Royal Caribbean lead the field in this years Readers’ Choice Platinum Award, which was awarded by Celebrated Living magazine. The magazine is described as "The Luxury Magazine for American Airlines Premium Class Passengers" and ranked a few different cruise lines but in the end, Royal Caribbean garnered the top choice.

"Despite its name, Royal Caribbean International has expanded beyond steel bands and limbo contests to make the whole world its oyster, including sophisticated operations in Asia and the Pacific as well as traditional itineraries in Alaska, Europe, and, yes, the Caribbean. Coming this December is the Allure of the Seas, sister ship of 2009’s spectacular 18-deck Oasis of the Seas, currently known as the world’s largest cruise ship."

Considering the competition for this award included cruise lines such as Seabourn, Princess, Norwegian and others, it's definitely an award that Royal Caribbean is sure to be proud of.

Royal Caribbean Vice-President of government relations for the Caribbean and Latin America, Michael Ronan, told Bahemian newspaper The Tribune, that in 2011 Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines will "be back up over 800,000 passengers" brought to the Bahamas.  That figure is over 100,000 more than in 2010, thanks in part to the anticipated delivery of Allure of the Seas.

These figures include stops in Nassau, Freeport and its Bahamian private islands.  The news comes after a report that Oasis of the Seas was rumored to be ending stops in Nassau, but Ronan said the change was merely due to a difference in Western and Eastern Caribbean itineraries, where Oasis of the Seas only stops in Nassau on it's eastern Caribbean trips.  Ronan went on to explain that once Allure of the Seas became operational, it would start rotating Nassau calls with the Oasis of the Seas on a schedule that would be maintained through Spring 2012, with one of the ships stopping in Nassau opposite the other.

"With the Oasis vessels, we are significantly increasing the number of passengers that are going to be coming," Mr Ronan told Tribune Business. "We will be back up over 800,000 passengers in 2011. This year, I think we will be in the 700,000 in change, because we're still waiting for the arrival of the Allure, which will put us with a full year of Oasis class ships in Nassau every week. Last year, 2009, we bottomed out."

For the people of the Bahamas, the more cruisers that stop by, the better for the local economy.  For cruisers, a better economy in the Bahamas typically means less crime and better upkeep of the city (that's a generalization).  

Bethsaida Sandoval, a Royal Caribbean vacation planner in the Miami, Florida office, was arrested yesterday on 24 counts of burglary and one count of racketeering.  She allegedly broke into homes of customers that were on a Royal Caribbean cruise and along with her husband, would go around in her black SUV to these homes when they knew no one was home.

"She and her husband, John Lopez, later broke into nearly two dozen homes and took off with flat-screen televisions and other expensive items, the report said."

It goes without saying that this is a terrible crime and if she is found guilty in court, then I hope she receives the time in jail that she will deserve for not only breaking the law but betraying the trust of so many Royal Caribbean fans.

The Royal Caribbean Twitter account announced that Mariner of the Seas, Radiance of the Seas and Serenade of the Seas had won the prestigious Port of San Francisco Environmental Gold Award.  The annual award recognizes vessels for demonstrating “the strong environmental commitment of Princess Cruises in the areas of air emission reduction, waste water treatment, and recycling and disposal programs for solid waste.” This distinction is awarded by San Francisco’s Cruise Terminal Environmental Advisory Committee.

The CTEAC operates the program to recognize cruise lines that are committed to environmentally responsible operations, include the deployment of ships using reduced emission system technology or cleaner-burning fuel.

Royal Caribbean ships have long been proponents of environmental awareness and their ships have a number of "green technology" elements on board such as advanced wastewater purification systems, window tinting and operational conservation measures.

Destination weddings, or weddings that take place somewhere other than home, have always been an intriguing option for couples looking to tie the knot but according to a recent report by thestar.com, weddings on cruise ships have increased in popularity by 10% in the past few years because of affordability, the convenience of having your wedding and honeymoon in one place, and the exotic locations you can have your wedding held.

Valery Rene, manager of on-board revenue for Royal Caribbean says that they handle "about 1,000 weddings a year and can meet many other special requests.”  Certainly it's hard to argue with the price as the average cruise wedding ceremony and reception with Royal Caribbean costs about $10,000 for a 100-person event, excluding the cruise costs and airfare for sailing guests. Considering the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. is now between $21,000 and $24,000, that is a real bargain.

For those looking to get hitched on their next cruise, the basic wedding package on Royal Caribbean starts at about $2,000 and includes three hours of planning with a consultant, priority check-in, non-denominational official, ceremony, recorded music, bridal bouquet, marriage certificate, photographer (but not photos; they’re purchased separately) and more.

