United Solar, a leading global manufacturer of light-weight, flexible thin-film solar modules and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices, announced today that their UNI-SOLAR® brand photovoltaics have been installed on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas cruise ship.

Royal Caribbean International launched the Allure of the Seas on December 5 out of Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, with UNI-SOLAR laminates installed by BAM Solar of Miami providing electricity for the ship's shopping district.

"UNI-SOLAR laminates were the only solution that works for such a unique solar application like this," said Andrew Rasken, President of BAM Solar. "We needed lightweight. We needed a solar product that doesn't require surface penetrations, one durable enough that people can walk on, and that will stand up to the rigors of the harsh elements of being at sea. UNI-SOLAR's product versatility, flexibility and numerous unique characteristics of the laminates were the perfect solution for this exclusive and fun application—one which BAM Solar is honored to have been selected to design, manage and install."

This project is BAM Solar's second installation of UNI-SOLAR laminates on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.

"The first Oasis-class ship, Oasis of the Seas, has had such positive feedback for using solar that we knew we had to do it again with our Oasis' sister ship, Allure of the Seas," said Rasmus Norling, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., Manager of R&D Environmental Technologies and Environmental Stewardship. "Royal Caribbean is devoted to environmental protection and is the industry leader in our commitment to energy sustainability. Solar is one part of that mission."

"United Solar has exciting new product developments in both commercial and residential solar," said Mark Morelli, President and CEO of United Solar's parent company, Energy Conversion Devices. "The use of our laminates on cruise ships is just one more application that has proven to be a great fit for our flexible, light-weight, durable product—powered by UNI-SOLAR. We are very pleased to have partnered with BAM Solar on this very unique installation."

Russian tourist Alex Skokov claims that he was illegally removed from a cruise in the Mediterranean under the pretext of security breaches. He intends to sue the cruise company Royal Caribbean Cruises.

According to Skokov, while onboard Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas on a New Years cruise, he was accused of violating safety rules, and for that he was held for days in detention in the cabin, and then left on the shore in the Athenian harbor of Piraeus.

A Royal Caribbean statement describes the incident, "Skokov was filmed by surveillance camera at the Royal Carribean Brilliance Of The Seas at about 3.50 am 1 January 2011 at a time when he tried to go to the bridge through the door, where it was clearly written:" no entry ". Shortly before, he had twice, between 3.00 and 3.30, visited the Information Desk for the passengers and asked if he could immediately get to the bridge"

Skokov claims it was a mistake, "I knocked - I discovered", - explained the tourist, as he was there, where he was not supposed to be provided.

The Royal Caribbean document states that when Skokov was on the bridge, he was asked to leave, carried to the door and told to return to the cabin. After that Russian safety officers interrogated him twice.

"In both cases, Mr. Skokov admitted that he clearly understands the seriousness of the situation and the reasons for his removal from the vessel. Skokov violated rules of conduct for guests that he signed when boarding the cruise "

Agilysys, Inc has announced that Royal Caribbean will use its InfoGenesis Point of Sales (POS) system on seven of its cruise ships.

Allure of the Seas, Explorer of the Seas, Voyager of the Seas, Azamara Journey, Celebrity Infinity, Celebrity Millennium and Celebrity Summit will all utilize the system.

Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas was involved in a big storm in the Mediterranean earlier last week and the story of injuries, large waves and upset guests has made its way around the world, but according to Seatrade Insider, injuries to cruise guests onboard were more than we were lead to believe.

A Royal Caribbean spokeswoman claims that the number of injured guests onboard Brilliance of the Seas has risen to 105 people now. This is in contrast to early reports of just 30 people being injured with 2 people suffering a bone fracture.

Royal Caribbean has already announced it will refund the cost of the cruise to passengers onboard the ship.

In the United Kingdom, Royal Caribbean is trying to make pricing a cruise easier for its customers. Royal Caribbean will now adopt a "what you see is what you get" approach to pricing its cruises in an attempt to foster earlier bookings.

Mark Walter, Head of field sales for Royal Caribbean, thinks this move is a step in the right direction, "he new ‘what you see is what you get’ campaign from Royal Caribbean International marks a step-change in the promotion of cruising.  All the prices and campaign elements are aimed towards making it easy for first-timer cruisers who will be comparing a holiday at sea with traditional land resorts options. We’ve scraped the traditional cruise jargon and focused on the incredible value that a cruise represents."

