Themed cruise vacations are special sailings when groups or organizations charter a ship, bringing like-minded travelers together to share their passion. Themed cruises appeal to groups of people varying from very broad interests, like motorcycles and rock music.

Royal Caribbean has partnered with Coca Cola to introduce Freestyle soda machines offering 125 different flavors of Coke products across their fleet. Majesty of the Seas was the first ship to have the machines installed last month with the roll out slated for completion by the end of 2013.

The port of Batumi in the Republic of Georgia will see 14 cruise ships visit it this year, with 8 confirmed and the other 6 in the negotiations.  All the cruises will visit the brand new cruise terminal that Royal Caribbean has been designing.

Four days before the Costa Concordia cruise ship sank off Italy's west coast, killing 32 people, emails from the liner's technical director reveal that the vessel had a faulty black box data recorder, according to new documents leaked to an Italian newspaper this week.

Earlier this year, Royal Caribbean announced they would transfer Monarch of the Seas out of their fleet and into sister company Pullmantur Cruises in April 2013. Now it is official that Monarch of the Seas will be home based year round in Curacao when that transfer is complete.

Valencia, Spain is becoming one of the top tourist spots in the Mediterranean due to the developing port for cruise ships. The city will be one of the main stop overs for tourists, especially those in a Spain’s east coast cruise, since new terminals will be in place this year for several large ships to dock all in one time.