Carnival Orders Ship

Carnival Corp has ordered an additional 130,000-gt Dream-class vessel from Fincantieri for their Carnival Cruise Lines brand.

The 3,690-passenger vessel will be the third in the series and is scheduled to enter service in the spring of 2012.

Overboard Silver Shadow Passenger Rescued

A passenger went overboard early this morning (November 22) from Silversea's Silver Shadow as the ship was approaching Ft. Lauderdale. The Coast Guard received the call from the ship approximately 3am when it was about 20 miles east of Miami.

The ship had already put rescue boats into the water and was remaining on the scene to search for the 62-year-old man. Approximately 7:45am he was located swimming about 20 miles southeast of Governor's Cut (near Miami). A Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Miami flew to the position and lowered a rescue swimmer, who helped the man into the ship's rescue boat.

The 28,500-ton Silver Shadow is turning around today at Ft. Lauderdale at the completion of a 9-day cruise from Barbados and before starting a 10-day eastern Caribbean itinerary this evening.

Below is the Coast Guard-supplied video of the scene.

Oasis Delayed

Royal Caribbean announced that Oasis of the Seas' grand arrival into Ft. Lauderdale is going to be delayed.

The strong winds and high seas it is encountering while crossing the Atlantic have delayed its arrival by two days from Wednesday until Friday morning, November 13.

Yes, that's the 13th, Friday the 13th. Could that be an omen?

The heavy sea conditions were shown in yesterday's video blog:

Spooky Goings On Aboard Queen Victoria

Seeing amazingly carved melons on cruise ships isn't unusual. But if you combine that with pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns and Halloween, and then then you make it into a competition between the master carvers on a ship to see who can carve the most elaborate Halloween pumpkin, you have something quite outstanding. That's what happened aboard Cunard's Queen Victoria, according to cruise director Alistair Greener's blog, We Are Cunard. The blog shows photos of the host of unusual creations displayed in the ship's atrium.

Oasis Passes Milestone on Trip to US

Oasis of the Seas has passed a rather important milestone on its deadhead delivery cruise from the shipyard in Finland to its public debut in Ft. Lauderdale next week. Yesterday it passed under the Great Belt bridge in Denmark (actually 7pm Saturday night Eastern US time). It had only two feet to spare, even after lowering its smokestacks into the funnel. A check of the map will show why transit under this bridge is so important.

Some of the better coverage we've seen, with the better pictures was in London's Daily Mail and in the Associated Press (be sure to click the link at the side of the article for pictures).

Update 10:30am - Royal Caribbean now has released this interesting video hosted by Capt Bill Wright which shows the event: