The new 116,000-ton Crown Princess will call at Port Canaveral next summer when Princess Cruises begins new service from New York to the Caribbean. It will be the first time the cruise line has called at Port Canaveral. Passengers who embark in New York for the round-trip Caribbean voyages will be able to spend a day in Brevard County and Central Florida.

Princess Cruises and Cunard Line are merging their sales forces after bringing under one management the two line´s operations and port planning and Cunard moving from Miami to Princess´ offices in southern California. Both lines fall under Carnival´s P&O Princess International division, which is overseen by Peter Ratcliffe. The consolidated sales force is divided into four regions, each overseen by a current regional sales director.

Carnival Cruise Lines´ will return to Europe in 2006 after its first season of Mediterranean cruises was deemed a success. Carnival will begin a full season of 12-day Mediterranean cruises beginning May 2006 using the 110,000-ton SuperLiner, which is currently under construction in Monfalcone, Italy.

Italian cruise company MSC, one of the world´s leading companies of its kind, expects to reach 30 million euros in sales this year, a threefold jump from 2004, director-general Emiliano Gonzalez Delgado said this week. Revenues are supposed to triple because the number of passengers will climb from 12,000 last year to 35,000 this time around. The ongoing year could mark the takeoff of this maritime company that now owns seven liners, including four high-tech vessels.

Mexico´s Tourism Department (SECTUR) has stressed its commitment to strengthen services and products being offered to cruise passengers that swing by Puerto Vallarta by relying on the many commercial opportunities this lovely city has to offer. For Mexico, a country that ranks among the world´s top cruise destinations, this particular industry opens an enormous window of opportunity, said Oralia Rice, undersecretary of tourism planning at SECTUR.

Guatemala´s travel industry is anticipating a 2005-2006 cruise season with at least some 42 arrivals on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, up a double-digit increase from the previous season when 38 liners docked in with 50,393 passengers onboard. The decline sustained by the local cruise sector last year stemmed in part from a travel warning issued by U.S. authorities based on reports of rampant crime and insecurity in the Central American country. As a result of this action, three cruises called off their voyages to Guatemala.