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Sometimes an ocean liner really is, as ship historian John Maxtone-Graham would say, the only way to cross. Just ask James Taylor. For years, the Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and his band have been using airplanes to get to Europe for European tours, and for years they've been having trouble. So this year they tried something new: Getting there by ship. It was an eye-opener, says Taylor, who sailed from New York to Southampton, England in June with his band and crew on Cunard's Queen Mary 2. "A big part of a European tour is to get everybody over," Taylor explains, noting that the band's concert equipment alone fills an entire shipping container. "It was an idea I had had for a long time." Taylor, who played two concerts aboard the vessel in exchange for his passage, is one of the biggest-named headliners ever to play a passenger ship. In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, he says the passage -- and concerts -- proved the perfect way to kick off a European tour. As Taylor notes, just last year when he went on tour the container holding the band's equipment was waylaid on its way to Europe, forcing the band to reschedule its opening concert. But there were no such trouble this time as the QM2 had ample storage space for his gear. Taylor and his band also were able to use the ship as a warm-up for the 10-week, 22-concert tour. They rehearsed about six hours a day. "It was great fun to cross the ocean in that way," he says, speaking from Venice during a break from the schedule. "It was sort of a unique, bygone-era way of traveling." As is typical for big-name musicians, Taylor was traveling with a large group that included his band, crew and several family members including his wife, Kim. They needed 17 cabins in all. "My wife loved it. She liked the rough days the best," Taylor says, noting it was a little choppy at the start of the six-day voyage. Taylor says his twin eight-year sons, Rufus and Henry, also had a blast. "There is a lot to do. There are kids programs, and it's sort of like a microcosm (of the world). They run around and get the lay of the land, and it gives them a kind of freedom at their age that they really liked." The 61-year-old musician says the voyage brought back childhood memories of a trip to Europe on a Holland America ship. He says he also sailed to Europe on Cunard's QE2 when his older children, Sally and Ben, were little, but he has never seen anything like the 150,000-ton QM2. "It's the biggest thing I've ever been on," he says. Taylor was impressed with the ship's 1,150-person Royal Court Theatre where his band played to standing room-only crowds. "It was a very comfortable room," he says. "The sound was excellent, and the soundboard and lighting set-up were really state-of-the-art." Taylor adds that he now gets why so many people rave about cruising. "It was sort of an exciting controlled adventure," he says.

The London Telegraph is reporting another brazen attack on a small luxury ship that operates $5,000-per-person cruises on the Amazon River -- the second such attack in two weeks. The news outlet says Aqua Expeditions' Aqua, a well-known luxury vessel that has won rave reviews since debuting on the river early last year, was stormed Tuesday by nine armed bandits carrying guns and hand grenades. The news outlet says the bandits bound the hands and feet of the 20 British, American, Spanish and Australian vacations on board and stole their valuables at gunpoint. The attackers reportedly overcame two police officers guarding the ship after a similar attack ten days ago, and the Telegraph reports there later was a shoot-out with police called in to hunt down the attackers. The Aqua sails three-, four- and seven-night expeditions on the Peruvian part of the Amazon River year-round that start at $700 per person per day. Cruises start in the Peruvian city of Iquitos.

Congratulations on the new booking.

There was good news Tuesday for cruisers planning a late summer or fall voyage in the Caribbean: The Atlantic hurricane season won't be as bad as initially thought. As weather writer Doyle Rice reports this morning, the hurricane season has gotten off to such a slow start that the nation's premier hurricane forecasting team is revising its forecast downward. The scientists, at Colorado State University, now expects 10 named tropical storms will form in the Atlantic this year with four becoming hurricanes. That's down from a forecast of 11 named storms and five hurricanes made just two months ago. In a typical season there are six hurricanes. So far this year, not a single tropical storm or hurricane has developed in the Atlantic. The hurricane season "officially" kicked off on June 1. Colorado State's Phil Klotzbach says the development of a strong El Niño weather pattern is behind the shifting forecast. El Niño is a warming of tropical Pacific Ocean water that can affect weather patterns around the globe and is associated with decreased levels of Atlantic hurricanes.

