U.S. lawmakers first called for the passenger “Bill of Rights” following the high-profile Carnival Triumph incident. Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the world’s largest cruise industry trade association, announced Wednesday that its Board of Directors have approved the adoption of a “Cruise Industry Passenger Bill of Rights”, a list of ten amendments addressing the basic freedoms of cruise ship passengers.

CLIA says that CEOs of its North American member cruise lines are to immediately verify in writing that they have adopted the Passenger Bill of Rights as a condition of membership in the Association.

The Bill of Rights details CLIA members’ commitment to the safety, comfort and care of guests in some key areas identified following a recent spate of high profile incidents.

“The Cruise Industry Passenger Bill of Rights codifies many longstanding practices of CLIA members and goes beyond those to further inform cruise guests of the industry’s commitment to their comfort and care,” said Christine Duffy, president and CEO of CLIA. “By formally adopting industry practices into a “Passenger Bill of Rights,” CLIA is further demonstrating consistent practices and transparency across CLIA member lines. The cruise industry is committed to continuing to deliver against the high standards we set for ourselves in all areas of shipboard operations.”

The Passenger Bill of Rights will be effective immediately for U.S. passengers who purchase their cruise in North America on CLIA’s North American member cruise lines, regardless of itinerary.

CLIA and its member cruise lines are actively communicating the Passenger Bill of Rights to the public and cruise line guests. The Passenger Bill of Rights will be posted on the CLIA and its members’ respective websites, and CLIA has provided to its nearly 14,000 travel agent members materials to communicate the Passenger Bill of Rights to current and prospective customers looking to book a cruise.

Below is the full text of the Passenger Bill of Rights, as adopted by CLIA’s members unanimously:

Passenger Bill of Rights

1. The right to disembark a docked ship if essential provisions such as food, water, restroom facilities and access to medical care cannot adequately be provided onboard, subject only to the Master’s concern for passenger safety and security and customs and immigration requirements of the port.
2. The right to a full refund for a trip that is canceled due to mechanical failures, or a partial refund for voyages that are terminated early due to those failures.
3. The right to have available on board ships operating beyond rivers or coastal waters full-time, professional emergency medical attention, as needed until shore side medical care becomes available.
4. The right to timely information updates as to any adjustments in the itinerary of the ship in the event of a mechanical failure or emergency, as well as timely updates of the status of efforts to address mechanical failures.
5. The right to a ship crew that is properly trained in emergency and evacuation procedures.
6. The right to an emergency power source in the case of a main generator failure.
7. The right to transportation to the ship’s scheduled port of disembarkation or the passenger’s home city in the event a cruise is terminated early due to mechanical failures.
8. The right to lodging if disembarkation and an overnight stay in an unscheduled port are required when a cruise is terminated early due to mechanical failures.
9. The right to have included on each cruise line’s website a toll-free phone line that can be used for questions or information concerning any aspect of shipboard operations.
10. The right to have this Cruise Line Passenger Bill of Rights published on each line’s website.

CLIA says it will submit the Passenger Bill of Rights to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), requesting formal global recognition and applicability under the IMO’s authority over the international maritime industry.

Image of the capsized Costa Concordia on 14 January 2012.

ROME, May 22 (Reuters) – The captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which capsized off Italy’s west coast last year killing 32 people, will face trial for manslaughter as well as other charges, an Italian judge ruled on Wednesday.

The giant Costa Concordia flipped on its side outside the Tuscan port of Giglio in January last year after it struck rocks during a manoeuvre that brought it too close to the shore.

The accident triggered a chaotic night-time evacuation of more than 4,000 passengers and crew from the 290-metre-long ship (951-ft), which still rests on a rock shelf outside the port.

WATCH: Costa Concordia Shipwreck Like You’ve Never Seen Before

Captain Francesco Schettino left the ship before all the ship’s crew and passengers had been taken ashore.

A judge in the Tuscan city of Grosseto ordered Schettino to be tried for multiple manslaughter, abandoning ship and other charges, with the first hearing set for July 9, Schettino’s lawyer Francesco Pepe told Reuters.

