mercedes

No other cruise line has grown as fast in recent years as MSC Cruises. But after exploding on the scene with the addition of nine ships since 2003 (when it had just two), it looks like the Europe-based cruise company will be taking a break. In a rare interview published today, Mediterranean Shipping Company founder and chairman Gianluigi Aponte tells the Financial Times he's put the rapid expansion of the company's cruise division on hold for the time being due to the world's economic woes. “We could expand this business quickly, and this was our intention,” Aponte tells the Times. “But the present economic situation has dictated a little bit of prudence, and obviously we are not ordering ships for the time being." Speaking to the Times over the weekend at the debut of MSC Cruises' latest mega-ship, the 3,300-passenger MSC Splendida, Aponte said he also planned to scale back growth at MSC's shipping division -- the heart of the company he founded in 1969. MSC runs the world's second-biggest container ship fleet, and the Times reports the cruise division accounts for just 8% of the parent company's sales. “It is very difficult these days to imagine growth in any of our businesses, until we see signs of economic recovery,” Aponte tells the Times. Of course, like ships, shipping companies can't turn on a dime when it comes to growth plans. Cruise ships are ordered and locked into development years in advance of their debut, and MSC Cruises still has one more vessel on order from the boom years, the 2,550-passenger MSC Magnifica, scheduled to debut next spring. The company also has held negotiations with the Magnifica's shipbuilder, STX, for two more sister vessels for delivery in 2011 and beyond.

It's a David-and-Goliath victory, no doubt. And one that could force some big changes at cruise lines. As the Arizona Republic, a sister paper to USA TODAY, notes today in a lengthy front-page story, a Phoenix man whose daughter vanished from an Alaskan cruise in 2004 is on the brink of a long-awaited triumph after he helped push the multibillion-dollar cruise industry to accept new safety regulations. In an about-face, lobbyists for the cruise industry in recent days have backed federal legislation that would force new safety standards and crime-reporting requirements on all cruise ships operating in U.S. ports -- virtually guaranteeing the bill's passage in Congress. "This tide has turned," Kendall Carver, a 72-year-old retired insurance executive, tells the Republic. "Finally, we're going to see some accountability." Carver's daughter, Merrian, disappeared from Celebrity Cruises' Mercury two days into a seven-day voyage in an incident the line later suggested was a suicide. There was no record of her leaving the ship, and her clothes and luggage remained in her cabin. Still, camera footage that might have helped solve the mystery has never been made available, the Republic says. Celebrity's parent company, Royal Caribbean, has said a video camera captured her fall from a ship's deck but told Carver's father that the footage had been erased. The Republic says Celebrity did nothing for five weeks after Carver's disappearance beyond packing up her belongings. The news outlet says the line only filed a missing-persons report with the FBI after being questioned by a private detective. Carver tells the Republic he later learned his daughter was intimate with a crew member on the ship who now lives in Greece and refuses to answer questions. He tells the paper he doesn't fully accept that his daughter's death was a suicide. A non-profit group Carver founded, International Cruise Victims, has been pushing for the new safety legislation for several years. The legislation would require cruise ships to log onboard crimes, disappearances, and complaints regarding thefts, sexual harassment and assaults, and make the logs available to public agencies such as the U.S. Coast Guard. It also calls for peepholes on all cabins.

I am a planner too and have a folder for each port of call and make notes in each folder so that when I return I can write a review, couldn't remember everything otherwise.

I agree.

I think he is past due for one.

Shari and Marc, have a safe and enjoyable cruise.

sewut51, have a safe and enjoyable cruise.