Celebrity Century Repairs Completed

Repairs of Celebrity Century's rudders were completed on schedule over the weekend at the Chantier Naval de Marseille shipyard in Marseilles, and the ship departed for Barcelona after midnight (Monday morning). Boarding in Barcelona was delayed from the original schedule, and the ship departed just after 11:30pm on October 25, but the delay will not affect the itinerary.


The complete article appeared in the October 25, 2010, edition of Cruise News Daily.

Celebrity Century Rudder Repair Nearing Completion

Both of Celebrity Century's rudders were reinstalled last night at the Chantier Naval de Marseille shipyard. Celebrity says the repair work is proceeding according to their schedule to return the ship to service for Monday's sailing from Barcelona.

The drydock is to be flooded later today, and sailing from Marseilles is planned for midnight.

Passengers aboard the October 25 sailing should proceed to Barcelona as scheduled.

Celebrity Century almost ready for rudders to be reinstalled

Celebrity Cruises reports the work to repair Celebrity Century's rudder issue continues to go smoothly and on schedule at the yard at Marseilles. As you can see in this photo taken this morning, the rudder is currently off the ship. (Click photo for larger view.) The drydock schedule calls for the rudders to be reinstalled tonight.

Celebrity says passengers scheduled to board the ship on Monday at Barcelona should proceed to the city, as they expect the ship to arrive on time for departure on October 25.

Go to October 24 update

Back to School in Haiti - Royal Caribbean Opens a School

After the earthquake struck Haiti in January, Royal Caribbean quickly resumed calls at its private beach resort on the island's north shore at Labadee. Even though they were getting hammered by the general media at large which tried to paint an inaccurate picture of rich passengers frolicking on the beach with the destruction of the quake a few yards away on the other side of a fence surrounding the property, RCCL stayed the course and continued calls in Haiti because they knew that, as a large employer in Haiti, jobs were exactly what the country needed. In reality, the effects of the quake were many miles away in an area around Port au Prince, and in addition to bringing passengers, Royal Caribbean ships also brought more then 3,000 pallets of relief supplies to Labadee that would be transported to the needy areas in the south of the country.

Cruise lines do a lot of charitable work, especially in their ports of call, and most of it is never noticed by the media or their customers. It comes in cash and goods. Five thousand dollars here for some community project, ten thousand there for a school's new basketball court, five hundred used television sets for charities in another port. And sometimes, something exceptional comes along, and we especially like to highlight those, and RCCL just donated something to the people of Haiti, which will continue giving to them for generations.


The complete article appeared in the October 22, 2010, edition of Cruise News Daily.

Cruise study in Savannah, New fees in the BVI, What Cuba's missing, Seattle cruise record

CND subscribers read about Savannah's study of the cruise industry, and what they didn't find out ... updates on Celebrity Century's emergency drydock ... what the British Virgin Island's don't seem to realize about dealing with cruise lines ... new estimates by the cruise industry of what Cuba's missing ... and a record-breaking cruise season in Seattle.


Details of these items appeared in the "Other Things You'll Want to Know" column in the October 22, 2010, edition of Cruise News Daily.