Due to fear of Hurricane Irene impacting Serenade of the Seas, Royal Caribbean decided to leave San Juan, Puerto Rico earlier than the scheduled 8:30pm time.  The earlier departure time may have gotten the ship out of the path of the storm, but it stranded some Royal Caribbean passengers in San Juan after they claim they weren't made aware of the schedule change.

Passenger Nicole Washington of Baltimore, MD arrived at the docks Sunday shortly after 5, she found the gates locked and the ship gone.

“There was nobody there,” she said. “Everybody was gone and there was nobody there to tell me where the ship was.”

In a statement, Royal Caribbean spokesperson Cynthia Martinez explained the change, "On Sunday, due to the projected path of Hurricane Irene, and the weather forecast to reach San Juan, Puerto Rico that evening, authorities at the Port of San Juan limited traffic in and out of the port.  As a result, Serenade of the Seas was required to depart earlier than our originally scheduled time of 8:30 p.m.”

Washington did admit that she never checked into the cruise so according to Royal Caribbean, the line had no idea she was even in San Juan.

Martinez went on to say, “There was no way to notify our guests of this change in departure time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our guests, but this decision was made by the Port of San Juan to ensure the safe transit of all guests and crew through the port.”

Hurricane Irene is becoming the big story of the 2011 hurricane seas thus far and its projected path is veering east of where meteorologists originally had thought it could go, which is great news for those going on a cruise out of Florida.

While these projections are nothing more than educated guesses, they do give us an idea of the most likely path and the new path has Hurricane Irene moving east of Florida instead of the state taking a more direct hit, as was predicted earlier in the week.  For those embarking on cruises, this means the impact the storm will have on their cruises could be less than previously hinted at.

Royal Caribbean isn't taking any chances and has already altered the itineraries of four of its ships.  Oasis of the Seas, Allure of the Seas, Serenade of the Seas and Freedom of the Seas all are changing up the order in which they will be making their port calls to hopefully avoid the path of the storm.

The bad news is Irene has gone from being likely a Category 2 storm to possibly increasing to a Category 4 before belting Florida and North and South Carolina at the weekend.

It's important to note that the projected path doesn't mean Florida is "out of the woods" yet, but the further east Irene goes, the better it is for those looking forward to a Royal Caribbean cruise this weekend.

Royal Caribbean's partnership with Universal Studios Orlando is expanding to include cruises that go out of Tampa, Florida.

Royal Caribbean announced with Universal Studios that that they will start selling vacation packages that include a stay at Universal Studios Orlando along with a Royal Caribbean cruise.  The packages include three or four-night stays at Universal Studios along with four or five-night cruises on Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas.

Royal Caribbean will be homeporting Jewel of the Seas in November out of Tampa.  

This new deal is in addition to the partnership the two companies already offer for cruises out of Port Canaveral.

For Royal Caribbean, the expanded deal with Universal is another move into Disney's lucrative family-cruise niche. The Miami-based cruise operator last year struck a separate deal with DreamWorks Animation to outfit some of its ships with characters from animated movies such as Shrek and Madagascar, much the way Disney Cruise Line features popular children's characters such as Buzz Lightyear and Donald Duck.

After a thorough agency competition shifts, Royal Caribbean Nordic has chosen Saatchi & Saatchi Norway to be their new ad agency. The Oslo agency will use the Nordic network in the operational work of the various markets. Royal Caribbean has previously been with agencies Shnel & Melnychuck  and Bates.

"We look forward to continuing collaboration with Saatchi & Saatchi. They are in the process convinced that they are the right agency for us now. We have big ambitions, both in Norway and other Nordic countries. Saatchis combination of excellent local agencies and a highly dense network is what we've been looking for", says Head of Marketing at Nordic Ellen Stebekk.

Agency Director Jon Fredrik Sand Engen at Saatchi & Saatchi is more than satisfied.

"This is great fun and exciting. We have all been cruise enthusiasts in a few weeks, and we have already become very fond of Royal Caribbean and its people. Being a developing Royal Caribbean and this market forward is a dream job. In Oslo, we are also proud to be chosen as the main agency for the Nordic countries", he said.

Royal Caribbean is the market leader in Scandinavia, with a market share of about 45 percent and, according to the company, a position in Norway that is stronger than in Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

"Cruise holidays that the form is growing rapidly, but has a lot to go on to take out the potential in all the Nordic markets. In the future we will do more local and regional initiatives. Therefore, we have a good strategic and creative master agency with a strong network, we have found in the Saatchi & Saatchi Norway," says Stebekk.

Officials of the Port Authority Ferrol-San Cibrao have confirmed that, as initially announced, Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas will return to the city of Galicia  on September 26 after docking for the first time on April 25.

The arrival of Independence of the Seas will, as happened in the time before a flood of tourists in just a few hours. This giant cruise ship usually bring more than 4,000 passengers on board, in addition to the compliment of crew members that can also descend upon the city

The September 26th is a Monday, so travelers will find all the retail and hospitality of the city open, which will make their shopping more comfortably than the previous occasion, which fell on a holiday.  This will also be an opportunity to give the tourists a good idea of what the city is really like. 