Would you pay an extra $15 to $20 per day to sail on a cruise ship that uses cleaner fuel? That's how much the cruise industry says new emission rules set to take effect in North America in 2015 will cost it. Industry spokesperson Michael Crye tells Seatrade Insider today that the North American Emission Control Area recently approved in principle by the International Maritime Organization is likely to cost cruise lines far more than the $7 per person, per day projected by the Environmental Protection Agency. Proposed by the U.S. and Canadian governments, the new low-emission zone would cover a 200 nautical mile ring around the coast of the two countries. Cruise ships sailing within the zone would be required to use costlier but cleaner low-sulfur distillate fuel. Crye tells Seatrade Insider the EPA's cost estimate ignores the law of supply and demand. The cost of the cleaner fuel will go up as cruise lines begin buying. Cruise lines haven't said whether they would try to pass on the extra fuel cost to consumers.

How many jewelry stores does a small town like Juneau, Alaska need? Definitely not 26 in an area of a few short blocks, says one prominent resident. In an opinion piece published Tuesday in the Juneau Empire, Greg Fisk, the vice chairman of Juneau's Docks and Harbors Board and a board member of the Juneau Economic Development Council, argues the cruise boom of recent years has brought a "yuck factor" to the mountain-fringed Alaskan capital that needs to be improved. "How bad is it? I did an informal survey the other day and counted no less than 26 full-on jewelry stores . . . and that's not counting places that sell some jewelry along with artwork and other stuff," he writes. "Throw in a few faux Alaska fur and leather shops, a variety of trinket and T-shirt outlets and some art galleries, and that pretty well sums up the South Franklin (shopping street) experience." Dreadful, is Fisk's word for it. It is "the unrelieved mass of it that produces such a yuck factor," he adds. "Sure, it's good for the Juneau property owners who lease the space, and it produces sales tax revenues. But I contend that a more diversified retail sector would produce a greater interest and a better shopping experience for visitors and could provide yearround value to the community." Fisk says Juneau should woo more high quality retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch and get behind efforts to bring in more downtown attractions to take the place of the trinket stores. He notes a move to bring the historic Coast Guard Cutter Storis -- the first U.S. vessel to navigate the Northwest passage -- to the town as a museum.

Add Norwegian Cruise Line to the list of cruise companies letting passengers pre-pay gratuities. The mass-market line quietly rolled out a new program last week that lets passengers pay its $12 per person, per day "service charge" before sailing in lieu of at the end of a cruise. Several other lines including Carnival currently offer such an option -- popular with cruisers who like to pay everything in advance and avoid a big bill at the end of their vacation. Norwegian Cruise Line raised its daily service charge to $12 in January, and it now has the highest levy of any big ship line. Carnival adds a $10 per person per day gratuity to passenger bills. Princess adds a $10.50 service charge ($11 for passengers in suites and mini-suites). Holland America adds $11; Celebrity, $11.50 ($12-$15 for passengers in premium cabins and suites). Royal Caribbean doesn't automatically add gratuities to customer bills but instead suggests amounts for passengers to give to their room stewards and dining room waiters at the end of a cruise.

(6:55 AM EDT) -- A massive search-and-rescue operation in Alaska has turned up the body of a woman presumed to have gone overboard Monday from a Holland America cruise ship. Washington resident Amber Malkuch, 45, disappeared from the 1,432-passenger Zaandam early Monday as it was sailing near Glacier Bay National Park, prompting the search. The Anchorage Daily News reports that a helicopter involved in the search discovered the body late Monday along the shore of Douglas Island. The news outlet says the body has been taken to Juneau, Alaska to be positively identified. Several news outlets report the last known sighting of Malkuch was when she ordered room service just after midnight on Sunday as the ship was near Douglas Island. She was reported missing by her travelling companion about 9 a.m. on Monday morning after the ship had entered Glacier Bay. The Zaandam is on a seven-night Alaska cruise out of Seattle that began on Friday. The ship docks in Sitka, Alaska today, and the Associated Press reports Alaska state troopers plan to meet the vessel to begin an investigation of the woman's death. The Daily News quotes a U.S. Coast Guard official as saying investigators likely would examine security footage from the ship to figure out how the woman went overboard. UPDATE, 12:58 PM EST: The Associated Press is quoting a spokeswoman for Holland America as saying Malkuch's disappearance from the Zaandam early Monday appears to be a case of suicide. Spokeswoman Sally Andrews says no evidence of foul play has been found.