We've heard a report that speciality restaurant Rita's Cantina aboard Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas has gone from a $7.95 service charge to a $3.00 service charge and all food is now priced a la carte.

The move is similar to how the Seafood Shack specialty restaurant aboard Oasis of the Seas is handled.  

The change is effective as of the cruise that left Port Everglades yesterday.

The change of pricing isn't unprecedented.  Royal Caribbean changed the price structure aboard Radiance of the Seas back on June 10.

Our good friend Doug Parker of the Cruise Radio podcast had the opportunity this past weekend to tour Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas and check out a lot of the backstage areas such as the bridge and the engine room.

Parker has posted his photos for all to see and there's some great photos to see in there.

You can view the entire photo gallery by clicking here.

If you're looking to explore Southeast Asia, Royal Caribbean is set to introduce a series of  itineraries to popular ports-of-call in Malaysia, as well as new ports such as Ho Chi Minh and Bali for the cruise season of November 2011 to March 2012 aboard Legend of the Seas.

This is the second season Legend of the Seas will be operating out of Singapore and based on last year's options, there's a lot of great choices.  Legend of the Seas will offer many different types of shore excursions at each port.  There are sightseeing excursions, shopping excursions, cultural excursions and more.

Excursions can cost between 5-7 hours and cost between $25 - 52 per adult.

Have you ever thought it would be fun and/or cool to travel through the Panama Canal?  Wendy Keiffer thought the same thing and shared her experience travelling through the canal on Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas back in May.

Keifer describes the experience of crossing the Panama canal via a cruise ship "a once-in-a-lifetime experience".  While on Radiance, the cruise took an entire day to traverse the 50-mile canal.

And the Radiance is huge. Built with specifications to allow passage of the canal, the Radiance of the Seas is 105.6 feet wide. The locks are 110 feet wide, and canal officials don’t allow ships larger than 105.97 feet. With such a tight squeeze, we actually could reach over the balcony and touch land.

Keifer's experience was quite positive and she seems to recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity.  Keifer does report that the 100-year-old canal is in the process of a massive expansion that will add new cuts and bigger locks.

Photo by Doug Parker

Quick programming note, National Geographic Channel is set to re-air its special hour long look at the construction of Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas called "Man Made: World's Largest Ship", so be sure to tune in or set your DVRs to record it.

• June 30 @ 9:00pm Eastern
• July 1 @ 12:00am Eastern
• July 7 @ 5:00pm Eastern

A female elderly passenger from Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas went to a Gibraltar hospital after she fell and cut herself on a metal barrier.

Grandeur of the Seas was docked in Gibraltar and the woman had just disembarked when she lost her balance and fell onto a metal barrier that is used to separate zones outside the cruise termal.  Unfortunately, the barrier fell down and cut the woman as she and the barrier tumbled to the ground.

Locals called for an ambulance for the woman who was quickly transported to the hospital to be treated.  It is not believed that the injuries the woman sustained are serious in nature.

We've been conditioned to believe the newest cruise ships are the best cruise ships and when Royal Caribbean announced earlier this year its new class of cruise ships they have ordered, dubbed Project Sunshine, many of us got excited for what we could see someday.

FoxBusiness wrote a piece about how the next generation of cruise ships, such as Royal Caribbean's Project Sunshine, will be different than previous classes of cruise ships because these ships are being developed to be "optimized for the new economic reality".

Ships like Project Sunshine will carry substantially more passengers per square foot so that the ship can have optimal fuel efficiency and get a greater return on investment per passenger.

To put this in perspective, the Project Sunshine ship will be a 158,000-ton ship that will hold 4,100 passengers.  If we compare that to a different Royal Caribbean cruise ship of similar size, such as Freedom of the Seas, Freedom is 160,000 gross tons but only carries 3,634 passengers.

While details on Project Sunshine are still scarce, one thing is for certain: you will see a lot more passengers on the ship than you may have thought.

Greece has been meeting with Royal Caribbean as part of the Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum that took place this week but represenatives from the country recongize the fact more work is needed to be done before it can be ready for likes of Royal Caribbean.  The aim of the visit of top executives of Royal Caribbeanto Greecce is to explore possibilities for further development of the company in Greek cruise market. 

In order to promote cruise tourism throughout Greece, the Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism George Nikitiadis accompanied Royal Caribbean Vice President John Tercek on visits to the ports of Thessalonica, Kos and Rhodes.

Rhodes has all conditions for emerging as one of the major cruise destinations, however, "still wants a lot of work". The process of fast-tracking is the conclusion extracted from what was said yesterday evening, during the press conference given at the Municipality of Rhodes.  Tercek traveled with Nikitiadis to tourist destinations across the country and visited the port facilities there as well as has meetings with local actors. 

During their visit, then, in Rhodes and Kos, they had the opportunity to see the situation of port facilities and areas of potential cruise passenger visits and discussed issues critical to the development of ports in a way that creates perfect conditions for the reception of cruise ships and increased traffic.

Some positive impressions seemed to be made on the Royal Caribbean executives, who said yesterday, from Rhodes that "it is a beautiful island, is a rapidly growing island is a popular tourist island"   Asked also Mr. Tercek if Rhodes can easily be home-port, he replied that: "Not easy but possible", while Mr Nikitiadis added that "wants a lot of work."

Nikitiadis' deputy also commented on the possibilities, "I think the cruise market is a great challenge. The government is committed to proceed with very important measures and believe that even the prospect of creating the municipalities in the region, with any carrier, new facilities. This will be subject to procedures of fast-track. Such a process will reach all sides of the market, which will ensure that we have more people, more and more ships, more and more visitors all year long. "

He added, "I must point out that one of the major issues of concern throughout the whole country... is to ensure greater security, which must serve the visitor and not to harass them. This happens in most our ports. It matters that we discuss with them the cruise line, because they know much better since they go around the world and they know what they receive complaints aboutd. So, this cooperation is the relationship developed and we believe that, in future, strengthens more and more, is for the good of the island, for the good of the marine tourism is good for the cruise and hope in the future to go too much better. "