If found guilty, Schettino could face up to 20 years in jail, according to Pepe.

Prosecutors rejected a plea bargain offer from Schettino last month but accepted those of five other officials, including four ship’s officers and the crisis coordinator of the vessel’s owners, Costa Cruises.

Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp , agreed to pay a 1-million-euro ($1.29 million) fine to settle potential criminal charges in April. That means that Schettino will be the only person tried for the maritime disaster.

“We expected from the beginning that he would be put on trial,” Schettino’s lawyer Pepe said. He argues that his client has been made a scapegoat for the accident.

The judge on Wednesday also rejected Schettino’s request to use new evidence in the case that Pepe said would “clarify” that there were other factors in the accident beyond the captain’s control.

A recording of a coastguard officer ordering Schettino to “get back aboard, damn it!” in a furious telephone call spawned a popular catchphrase that was printed on T-shirts in Italy.

(c) 2013 Thomson Reuters, Click For Restrictions

Carnival Triumph adrift in the Gulf of Mexico in February, 2013. US Coast Guard Photo

Christopher Palmeri

May 21 (Bloomberg) — Carnival Corp. fell the most in more than 16 months after the world’s largest cruise operator lowered its forecast for the rest of the year, saying price cuts undertaken following a series of mishaps will hurt margins.

Carnival dropped 5.2 percent to $33.47 at 9:45 a.m. in New York and earlier fell 6.8 percent for the biggest intraday decline since Jan. 17, 2012, after delivering the lower view for the second half of 2013 yesterday. Before today, the shares had fallen 3.9 percent this year while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 17 percent.

The lower forecast demonstrates the continuing fallout from several incidents at sea involving ships operated by Miami-based Carnival that attracted news coverage. They included an engine- room fire on the Triumph in February that left 3,100 passengers with limited food and toilet service for several days.

Full-year profit will total $1.45 to $1.65 a share, Carnival said yesterday in a statement. That’s down from a previous forecast of $1.80 to $2.10. Analysts were projecting $1.99, the average of 27 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

The company began cutting prices to fill cabins, dropping the fare for some trips in April to as little as $38 a night per person.

While bookings increased, the amount of revenue captured from each customer has declined, Carnival said yesterday. Cancellations were also higher than expected, the company said.

Higher fuel and marketing costs, as well as less-favorable exchange rates, will also crimp profit, the company said.

Copyright 2013 Bloomberg.

Two quadcopters approach the Costa Concordia wreck site in this screengrab from the video below.

The Costa Concordia wreck site sets the backdrop for this quadcopter promotional video just posted to Youtube from a company called Team Black Sheep.

The video opens with the following message:

This video was shot at the location of a tragic accident. It is not our interest to gain attention on the backs of those who have lost loved ones. This video is supposed to be a showcase for possible UAV applications. Our goal is to display the stranded ship in a never-before seen way. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who drowned on this day and we are hoping for a swift removal to reveal again the underlying beauty of Giglio Island, Italy.

Check it out…

The filmers of this particular video were apparently arrested for their work, since picture taking is banned at the site, but “[Team Black Sheep] does not approve of censorship and therefore will always ignore such rules.” Lucky for us, I guess.

gCaptain Coverage: Costa Concordia Salvage

This isn’t the first amazing footage of a ship shot from a quadcopter either. You can also view some previously posted ship quadcopter videos.

Capt. Francesco Schettino in an interview following the wreck.

GROSSETO, Italy, May 14 (Reuters) – Prosecutors rejected a plea bargain offer by the captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which capsized off Italy’s west coast last year with the loss of 32 lives, lawyers said on Tuesday.

Captain Francesco Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship. He has admitted making mistakes but says he should not be the only one blamed for the disaster.

State prosecutors accepted plea bargains for five other officials, including four ship’s officers and the crisis coordinator of the vessel’s owners, Costa Cruises.

