* Bermuda Again Warmly Welcomes Visitors by Searching their Staterooms
The government of Bermuda has again proven themselves rather visitor-unfriendly. Customs officers went aboard Norwegian Breakaway this week while it was docked in Bermuda and searched two passengers’ staterooms for drugs, arrested the people, essentially forced a plea bargain on them, and pocketed thousands of dollars in fines.
These visitors apparently did not intend to take the drugs ashore. They had small amounts for personal use, and they were not using them in public. One of the people had marijuana for medical reasons (and had just enough at the prescribed dosage to last through the cruise) and was simply ignorant of Bermuda’s laws.
We’re not in favor of drugs, but Bermuda’s visitor arrivals are sagging, and the government’s actions are not the way to encourage visitors to come to the island. Visitors tend to avoid places where they are subjected to what they consider unreasonable searches and are then forced to pay large fines or go to jail.
* Carnival Crews Brave Icy Waters
All 24 ships of the Carnival Cruise Lines fleet have taken up the Ice Bucket Challenge to benefit ALS and they in turn challenged their corporate office who took it up and passed it on. Along the way, however, Carnival made a $100,000 to the ALS Association.
We have the video of the Carnival employees accepting the challenge and the full press release here on our blog.
* Play It Again
Just in case you didn’t get up in the middle of the night or want to spend three hours watching, Royal Caribbean has produced a video of Quantum of the Seas floating out this week. You can see it all in just over three minutes here on our blog.
The complete articles appeared in the e-mail edition of Cruise News Daily delivered to our subscribers.