Tropical Storm Irene has caused Royal Caribbean to change a few cruise itineraries.  Oasis of the Seas will reverse its itinerary and now visit Cozumel first on Monday, Tuesday is a sea day, stop at Falmouth, Jamaica on Wednesday, stop at Labadee on Thursday, sea day again on Friday and return to Fort Lauderdale on Saturday

Freedom of the Seas will also reverse its itinerary and left port today to go to Cozumel first on Tuesday, followed by Grand Cayman on Wednesday, Falmouth on Thursday and Labadee on Friday.

Allure of the Seas will now stop at Nassau, Bahamas on Saturday instead of Monday. The rest of her scheduled stops at St. Thomas (Wednesday) and St. Maarten (Thursday) will take place as planned.

Finally, Serenade of the Seas will have its cruise order changed as well. It left from San Juan, Puerto Rico today and will  visit Aruba on Tuesday, Curacao on Wednesday, St. Kitts  on Friday and St. Thomas on Saturday.

The port of Barcelona, Spain yesterday again left a record for its history: more than 31,000 cruise passengers embarked or disembarked in any of its terminals, a new record for the largest cruise port in Europe. Eight tall ships docked in Barcelona yesterday including Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas, which can carry more than 4,500 passengers.

Astronomical figures for a booming tourism sector in Barcelona and monthly figures are unstoppable. 31,000 passengers yesterday must be added the 1.3 million who have already passed through the port until the month of July, a figure that represents 16% of cruise passengers during the same period last year. Also the number of ships has been larger: 451 cruise accumulated during the first seven months of the year, representing more than 21 scales in 2010. A figure that will join the nearly 120 scales this August. One month, the most powerful of the year, they recorded another record: the contingent of ships docked in the same day. This new historical value will occur on Friday, August 26, when the port awaiting the arrival of nine ships, albeit smaller-capacity, move some 26,000 cruise passengers.

Royal Caribbean sources certify the pace of sales is having the latest ship: "While there are still some places, it is expected to go at full occupancy this summer," said Marc Pedrol, director of marketing and communication Royal Caribbean. According Pedrol, the ship is currently above the forecasts made for this year and estimate that volume will grow by 40% compared to 2010. "We see a clear upward trend in the Spanish market to the cruise product, and found that Northern Europe and the Greek islands begin to awaken the interest of all those cruisers who have done a cruise with us from Spanish ports."

Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein has returned from a trip aboard Oasis of the Seas for an on-site evaluation of what's happening not only aboard the ship but he took a careful look at the operations at Labadee (Royal Caribbean's private island) and Falmouth, Jamaica.

Adam seemed pleased with how Oasis of the Seas was running and thought things were going well.   He did seem to have an issue with the art program aboard Oasis of the Seas, presumably related to the art auctions, "I did state in no uncertain terms that I was less than pleased with certain aspects of our art program."

While on Labadee Adam felt that things went exceedingly well and found the operation at Royal Caribbean's private beach to be top notch.  That being said, he thinks Royal Caribbean can do more to market Labadee and prepare its guests for what's waiting for them, "My takeaway is we need to do an even better job of marketing what Labadee is. I spoke to someone who had visited a number of the cruise industry’s private destinations prior to coming to Labadee. He said he and his people were just not prepared for how much there is at Labadee."

At Falmouth, Adam characterized the progress at the port as "90% done".  He mentioned that the most important task left to do here is to complete construction of the arrival/departure terminal building, which should have been done by now but Adam says it will be done in September.

In terms of merchants, Adam says Royal Caribbean expects 70% of the available retail space to be occupied in the next few weeks.  He also hinted that some new restaurants will be added in the near-future.

Despite the sluggish economy, Royal Caribbean wants to hire 100 new employees by the years end at their Springfield, Oregon center.

Managers at the facility say the cruise industry is still growing and they want people in the area to come work for Royal Caribbean.  The three areas of expertise Royal Caribbean is looking for are new cruise representatives that work with travel agencies, direct sales and customer service. 

Consumer Outreach Manager Anne-Jenell Williams says demand for the Royal Caribbean product is out there still, "Everybody's looking to do the best they can with what they have and one of the benefits of being in the cruise industry is Royal Caribbean continues to be an amazingly good value for vacations so we continue to see a lot of demand for our product and we are planning on continuing to see that grow."

Even better news for those looking for a job are the perks working for Royal Caribbean has to offer.  There's a free gym for employees as well as a a full cafeteria with healthy eating options. Managers say about 21 percent of their staff received promotions last year, which also left more entry level positions open. They plan to get all 100 positions filled by the end of the year

Port Everglades, home to Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, saw its cruise passenger numbers jump 2.4% up in the third quarter compared to the same period last year.

Port Everglades Director Phil Allen is happy about the results, “These trends show the resilience of the nation’s cruise market and the importance of the cruise industry to South Florida.  In a tough economy, cruising offers guests affordable vacationing options."