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! ;)

There's been a slew of articles all over the interwebs all about the Royal Caribbean and Dreamworks alliance and it seems everyone has an opinion on it.  MSNBC posted an article about the fight for families cruise lines are now engaging in with Royal Caribbean and Dreamworks, Norwegian Cruise Line and Nickelodean and Disney all vying for families to choose their ships.  The premise is that these alliances are hoping the kids will influence their parents to choose a cruise line, an idea we first posted about last week.

Anyone who doesn't think that the Royal Caribbean deal is about competing with Disney has their head in the sand.  Is Royal Caribbean looking to go head-to-head with Disney in terms of characters? Maybe not.  But what Royal Caribbean is trying to do is not cede the entire family cruise with young children demographic to Disney.  An under reported benefit of the Dreamworks deal is that Royal Caribbean also gets the rights to show the Dreamworks film library on board its ships.  That's a big bonus for kids who will be able to watch Shrek or Kung Fu Panda ad nauseum in their staterooms.

I know there's a lot of backlash from cruisers who are concerned their next cruise will be filled with character based entertainment that will ruin their cruise.  If you consider what Disney does on their ships the crux of character integration on a cruise ship, on Disney ships, you really have to go out of your way to see a character, much less interact with one.  You can be in the pool, or on the sun deck or at dinner and never see one.  The character entertainment on Disney is very compartmentalized and I imagine Royal Caribbean will have a similar model as well. 

How much of an impact this alliance will have remains to be seen but this deal shouldn't be vilified or feared.  Rather, it looks to be (on paper) a good deal for both sides and hopefully something that will fatten Royal Caribbean's bottom line, which in turn helps us all.

It's become a tradition before your cruise to get that packet of cruise documents in the mail that you will need for embarkation onto the ship.  It's a traditional part of the cruise planning process that's about to change completely.  Back in March 2010, Royal Caribbean announced they were doing away with the paper based cruise documents in favor of an e-ticket, that they've called "eDoc".

Royal Caribbean Director of Sales and Marketing Services Angela Stephen describes the eDoc as a "customized mini-website, pre-cruise planner, get-excited-about-your-cruise, and brag-to-your-friends-and-family-what-an-incredible-vacation-you-are-about-to-take” type of document.   The eDoc is basically a better means of marketing all that Royal Caribbean offers (read: activities that cost extra) to the cruiser who may not have been aware of it.  Given that the majority of cruises never visit cruise planning sites like this or Cruise Critic, they are unaware of many aspects of cruising until they got on board the ship.  The eDoc seems to be an attempt to educate guests about what is available on the ship before they board the ship so that they can book ahead of time.

Click here to preview what a sample eDoc looks like

For those that miss the old paper documents, you can order them for $35 per person, although Stephen mentions only 5% prefer the printed version (more like only 5% are willing to shell out the money for it, as opposed to expressing an opinion on the matter).  

What do you think of the eDoc idea?  Do you like it? Do you prefer the old way?  Share your thoughts!

Last month, Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein announced that Royal Caribbean was pulling Mariner of the Seas from it's Los Angeles port in favor of moving her to Europe to help with the ever rising demand.  This decision leaves Royal Caribbean without a ship cruising the Mexican Riviera at the moment and needless to say, it's left some folks upset.  Mariner of the Seas replaced Vision of the Seas, which also left it's Mexican Riviera route in favor of Europe.

The problems many have lay in a few categories.  First, there is no option for fans of Royal Caribbean out of Los Angeles.  Those in the western United States are without an option for a nearby ship that serves warm water ports.  Second, many Royal Caribbean fans in the United States are upset over the trend of much of the Royal Caribbean fleet heading to Europe to chase the all mighty Euro and the demand there for cruises. Third, many who have gone on Mariner of the Seas report that the ship is routinely full and that it's not like she was sailing half empty.  All of these concerns have left many with a combination of anger, disgust and frustration.

Royal Caribbean clarified its position on the move in a blog post by Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein when he acknowledged that while Mariner of the Seas was meeting its capacity while in Los Angeles, it was still being moved to Europe because "we are unable to generate acceptable levels of performance for Mariner of the Seas. We are obligated to our shareholders to deploy her where she can earn superior returns".  

For most in the United States, European cruises are interesting options, but ultimately too expensive for most given the high cost of airfare just to get onboard the ship as well as the time off needed for such vacations.  The problem of Mariner of the Seas leaving is compounded by the fact that there is no ship scheduled to replace her yet, and if you do live in a western state, it means you must travel east for warm water cruises, which adds extra cost for travel.  On the one hand, it's hard to blame Royal Caribbean for doing what they're doing.  After all, they are a corporation and their first goal is produce profit for their shareholders (as any publicly traded company does).  On the other hand, the cruise industry is built upon the notion of building customer loyalty and Royal Caribbean has demonstrated a strong will to retain its customers for future cruises.

So what do you think about the decision to move Mariner of the Seas to Europe?  Is Royal Caribbean justified in moving it, and many other ships to Europe to make larger profits?  Or should Royal Caribbean stem the flow of ships east and maintain the fleet it has serving the western hemisphere?

You may have heard of specialty cruises where groups of people go cruising together, but the big trend that the media loves to talk about are "cougar cruises", where older women (over the age of 40 or so called cougars) look for younger men (in their 20's or so) to meet and the idea is women find young men for "companionship" while the young men find a woman who has financial stability, among other things.  This past May, Mariner of the Seas hosted the second cougar cruise but it didn't seem to be a huge success.

"But 20 or so other so-called "cougars" have taken the bait and signed on for what is billed as the second-ever International Cougar Cruise, a week-long Mexican Riviera sailing out of Los Angeles in May. From the get-go, the more vocal among the 25 or so "cubs" along for the ride are grousing about the lack of "Demi-ness" among the cougar contingent. And the more snarly cougars shoot back that there isn't necessarily a lot of Ashton-ness on display, either."

There have been specialty cruises like singles cruises that hope to offer potential soul mates the opportunity to find love while in paradise and there's been some controversy as to the validity of these events.  Personally, I think a lot of hype comes with this sort of news and the reality is it's not the sexy romp that some may lead you to believe.