The Port of Gijón, Spain will host the docking of Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas tomorrow.  This will be the first cruise of the season and will bring the city 2,435 passengers and 765 crew.

The Royal Caribbean ship will dock at North Pier Extension area, from Vigo bound for Portland (United States).

This is the same ship that opened last year the springs in the area of enlargement, reports the Port Authority of Gijón.

This is the first of nine cruise ships expected this year will host the Port of Gijón, reinforcing the role that has been gaining in recent years in passenger traffic.

Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas will homeport in Messina this summer and the mayor officially welcomed the new ship.  At a ceremony this morning, Messina Mayor Giuseppe Buzzanca celebrated the occasion along with the Commissioner of the Port Authority, Dario Lo Bosco, and the Director General of Royal Caribbean Cruises John Rotondo.

The choice by Royal Caribbean of Messina confirmed the strengthening of the commitment on the peninsula and the eye towards the markets of southern Italy, allowing Royal Caribbean to serve 14 ports in Italy.

Navigator of the Seas will visit Messina each week for 27 times between May and October, transporting 84,000 passengers during its  7-night itineraries in the Eastern Mediterranean

Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas will visit Cadiz, Spain this year and will be the largest ship to ever dock at the port.  The ramifications of which will bring over 31,500 cruise passengers to the city and have a direct and indirect financial impact of "more than 1,800,000 euros."

Liberty of the Seas arrives in Spain after serving the Caribbean cruise season and will also visit Mediterranean ports after Cadiz of Malaga, Valencia and Barcelona.

Royal Caribbean is building up its selection of beers available on its cruise ships to offer its passengers an even greater variety of choices.

In the past year, Royal Caribbean has been adding new beer choices to the menus of bars and pubs found across its fleet.  Included are small US brewery beers such as a wheat beer from Oregon's Widmer Brothers brewery and an India pale ale from Washington state's Redhook brewery.

Royal Caribbean's director of fleet beverage options BOb Midyette commented on the additions, "We thought we'd define what is state of the art and what is world class (in beer choices) to provide some diversity to our guests."

The new beer menu is available on half of its ships and features more than 40 beer choices, which is up from about 25 a year ago.  The ships featuring this expanded beer selection include all five of its Voyager class ships, its three Freedom class ships and its two new Oasis class ships. Royal Caribbean's newest pub, the Quill & Compass, debuted last year on the recently revamped Radiance of the Seas.

News that Royal Caribbean plans on having Vision of the Seas stop at the Caribbean island of Martinique in the winter 2012-2013 have the island excited.  Royal Caribbean is returning to the island after a hiatus of more than 3 years.

The Martinique Tourism Authority is heralding the development as a major step forward in its efforts to grow the island’s tourism receipts from the U.S. market.

Commissioner of the Martinique Tourism Authority, Karine Roy-Camille, commented on the news, "Royal Caribbean’s return to Fort-de-France is the latest testament to the fact that Martinique is well positioned for tourism growth and 100% open for cruise business.  This is certainly good news for Martinique and a strong building block for further expansion in the cruise sector over the coming years.”

Martinique boasts great shopping opportunities in the downtown portion of its capital Fort-de-France. Retailers promise the best of Parisian fashion, jewelry, porcelain, perfumes and other fine goods are here, and for U.S. travelers most of it is available at a 20% discount.

Freedom of the Seas September 16 through 22 cruise will play host to the "Disco Queens on the High Seas", a pageant for a half dozen drag queens.

The western Caribbean cruise will feature nightly entertainment hosted by Darcel Steven and Orlando-area performers Ginger Minj, Chantel Reshae and Aysia Black.

Other activities onboard include the 1st Miss High Seas 2012 Drag Pageant during the cruise, and the event will judged by nationally known drag queen Tommie Ross. Organizers of the event are looking for six contestants for the pageant, which will include an evening gown competition, a swim wear competition and disco-themed performance competition.

More information can be found on the event's homepage.

Royal Caribbean was awarded the "Team of the Year" award in the 2012 Call Center Management Association Awards.  The award recognizes, " the excellence and first class performance of the guest and trade services call center team of the collective cruise line business."

Royal Caribbean beat our competitors including Aviva, Barclaycard, DHL, Asda and Virgin.

Head of guest and trade services Michelle Johnson said: “This is the second year Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises have entered the Call Centre Management Association Awards and the second year that we’ve walked away with one of the night’s top awards.

“It’s a great reflection of the hard work carried out by the whole team and a true recognition of our dedication and commitment to ensuring our guests are number one in everything we do.

“This award firmly places our business as one of the leading customer service organisations out there and I couldn’t be prouder of the team.”

Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship, reported a "fire of short duration in the engine room," a spokeswoman said

The ship was sailing from St. Maarten to  Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale when an engine fire broke out at 7:45 pm on Friday, said spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez..

"The ship's high fog system was immediately activated, which contained and extinguished the fire."

No passengers or crew members were injured and the ship sailed to Port Everglades without any assistance. The cruise scheduled to return on Sunday.

Royal Caribbean reported its first quarter 2012 financial results and characterized it as better than expected.  In addition, they updated its guidancefor the remainder of 2012.

Royal Caribbean's net income for the first quarter 2012 was $47 million versus $78.4 million in 2011. Revenues improved to $1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2012 compared to $1.7 billion in the first quarter of 2011 as a result of capacity increases and yield improvements.

As Royal Caribbean expected, booking activity continued to improve over the span of the last few months.  Cumulative bookings since early February have been down mid single digits, although gradual improvement continues. Bookings from the United States have been running ahead of same time last year for the past four weeks.

Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain commented on the results, "First quarter results were satisfactory given the difficult and uncertain operating environment and we continue to see gradual improvement in the demand for our great vacations.  We did not expect the impact of the tragedy to be long term and we are seeing evidence the effects are waning."

Bookings for the fourth quarter of 2012 and for 2013 sailings remain strong, with both load factors and pricing running ahead of same time last year. In addition, the company has seen an increase in summer demand for its Pullmantur brand's tour product.