Q: What will you be doing for Carnival?
A: I’m going to look at the North American brands and basically conduct research as to the brand deficiencies, opportunities and strengths. Obviously I’ll do some research on what our friendly competitors are doing well or not doing well. Then we want to develop a gap analysis to see where we can get best practices among the brands, where some brands may have opportunities for improvement and then develop strategies to enhance relations with travel agents. We want to have as robust as possible relations with agents among the various brands.

Read the full interview here

So by friendly competitors, to me, that means industry giant Carnival will be comparing themselves to the likes of MSC, NCL (and of course Royal.) Interesting move as traditionally the industry leaders don’t really care what the little guys are doing.

STX group pitched the idea of a floating soccer stadium for the 2022 Qatar World Cup. The Korean firm dubbed it “crusium.” They unveiled the project at a conference this week.

This is the same STX group that essentially declared chapter 11 bankruptcy and are trying to offload assets.

photos via tradewinds

click for larger

After suffering what is being described as a “minor technical glitch,” the Carnival Sunshine was delayed on her arrival to Messina, Italy.

Fortunately no further impact is expected.

Any small event on the Sunshine will be exacerbated due to recent problems. When the converted Destiny sailed from the Italian shipyard, she was not finished. Venues were closed for quite sometime. The construction got so far behind that Carnival had to roll some bookings to free up some cabins for workers.

Nicaragua has just announced that they intend to construct a canal that will cut through Nicaragua, connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. Details are unsurprisingly sparse. No word on lock sizes, number of locks, etc.

Construction is estimated to cost in excess of $40 billion and take 11 years to complete.

The Verge is reporting that an “unnamed Chinese Company” will be paying most of the costs.

From the map above, the most logical area would be the southern part incorporating Lake Nicaragua just like they did in Panama with Gatun lake.

Remember the original canal took 33 years to build. This is no small feat. I’ll believe in the legitimacy of this project when I see a ground breaking. For now, to me, its all just pipe dreams.

Hong Kong’s former airport has been sitting idle in Kowloon Bay since 1998. The government of the Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China have spent $1 Billion on converting the end of the runway into a  passenger ship terminal.

The Mariner of the Seas is expected to be the first ship to call the terminal today.

The market for cruises is booming in Asia; just not Hong Kong. They already have a perfectly able passenger terminal (see my About/Contact/More Info section for a photo of me on top of the terminal). And outside of Star Cruises, there really aren’t that may callers throughout the season. There are 19 ships scheduled to call the new terminal in the next 12 months. Hardly a sizable volume.

photo via New York times from Lam Yik Fei for the International Herald Tribune

Interesting note, Micky Arison once tried to fire Bob Dickinson. But Mr. Dickinson fought back and kept his job. Boy did he fight back and show Mr. Arison he almost made a huge blunder.

photo via Miami Herald

After months of repair after the famed fire, the Carnival Triumph is making her way back to Galveston. As of writing, she’s just passing the breakwarter and heading to sea.

Shes schedules to arrive in Galveston Jun 11, 2013 @ 2:00pm (19:00:00 UTC).

photo via Carnival

This is just a straight shot across the Atlantic. Departs Southampton Nov 2 then arrives in Cape Liberty, NJ Nov 10. Pretty cold crossing in November.