbean and Nickelodeon<\/a> (SpongeBob SquarePants) on Norwegian, leaving competitor Pixar<\/a> (Toy Story) adrift.<\/p>\n