The prosecutors said they had rejected Schettino’s offer to serve three years and four months in prison as he he bore most responsibility for the disaster. The other officers had played a “marginal” role, they said.

The giant Costa Concordia went down just outside the Tuscan port of Giglio in January last year after it struck rocks off the coast of the picturesque holiday island during a manoeuvre which brought the doomed vessel close to the shore.

SEE ALSO: Costa Concordia Salvage Update

The accident triggered a chaotic night-time evacuation of more than 4,000 passengers and crew from the 290-metre-long ship, which is still lying on its side on a rock shelf just outside the port.

A recording of a coastguard ordering Schettino to “get back aboard, damn it!” in a furious telephone call to the captain spawned a popular catchphrase that was printed on t-shirts in Italy.

“It must be reiterated that the accused Schettino almost exclusively carries the weight for the striking chain of errors committed,” the Grosetto state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Schettino’s lawyer Francesco Pepe told reporters that they had always intended to fight the case at trial and had only entered the plea bargain because the five other defendants had done so, leaving the captain isolated as potentially the sole defendant on trial.

“We think now we will go to trial. We want the details of what really happened to come to light,” Schettino’s lawyer, Francesco Pepe told reporters.

The presiding judge is expected to rule on whether or not to approve the plea bargains for the other five by the end of the week.

“I can only tell you that anyone who has been in a position of authority would feel very, very depressed, exactly as he feels,” Pepe said.

(Reporting by Silvia Ognibene and Antonio Denti; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

(c) 2013 Thomson Reuters, Click For Restrictions

The Norwegian Breakaway at a pier on the Hudson River in New York City, May 7, 2013. Photo: NCL Breakaway on twitter

Norwegian Cruise Lines on Wednesday christened the Norwegian Breakaway, the first of two Breakaway-class ships ordered from Meyer Werft shipyard.

The ship was christened during a ceremony in New York City featuring the famous “Rockettes” as the Godmothers and hosted by Buddy (you know that guy from that show about the cakes).

Norwegian Cruise Line took delivery of the 146,600 GT cruise ship on April 25th from the Papenburg-based shipyard, just 18 months after the first steel was cut.

The Norwegian Breakaway can accommodate 4,000 passengers in 2,014 staterooms, including 1,508 outside cabins. The vessel features a diesel-electric pod drive system and improved hydrodynamics for increased efficiency and reduced operating costs.

Fittingly, theme of the Norwegian Breakaway is New York City, featuring hull art – a NCL staple – created by artist Peter Max showing the famous NYC skyline. The ship will sail on seven day cruises from New York to Bermuda starting on May 12 and will be the largest vessel to be homeported year-round in the city.

The second ship in the Breakaway-class, the Norwegian Getaway, is expected to be delivered from MEYER WERFT in January 2014.

Here are two screengrabs I caught on the Christening live webcam (yes, I watched it):

The “Rockettes” doing their famous leg kick aboard the Breakaway.

Champagne bottle break.

An artist’s rendering of the Titanic II. Photo: Blue Star Line

Australian billionaire, Clive Palmer, announced this week that the he has appointed V.Ships Leisure as the official ship manager of his Blue Star Line’s Titanic II project.

V.Ships Leisure, the passenger shipping arm of V.Ships, is the world’s largest supplier of management and outsourcing services to the maritime leisure industry.

Palmer said the appointment of V.Ships Leisure further strengthens the team that had been assembled to deliver Titanic II in 2016.

“I would like to welcome V.Ships Leisure to the team and look forward to working closely with them on this landmark project,” Professor Palmer said.

V.Ships Leisure CEO Andrea Zito also expressed his gratitude to Blue Star Line and Titanic II for having been chosen for the project.

“We are very pleased to be part of the team that will re-create this iconic ship in a project which we will combine our current know-how with our heritage from the time Vlasov created the first Sitmar Line and then Sitmar Cruises,” he said.