“We help the couple decide whether they would like a shipboard or shoreside wedding and then choose which destination and ship that works for them and their budget,” says Rene. “We often do weddings that cost more than $20,000 and a recent lavish wedding we did was well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There were about 180 sailing guests.”

Given all that $10,000 gets you, it's hard to go wrong with that option and it's hard for your wedding guests to argue with "forcing" them to go on a cruise.

For all you financial mavens out there, there's good some good news.  It turns out that while we all enjoy our cruises aboard Royal Caribbean, it's actually a good company to invest in (beyond the money you're already giving them for your next cruise!).  SmartTrend ranked Royal Caribbean (RCL) as the best investment in the top five companies in the Hotels, Resorts & Cruise Lines industry as measured by relative performance.

• Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL) ranks first with a gain of 6.5%
• Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE:WYN) ranks second with a gain of 5.31%
• Home Inns & Hotels Management (NASDAQ:HMIN) ranks third with a gain of 4.95%.
• Carnival (NYSE:CCL) follows with a gain of 4.67%
• Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE:GET) rounds out the top five with a gain of 4.55%.

• Great Wolf Resorts (NASDAQ:WOLF) has a potential upside of 121.2% based on a current price of $2.26 and an average consensus analyst price target of $5.
• Red Lion Hotels (NYSE:RLH) has a potential upside of 40.4% based on a current price of $6.41 and an average consensus analyst price target of $9.
• Gaylord Entertainment (NYSE:GET) has a potential upside of 35.7% based on a current price of $24.37 and an average consensus analyst price target of $33.06.
• Royal Caribbean Cruises (NYSE:RCL) has a potential upside of 35.7% based on a current price of $28.52 and an average consensus analyst price target of $38.69.
• Morgans Hotel (NASDAQ:MHGC) has a potential upside of 29.1% based on a current price of $7.02 and an average consensus analyst price target of $9.06.

A user on Cruises.co.uk is reporting that their cruise aboard Jewel of the Seas has had an outbreak of norovirus onboard.  Those passengers that are scheduled to sail on Jewel of the Seas on June 12, 2010 have been informed that they should arrive late because embarkation will start at 4:30pm instead as no passengers will be allowed on board before that time.  

In addition, the ship is going through "enhanced sanitizing" on Saturday and that if any passengers have had gastrointestinal symptoms within the last three days, they should consider rescheduling their cruise.

Royal Caribbean, as well as other cruise lines, take the threat of norovirus very seriously.  Norovirus, or norwalk gastroenteritis, is transmitted by the fecal-oral route via contaminated water and foods.

There's a report out that Oasis of the Seas, pride of the Royal Caribbean fleet, is planning on ending port stops in Nassau, Bahamas.  On the other side, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, minister of tourism in the Bahamas, denied these claims that were first reported by Tribune Business and other media.  The news is particularly alarming to Bahemians who recently voted to spend $44 million of taxpayer monies on the Nassau harbour dredging.

There hasn't been any comment by Royal Caribbean officially on the matter.  Crime in Nassau has been in the news and could be a reason why Oasis could be changing her itinerary, if it is in fact true.

It's always been a heated debated among cruise veterans about the role of art auctions on cruise ships.  The Detroit Free Press reports that recently, one person felt that she was "swindled" by a Park West art auction aboard Royal Caribbean cruise ships in 2005 and 2007.  She claimed to have purchased 21 pieces of art, including limited-edition prints by Dalí and Rembrandt, for $48,000.  She subsequently went to art dealers and other art experts who told her that her art was worthless and sued Park West. 

"The suit, one of several nationwide, accuses Park West and its founder, Albert Scaglione, of selling fake, forged and overpriced artwork and using phony appraisals and certificates of authenticity.

Scaglione denied the allegations and said the negative publicity is killing his business. "These charges are ridiculous," he said. "We have never done anything wrong.""

In addition to that one lady, a few others are mentioned in the article with their own stories of purchasing art on their cruises only to find that they were valued at less than what they were lead to believe.  Seems things have not been good for Park West either, 

"Two cruise lines have ended their contracts with Park West since last year, decisions Scaglione attributed to economics rather than the legal controversy. The cruise lines wouldn't comment."

I'm no legal or art expert, so I'll leave it to the courts to decide.  The best advice I've ever received about the art auctions on board any cruise ship was from Jamie from CrownCast and it's okay to buy a piece if you think it looks nice and want it in your house, but don't buy art on cruise ships as a means of investment.

Warning, this video may make you hungry! ;)