Several weeks ago, when the Carnival Triumph had its problems with a fire, the cruise line took some heat 鈥� and deservedly so 鈥� from me and many other cruise writers.
However, last week鈥檚 incident with another Carnival ship, the Dream, was not similar in any way to the Triumph incident. The Dream was in St. Maarten, tied to the dock, when Carnival decided to stay there because a backup generator failed to work after testing.
Cruise Critic member 鈥淶en88,鈥� who was on board, weighed in via an email sent from an iPad: 鈥淎ll is great. Having the best vacation ever. Enjoying ALL of the free beverages and fun. News is a total lie. Really awesome place to be stranded! People are great.鈥�
Cruise Critic reporter Andrea Bennett, who was in St. Maarten covering the story, added that debarked passengers said Carnival also offered free Wi-Fi and phone, plus free water taxi tickets.
The local St. Maarten paper, the Daily Herald, reported: 鈥淐arnival Dream passengers Mary and Terry Washington of Tampa, Florida, said they had no complaints about anything on the ship and were very happy to have an extra day in St. Maarten to enjoy the beautiful island: 鈥榃e鈥檙e having a free vacation,鈥� Mary said as they walked from the ship to Philipsburg.鈥�
Passengers Tasha Larsson and her boyfriend, Hunter Fritz, were critical of CNN international reports of poop in cabins and elsewhere, which they said were completely not true. (Carnival did admit that one public toilet failed.)
As I noted in my column on the Triumph fire, with the success of cruising comes microscopic scrutiny and it appears Carnival recognized the need for transparency in this case.
In one more incident, the Carnival Legend had to skip a port last week, with one engine off line, but the ship returned to Tampa, its home port, earlier than expected.
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Meanwhile, back to cruise news you can use 鈥�
It didn鈥檛 come as a surprise that Norwegian offered kids 17 and under a 鈥淜ids Sail Free鈥� deal this week.
After all, Norwegian is a family line and families and extensions of them make up a big part of its business. What does come as a surprise is that Crystal Cruises 鈥� the line billed as adult luxury 鈥� extended a four-cruise deal that was in effect for kids. It鈥檚 the same deal as Norwegian at a lot higher price, of course. We are talking luxury. Crystal is adding 17 more trips and you have until April 30 to book one. More from your cruise travel agent or at crystalcruises.com.
Here is case of one-upmanship 鈥� by which party I am not sure.
AmaWaterways announced that actress Sharon Stone (Casino, Basic Instinct) will be the godmother of its new ship, the AmaVida, which was christened on Friday at Porto, Portugal.
On the same day, in the same place, Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection had godmother Andie MacDowell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Groundhog Day) christen its new river ship, Queen Isabel.
Who wins?
And to complete the trifecta: Both ships will sail in the same waters this year 鈥� the Douro River.
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Phil鈥檚 Pick
This cruise puts you right in the middle of a historic Venice festival. It鈥檚 the Redentore Festival (check Wikipedia for details) and the Celebrity Equinox will be there for two nights during the festival.
The 12-day return trip will start July 16 in Barcelona and will visit other cities such as Villefranche-sur-Mer, Kotor (Montenegro), Rome, Florence and Malta. Starting price is $1,799.
See celebritycruises.com or call an experienced cruise travel agent for more.