While the Brilliance of the Seas was coming to Alexandria, faced extreme weather conditions as strong waves and winds of 70 knots, about twice what was previously forecast. The combination of winds and waves resulted in the ship suffered intense movements.

Injuries were reported in some guests, two of whom suffered serious fractures. The medical facility on board is functioning optimally, and our medical team is diligently attending to the guests involved.

The intense movement of the boat damaged some public areas and caused blackouts in some rooms. Cosmetic damage inside the ship have caused the closing of three public places for the rest of the trip: the beauty salon, the arcade and disco. There was no impact on operating systems or engines, and the vessel maintains its full navigation capability.
Due to inclement weather, the Brilliance of the Seas could not get in Alexandria, going to the next harbor, Valetta, Malta, which will arrive next Tuesday at 7:00 am The ship completed its journey in Barcelona, Spain , on Friday as is scheduled. The subsequent cruises were carried out as scheduled, the ship will not need to go into dry dock, and are already making repairs.

As a gesture of goodwill, and to thank guests Brilliance of the Seas for your understanding during this difficult time, Royal Caribbean International has provided a shipboard credit and a refund of the fee paid for the trip

Royal Caribbean known to have been a terrifying experience for guests and crew, and our officers on board the Brilliance of the Seas will make every effort to ensure that the rest of the journey as pleasant as possible.

The Brilliance of the Seas is conducting a 12-night itinerary departing from Barcelona, Spain, with visits to ports in Sicily (Palermo), Italy, Athens (Piraeus) and Rhodes, Greece, Alexandria, Egypt and Valletta, Malta.  

Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain is trying to learn to surf again at the fourth annual "Chairman's Challenge" aboard the Flowride Surf Simulator.

Allure of the Seas, Royal Caribbean's newest ship, utilizes an extensive network of security networks for both public areas and even some not-so-public regions.  Allure and its sister ship Oasis of the Seas, use more than 300 Oncam IP 360° 5-megapixel cameras. Many of these cameras are positioned in public areas of the ship that have multiple entrances, enabling simultaneous monitoring of all those entrances.

"A well-designed video surveillance system is an important tool for the safety and protection of everyone," said James Ionson, CEO, Oncam Global Inc. "It provides invaluable assistance to security personnel in resolving incidents, such as helping to identify a noise in the engine room, responding to passenger medical emergencies and determining liability issues, for just a few examples. With the right information, they can appropriately react."

The benefit of these cameras is it can do what traditional security cameras could not.  One camera in the ceiling in a hallway with elevators on both sides can be monitored at the same time along with the traffic in the hallway.  One of these Oncam IP 360° cameras replaces four traditional CCTV cameras.

In addition to Oasis and Allure, Royal Caribbean has been retrofitting these new security cameras into the security system of older cruise ships since 2006.

Royal Caribbean is reporting travel agents and consumers in Australia have become more familiar with the Royal Caribbean brand in recent time, but there are still challenges ahead as the cruise line looks to gain an even larger share of the cruise market down under.

Royal Caribbean Cruises managing director, Gavin Smith, said the increased capacity planned over the next 12 months, including the return of Celebrity Cruises and the debut of Radiance of the Seas, will coincide with Royal Caribbean putting on more field sales staff to drive its message home to agents.

Just how far has Royal Caribbean come?  One year ago, there were about 40,000 beds available but today that number is closer to 100,000 beds to sell.

Helping increase the inventory is Radiance of the Seas, which features 50% of its cabins having a balcony, which is important to the Australian cruise market.  Gavin Smith cites that Americans and British cruisers that go to Australia demand the balconies.

Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas rescued six people adrift at sea on a raft during a recent cruise.

Monarch of the Seas was on its way out of the Bahamas when a passenger onboard the ship spotted the raft near Freeport, Bahamas.  The Coast Guard reports that the rescued people on the raft did not appear to have any life-threatening issues.  Officials estimate the group of six was floating for 15 days, but there was no way to know exactly how long.

Investigators said they think the people on the raft are migrants from Cuba. If they are, officials said the group will be sent back to their country.