Royal Caribbean announced it is revamping its web based training program known as "Cruising for Excellence Online".  The program is meant to train travel agents that features  bite-sized learning modules, podcasts and games. Michelle Russell, Royal Caribbean’s trade training manager, UK and Ireland, said the aim was to make the online training portal bigger and better. 

The Cruise Safety Bill was passed by the United States Senate last Friday and the new legislation requires tighter security and transparency on cruise ships.  The Congressional investigation that went along with the deliberations related to this bill were not kind to the cruise industry, and subsequent civil trials have revealed the statistics that the cruise industry is willing to acknowledge may be far less than in reality.  

AllVoices wrote up a review of the Royal Caribbean cruise line as a whole, as a means of introducing the line to others and comparing it against other cruise lines.  Based on it's review, here are the conclusions it drew about Royal Caribbean...

Royal Caribbean has received four coveted TravelAge West Readers’ Choice WAVE (Western Agents’ Voice of Excellence) Awards!  

• Best Teen Program.
• Cruise Line Providing Best Travel Agent Support.
• Oasis of the Seas is honored with the award for Best New Ship
• Celebrity Cruises is awarded as the Cruise Line with Highest Client Satisfaction.

In addition to these honors, Royal Caribbean's Lori Goldspiel has won Favorite Individual Sales Representative

While recent news has Norfolk, Virginia losing it's Royal Caribbean ships, Balitmore, Maryland is experiencing an influx of growth that has made the port of Baltimore a new hub of cruise ship activity with the arrival of the second year-round cruise ship to call there. Carnival, Celebrity and Norwegian lines all have ships in Baltimore and now Enchantment of the Seas will call Balitmore home.

Last week news of a Royal Caribbean trip planner arrested for organizing burglaries of her customers while they were on cruises was announced by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.  We've now learned that Royal Caribbean has fired the woman, Bethsaida Sandoval.

This past Saturday marked the last cruise out of Norfolk, Virginia for Royal Caribbean.  The company has decided to move Enchantment of the Seas north Baltimore, and the reason for the change seems to be about demand.  Company spokesman Harrison Liu mentioned that Baltimore offers "a year-round demand for passengers". 

Royal Caribbean had been serving Norfolk since 2007 and Enchantment of the Seas was the final ship to call Norfolk home.  

Royal Caribbean lead the field in this years Readers’ Choice Platinum Award, which was awarded by Celebrated Living magazine. The magazine is described as "The Luxury Magazine for American Airlines Premium Class Passengers" and ranked a few different cruise lines but in the end, Royal Caribbean garnered the top choice.

Royal Caribbean Vice-President of government relations for the Caribbean and Latin America, Michael Ronan, told Bahemian newspaper The Tribune, that in 2011 Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines will "be back up over 800,000 passengers" brought to the Bahamas.  That figure is over 100,000 more than in 2010, thanks in part to the anticipated delivery of Allure of the Seas.

Bethsaida Sandoval, a Royal Caribbean vacation planner in the Miami, Florida office, was arrested yesterday on 24 counts of burglary and one count of racketeering.  She allegedly broke into homes of customers that were on a Royal Caribbean cruise and along with her husband, would go around in her black SUV to these homes when they knew no one was home.