Today Carnival took delivery of the 130,000 ton Carnival Dream from Fincanteri in Italy. This is a traditional maritime ceremony, where the Fincanteri flag is lowered and the Carnival house flag is raised. The ship is currently, at the time of the post, enroute from Monfalcone to Civitavecchia, Rome, Italy, for 3 Mediterranean cruises and [...]

Some new photos that were released today can be found here: CruiseInd Oasis of the Seas Page

So as we near the delivery date and the Dreams maiden voyage, more and more photos are making their way out of Monfalcone, Italy. This batch of photos released today are of the lanai whirlpools. Remember that the Dream features an external (outside directly above the life boats) promenade. Carnival Dream Page

There are some more pictures of the cabins on the Dream Page. CruiseInd’s Carnival Dream Page

U.K. based Fred. Olsen Cruise Line’s Balmoral has been hit the the norovirus. According to the BBC only 18 of the 1,200 guests have been struck with the 24-bug. The vessel is currently cruising around the British Isles.

You may remember the saga of the Marco Polo and norovirus. Well today, the Bremen, Germany based line, according to this Google translation, will go through a “restructuring.” This is also known in the U.S. as Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Bizarre story from off of Florida. A man jumped from the Carnival Sensation while cruising off the coast of Florida. Local ships aided in the rescue and the Disney Wonder found him first and grabbed him up from the water. To add a level of spookiness to this, it was all captured on twitter. BigHeadDennis [...]

Trying to confirm, but rumor floating around this morning is that the Carnival Glory will Skip St. Maarten to avoid the storm. As you can see the path of the storm is the exact same route that ships sailing the Eastern Caribbean sail. As more becomes available, I’ll update here.

Update 10:54 pm: Updates are in Bold. Hurricane Jimena is currently sitting off the Mexican coast in the pacific Ocean threatening a direct hit on Cabo san Lucas. As Jimena sits there, she is prompting several I itinerary changes. Lets take a look: Carnival Carnival Splendor will be staying close to California by replacing its calls [...]

Well this is more like a mega report if you haven’t seen it yet. Just click the link to see what I mean! Oasis of the Seas Page