From the rough night department:

Last week while on a 7-night Alaska cruise round trip out of Vancouver, Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas ran into some heavy weather on the evening of September 20. At 11:30pm, the seas were 9-10 meters. Royal Caribbean said the ship was pitching heavily, and the strongest winds were being measured at 128 knots.

Just after midnight, at 1am, a couple in an outside cabin on Deck 3 reported to Security that their window/porthole had broken out, and they were slightly injured. Both were treated by the ship's medical staff and now have quite a story to tell.

By 2:30am, the window and frame were temporarily repaired by welding the hole shut with a steel plate, and the ship resumed its voyage. When Serenade arrived in Vancouver (September 22), a new window and frame were mounted in the damaged stateroom, and everything was quickly back to normal in time for the turnaround voyage.

CND Headlines - MSC Clears the Air

For a European-based line, MSC Cruises has taken a rather bold step. They have made their ships, for the most part, nonsmoking - with smoking allowed only in limited areas.

The smoke-free areas include all staterooms and their balconies.

Details are in today's edition of Cruise News Daily.

CND Headlines - Squeezing from another Side

The Royal Caribbean brands followed Carnival Corp's lead today and eliminated payment of commission to travel agents in North America on air add-ons purchased by customers.
The move applies to the Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Azamara brands and is effective November 1.

Not included were the occasional promotional rates where air and cruise are bundled together in one price. (Why do we think those will become even more "occasional" now?)

The company said the reason was "to remain competitive." Like Carnival, Royal Caribbean gave no indication of intending to immediately reduce the price of the air add-ons once commissions are eliminated.

Details are in today's edition of Cruise News Daily.

CND Headlines - A Magnificent Start

Another ship for MSC Cruises has passed another construction milestone at the Aker France yard in St. Nazaire.

On August 30, we reported that the yard had cut the first steel for MSC Magnifica, the fourth in the 92,400-ton Musica class series. Now they've done something with that panel that was cut.

Details are in today's edition of Cruise News Daily.

From the busy day in the Florida Straits department:

Saturday was a busy day in the waters between the Florida Keys and Cuba. Two cruise ships picked up Cuban migrants in unsafe boats.

Carnival Valor picked up 10 Cuban migrants about 40 miles southwest of Key West. They were later transferred to the Coast Guard cutter Valiant.

There is video on You Tube of the migrants in their boat and of them transferring to the cutter Valiant.

Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas picked up two Cuban migrants about 30 miles east of Key Largo, and they were later transferred to the Coast Guard cutter Confidence.

The Coast Guard repatriated all of them to Cuba on Wednesday.

Note: Links are valid at the time of posting.