About 135 passengers aboard Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas became sick along with eight crew members as the ship returned from New Zealand to Sydney.

"Those affected by the short-lived illness have responded well to over the counter medication administered on board the ship"' Royal Caribbean said in a statement late yesterday.

The illness caused big lines at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Circular Quay to stretch hundred of meters as frustrated new passengers were kept waiting for hours. Royal Caribbean says the long lines were mostly a product of new passengers choosing to ignore staggered boarding times.

Those boarding Voyager of the Seas were given a statement which gave the norovirus outbreak as the reason for the delay in boarding.

Passengers were asked to fill out forms revealing whether they had recently suffered from gastro or flu-like symptoms. Those who ticked `yes' were taken aside for medical check ups.

Plans to build a third cruise ship by Royal Caribbean in the STX Turku shipyard in Finland are reportedly frozen due to the fact that the funding is still completely unresolved

On Thursday, the Finnish government rejected Royal Caribbean's proposed package of financing due to the fact that the state does not want to act as a guarantor for the loan capital, according to the newspaper "Turun Sanomat."

Negotiations for financing of the new ship will continue. Other options include searching for other sources of financing. One option is that Royal Caribbean will pay for a larger chunk of the purchase price.

The value of the proposed order by Royal Caribbean is about one billion Euros. A ship order like this can provide over 12,000 ship building jobs in Turku.

Royal Caribbean is continuing its work to restructure its French office by officially merging operations in France with the Spanish office.  

In addition, Royal Caribbean announced that the Director General of the Spanish office, Wangüemert Belen, will also be the head of the French office.  The position of head of the office in France had been open since Frederic Martinez left the company earlier this summer.  

In a statement, Royal Caribbean described the promotion for Belen as a decision that will, "strengthen the synergies of these two priority markets for the company and generate new growth opportunities for the company."

In another report by Tour Hebdo, 23 of the 38 office positions in France are being removed due to redundancy with the Spanish office.  The laid off workers will be informed in December.

The President of the Dominican Republic, Danilo Medina, met with executives from Royal Caribbean as part of his government plan to make the Dominican economy more based around tourism.

Medina was received by Captain Henrik Loy, captain of the cruise Explorer of the Seas while she was anchored in the Bay of Samana.

One of the objectives stated by the president is boost cruise tourism and work on a cruise ship terminal in the Dominican Republic.

Michael Ronan, Royal Caribbean Regional Vice President made ​​a presentation to foreign and domestic entrepreneurs, including  Federico Schad , Director of Services and Bay Cruise Tejera Rafael Blanco, president of Dominican Tourism Competitiveness Consortium.

It is the first time a Dominican president addressed a cruise ship operator in an effort promote this important form of tourism.

Voyager of the Seas in at Waimahara Wharf in Shakespeare Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound.

An Orlando, Florida couple on a Royal Caribbean cruise died in Mexico on Saturday while enjoying a third-party excursion.

The passengers, from Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas, were in Cozumel, Mexico and died while in a sand buggy accident.  Royal Caribbean did not identify the two victims, but did say they were a 43-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman.  News media report the two as Jim Melillo and his girlfriend Susan Borges.

Royal Caribbean issued a statement about the incident, "We extend our most sincere and heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the 43-year-old male guest and 31-year-old female guest from the United States who died on November 17, 2012. ... Our care team is providing support and assistance to guests, family and friends. Our thoughts are with their family and friends, and we will continue to do our very best to assist them."

According to a local newspaper, the sand buggy's driver lost control of the vehicle and hit a metal bar and Melillo and Borges died on impact.

The Port of Guadeloupe (PAG) opened its new cruise terminal at Pointe-à-Pitre this past Wednesday and celebrated with a ceremony that involved Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas.

Brilliance of the Seas' arrival launched the 2012-2013 cruise season for the Caribbean island.  

The ceremony was marked with a ribbon cutting ceremony by Thémine Gil, chairman of the Board of PAG, with its director general Laurent Martens present along with Brilliance of the Seas' Captain.

The new port terminal cost 1.4 million euros and the capacity of the terminal was increased to 2,000 peope with luggage space doubled and new better defined pedestrian paths created.  In addition other amenities were added including a bar and local crafts village.

The improved cruise terminal will hopefully improve tourist numbers for Guadeloupe.  Management expects its traffic to grow by 50% for the new seas, with more than 80 calls planned and Royal Caribbean is one of the companies calling upon the island.

Royal Caribbean is supporting three new safety policies that was announced today by two cruise industry groups.

The Securing Heavy Objects policy stipulates that crew members on cruise ships will secure heavy objects such as pianos or treadmills when not in use.  In addition, there is a new lifejacket policy for newly constructed cruise ships that requires  for every passenger and crew member to be stowed in close proximity to either muster stations or lifeboat embarkation points.

Previous to this rule, cruise ships had many more lifejackets than were needed for every passenger and crew member, but on some vessels a large percentage of those lifejackets are stored in cabins, with fewer than one per person available at muster stations.

A third new safety policy unveiled today by the industry groups requires consistent procedures on ship bridges.

Royal Caribbean is part of the Cruise Lines International Association and the European Cruise Council along with other major cruise companies.   All of the safety initiatives were announced jointly.

The industry groups say the new Securing Heavy Objects policy already is being implemented, with lines carrying out fleet-wide inspections to ensure heavy objects are properly secured. The new policy will require heavy objects to be secured during rough weather in addition to during periods when they are not in use.

To avoid its cruise ships running into issues related to labor strikes that are scheduled to occur in Spain, Portugal and Greece, Royal Caribbean has altered itineraries for Independence of the Seas.

Independence of the Seas will skip a stop in Lisbon, Portugal on November 14 and will instead call upon Lanzarote, Spain.

Royal Caribbean spokesperson Cynthia Martinez commented on the changes, "We were aware of the upcoming strikes and proactively made changes to some itineraries."

The general strikes are expected to last three days and disrupt air travel as well as public transportation.