Princess Cruises today raised the curtain on Princess Live!, a new type of cruise ship entertainment venue that passengers will enjoy aboard the new  Royal Princess. Taking the audience behind the scenes to share the excitement of a working television studio, the high-tech Princess Live! will showcase live television broadcasts, intimate performances from musicians, and special events such as cooking shows, plus will feature an adjacent café.

Located on Royal Princess’ deck 7 just aft of the Piazza, Princess Live! will be a flexible, 280-seat venue based on a television broadcast studio. When the ship debuts in June 2013, Princess Live! will serve as a venue for daily broadcasts of "The Wake Show" with a new twist — a daily live audience. This popular daily show staring the cruise director and special guests from around the ship is a staple across the Princess fleet, but is rarely staged live.

The adjacent Princess Live! Café will surround passengers with interactive, wall-mounted screens showing the ship’s position, ports of call, points of interest and even international newspapers. The café will serve up specialty coffees, teas and freshly squeezed citrus juice, plus will offer a selection of fresh-baked croissants and pastries in the morning.

Louis Cruises have released the following statement following our news that their 15,179grt Cristal was sold:

while we are continuously approached by various parties interested in purchasing vessels, these approaches do not of course, constitute a sale.

Back in December, Viking River Cruises surprised the industry when they announced that they will build 2 new 888pax ocean going ships in STX France yards. This will be the lines first attempt in blue water cruising.

Around a week ago, there was some talk that the deal was off and Viking was trying to get out of the contract.

It appears the talk finally came to fruition as the deal with STX appears to have fallen through. Italy’s Fincanteri has stepped in with a slightly larger design. Coming in at 45,000grt, she will host 998pax. Like the STX France deal, this MOU is still pending financing. When approved, the vessels would be completed in Fall 2014 &15.

Cruise Business Online is reporting that Johnny Sid is “close” to acquiring the 26,000grt Louis Cruise Lines ship, Cristal. Johnny plans on operating the ship back in its original home, the Baltic. The ship first sailed the Baltic when she was rebuilt our of the burned hulk of another vessel.

The ship will sail under an unannounced start-up line and sail on short, less than a week, voyages out of Turku or Helsinki. Destinations are plentiful as the region has a large ferry infrastructure.

The deal could be announced very soon as it is reported that the cruises will start “in the coming summer.”

Before sailing under Louis Cruise Lines, she sailed back in the Baltic as the SIlja Opera operating on almost identical routes as what the start-up has planned.

We have one details at least on the heavily secretive Project Sunshine. Royal Caribbean’s follow-up to the Oasis-class ship has had surprisingly little details announced/leaked.

The twin 4,100 passengers, 158,000grt ships will have Azipod propulsion. The $60-million deal calls for ABB podded propulsion, dubbed Azipods, as well as ABB manufactured power plants. When completed, the first ship will launch Fall of 2014.

Princess Cruises deeply regrets that two Panamanian men perished at sea after their boat became disabled in early March. Since we became aware of this incident, we have been investigating circumstances surrounding the claim that Star Princess failed to come to the aid of the disabled boat, after a crew member was alerted by passengers.

The preliminary results of our investigation have shown that there appeared to be a breakdown in communication in relaying the passenger’s concern. Neither Captain Edward Perrin nor the officer of the watch were notified. Understandably, Captain Perrin is devastated that he is being accused of knowingly turning his back on people in distress. Had the Captain received this information, he would have had the opportunity to respond.

We all understand that it is our responsibility and also the law of the sea to provide assistance to any vessel in distress, and it is not an uncommon occurrence for our ships to be involved in a rescue at sea. In fact, we have done so more than 30 times in the last ten years.

We deeply regret this incident and are continuing our investigation to fully understand the circumstances.

During the conference call Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain stated that while the below Q1 took place during the Costa Condordia quarter, the real effects wont be seen until Q2 or even Q3. That’s due to cruises commencing during this quarter already were booked, and too late to cancel. The cruises planned for Q2 and Q3 would be the ones affected.

Royal Caribbean Cruises reported net income of $47.0 million, or $0.21 per share, on revenues of $1.8 billion for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012, compared to net income of $78.4 million, or $0.36 per share, on revenues of $1.7 billion for the same period last year.

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Costa Cruises and Italian officials have announced the plan that was chosen for the salvage of the Concordia. Still laying partially capsized off of Giglio, the vessel recently had all her bunkers (fuel) pumped out as the the first phase of the recovery was complete. The plan that was chosen for the next operation was submitted by American Titian Salvage. She will be patched, refloated, and towed away. She will head to an Italian port and Authorities have not announced what they plan on doing just yet.

Work will commence next month and could take up to a year to complete.

The sea floor, which is littered with debris, will be cleaned and have marine flora replaced. 

Allure’s sister, Oasis is currently docked in Port Everglades.

Last night news broke via CruiseLaw and the AP that a small fire in the engine room broke out on Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas. The Allure, which shares the title of worlds largest cruise ship, was sailing back to Florida from St. Maarten on the last leg of a 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise. She will arrive Sunday morning.

A Royal Caribbean spokes person stated shortly thereafter, that the fire was “small and short-lived.” The ship onboard fire suppressant kicked in extinguished the fire almost instantly.

While the fire was short lived, it did allow enough time for this black smoke to be seen coming from the ships funnels. CruiseLaw was reporting that there was some panic onboard, but that can be expected given the recent events in the cruise industry. It should be noted that people’s perception of the term panic differs greatly.

This must seem like a publicity stunt as Royal Caribbean’s rival, Carnival plc.’s Star Princess failed to stop for a broken down vessel, but the Oasis did exactly what the Star failed to do. I almost didn’t believe this when I first read  it, as it seems so soon, and ironic, after the news yesterday.

Cruise Critic is reporting that a current passenger on Oasis of the Seas is reporting that the vessel just stopped after Capt. Trym Selvag spotted a disable fishing boat.

Captain Trym Selvag stopped Oasis and sent two engineers to fix the problem (after a security team checked out the fishing boat). The Captain said Oasis’ crew provided the fishing boat with a fresh battery, fresh water, and got the engine working again.

photo via CruiseCritic