V.Ships Leisure has 200 shore-based and 7,000 crew members providing integrated deck and engine and hotel management service to more than 120 cruise ships, ferries and superyachts. Its parent company V.Group was formed as V.Ships in 1984 by the de-merger of the ship management division of Monaco-based shipowner, Vlasov.

Titanic II will be built at Chinese state-owned CSC Jinling Shipyard and is scheduled to be launched in 2016. Her maiden cruise will recreate the Titanic’s infamous 1912 journey from Southampton to New York, sans the obvious.

“Titanic II will be a regular feature on the transatlantic route between the UK and USA,” Professor Palmer said. “This magnificent vessel is being constructed in memory of the heroic people who served on the first ship, as well as the passengers who sadly shared their fate.

“We also want to recognize the artists and artisans whose skill, creativity and dexterity has never been fully recognized because of the ship’s limited service,” Palmer added.

Over 300 people gathered on the Zattere Adriatic waterfront in Venice, Italy to welcome the arrival of the Legend, the Carnival group’s new flagship, and toast the beginning of the new cruise season in the lagoon.

The flashmob was organized by the Cruise Venice Committee, which promotes the cruise segment of the economy which brings more than 5,500 direct jobs and direct spending in excess €180 million per year.

The event was attended by representatives from the economic groups involved in this segment of the economy, from porters to mooring crew, from security staff to hospitality and tourism operators, who chose a festive approach to emphasising the often underestimated importance of a key facet of the local economy: Venice is Europe’s primary homeport.

Massimo Bernardo, Chairman of the Cruise Venice Committee, was satisfied with the initiative:

“The flashmob organised by Cruise Venice in conjunction with the start of the cruise season was intended to emphasise — with all of the strength of the great number of those involved as entrepreneurs and workers — the strategic role that shipping, and the cruise industry in particular, plays in the city’s economy. It was the latest in a long series of invitations to the top cruise lines that dock in Venice not to steer their ships to competing ports when the direct and indirect benefits of this traffic are felt, among others, by hotel and restaurant operators, taxi drivers, merchants, shipping agencies and freight forwarders, technical and nautical service providers, not to mention the airport and all of the services devoted to bringing passengers to the most important homeport in the Mediterranean. ‘Welcome Cruising’ is the symbolic calling card of a city that wishes to remain number-one among the world’s top cruise destinations.”

Emilio Gamba, Vice Chairman of Cruise Venice, commented on the importance of an event of this nature:

“After more than 50 years devoted to the sea, ships and the port, I feel I have to speak out in favour of keeping and promoting large cruise ships in Venice, inasmuch as I do not believe them to be responsible for environmental pollution. In Venice today, the cruise industry represents the only positive aspect in terms of the economy and protecting jobs, and the only sector that can mitigate the disastrous effects of the global traffic crisis on the port of Venice.”

The position of PierLuigi Penzo, Vice Chairman of Cruise Venice, on the environmental compatibility of cruise traffic with the lagoon habitat is clear:

“Large modern cruise ships are acknowledged by international classification authorities as being the most environmentally friendly, and are also awarded prizes for this. Cruise ships have displacement hulls and not chine hulls like almost all lagoon vessels, meaning that at the established top speed of six knots they do not create turbulence, waves, currents and so forth. In addition, the port authorities, who are impartial and can boast a high degree of professional expertise, have over time issued strict specific ordinances such as the double-pilot and double-tug requirement, and so forth.”

Cruise Terminal #3 file photo. Photo: Port of Tampa

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a suspicious package found near a Royal Caribbean cruise ship at the Port of Tampa.

The Sheriff’s office said that a canine team on a routine safety inspection alerted to a package found on the dock at Terminal 3. HCSO says that the terminal was immediately evacuated as a precaution and an EOD technician team was sent to the scene.

As of 1:45pm EST, an initial sweep had been completed and a secondary sweep was in progress. The Sheriff’s office anticipated that the terminal would reopen within an hour.

Cruise Terminal #3 is a state-of-the-art passenger terminal and home to Norwegian Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

Reuters reports that passengers in the terminal at the time were waiting to board the Jewel of the Seas.