Port Everglades, Florida is the home to Royal Caribbean's flagships, Oasis and Allure of the Seas and the last quarter of 2010 saw cruise traffic up 25% to 1.17 million cruise passengers.

This is great news for not just Royal Caribbean but the cruise industry as a whole because it shows the industry has rebounded nicely from the recession, thanks in part to new ships like Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas or Oasis of the Seas.  Locals in Fort Lauderdale area are happy as well as that means more cruise passengers spending money in the local area before and after their cruises.

In addition, port revenue for the first fiscal quarter was at $37.5 million, a level that exceeds the previous first fiscal quarter peak of $30.6 million in 2008.

Royal Caribbean is going to try out adding cabins for solo travelers in the spring of this year on Radiance of the Seas, according to a report by USA Today.

Radiance of the Seas will add three windowless "inside" stateroom cabins specifically for guests who are traveling alone.  To accommodate this change, Radiance of the Seas will enter dry dock in late May, have the new cabins installed and depart in early June. She will then spend the coming summer sailing in Alaska.

Single cabins are a new fad in some cruise lines and until now, Royal Caribbean did not have any.  The reason for this is because the the cruise business model revolves around cabins designed for two or more people.

Royal Caribbean  this week opened its new office in Mexico City, located on the Boulevard Manuel Avila Camacho, where employees working in sales, marketing and business operations of the three cruise brands operated by Royal Caribbean:  Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Cruises Club.

Adam Goldstein, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, said the company appreciates its strong market position in Mexico and its new office will increase revenue, expand offerings of destinations and increase the number of passengers.

The Sun Sentinel newspaper "profiled" the leading cruise lines and described who each cruise line is best for.  When it came to Royal Caribbean, the paper felt it was a great line for those that can't get enough onboard activities.

Super sports complexes at sea. More than just the young and the restless can enjoy this line's list of sports firsts: rock-climbing wall, surfing pool, ice-skating rink, bungee trampolines, boxing ring and a zip-line that soars high above the pool deck. With two sumo-size sister ships, the world's largest, the 252,000-ton Oasis, and Allure of the Seas, Royal Caribbean even has enough real estate for a suite of suites overlooking its "Central Park," a green space loaded with restaurants and a boardwalk.

Food prices around the world are on the rise, particularly for meat, sugar and coffee, and companies like Royal Caribbean are finding ways to deal with the problem.

Royal Caribbean Chief Executive Richard Fain says the cruise line is hedging increases in cattle prices, that hasn't fully offset its rising costs for beef.  Since the fall of 2010, meat prices have risen for Royal Caribbean and since the steakhouses aboard their ships are the most popular according to Fain, it makes sense for Royal Caribbean to be concerned.  Royal Caribbean serves about 53 million pounds of beef, poultry, lamb, veal and pork a year.

"Meat is important to our guests," Mr. Fain adds. "We aren't prepared to sacrifice the quality and we can't raise prices enough to reflect it, so it ends up being a cost we have to absorb." Royal Caribbean is also paying more for citrus fruits and fish, particularly shrimp, another popular dish on its cruises.

Cozumel, Mexico saw more than 2.9 million cruise passengers in 2010, which is the highest number in the last seven years, according to the state Tourism Department . This figure is the best record in the last seven years which surpassed the 2004 statistics, a period in which they were registered with 2.8 million visitors to the island.  Cozumel lost a great deal of tourists after Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Helping raise Cozumel's numbers were the arrival in 2010 of Royal Caribbean's twin ships' Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas.  These two ships helped Cozumel beat tourist numbers in the same segment of tourism destinations in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean Sea, said the head of the state Tourism Department

Among other reasons, helping Cozumel's cause to bring back tourists, last year Michel Ronan, vice president of Royal Caribbean complimented Cozumel and Mahahual by  describing the island as a safe cruise destination. This tourism department feels this puts them in the preference of companies to bring their clients.

Add another award to Royal Caribbean's collection.  On Monday in London, England, Travel Weekly honored select companies at a spectacular Globe Travel Awards ceremony.  During the ceremony, Royal Caribbean picked up an award for best mainstream cruise company.

On hand to accept the award was Royal Caribbean's Associate Vice President & General Manager at Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, Jo Rzymowska, "This award shows how important agents are to us. We don't get everything right all the time but what we do is listen to the trade and this award means we get it right".

Bermuda's Supreme Court found a former Royal Caribbean waiter guilty of conspiring to import more than $424,000 worth of cocaine into the country via the ship he was working on, Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas.

Ricardo Stewart, 32, from Jamaica, denies conspiring to bring cocaine into the country.  Prosecutors allege that their plan worked until packages containing 3.9 kg of cocaine were found hidden under a chair in the ship’s disco.

Stewart has maintained he is innocent and claims he barely knew the accomplices he was alleged to have worked with.  Furthermore, he denies being involved in the drug trade.

Given the situation of flood victims of the rains in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Royal Caribbean is gathering donations of food or personal hygiene products that are sent through the Red Cross St. Paul.
Among the items needed most are bottled water, powdered milk, cups and plates and disposable baby diapers of all sizes.
The company will receive donations until Thursday, April 20. Delivery shall be made from 10:00am to  6:00pm hours in the office of Royal Caribbean, located at Alameda Santos, No. 74, 13th floor.

Royal Caribbean is joining two other cruise lines in ending or reducing their travel to Mexico from southern California, a trend that some in the industry attribute the growing violence in the country has scared off tourists.

Royal Caribbean's luxurious Mariner of the Seas departs on Sunday for her last journey from the Port of Los Angeles to the west coast of Mexico, said port spokesman Phillip Sanfield.

The ship then moved his base to Galveston, Texas, offering seven-night trips to the western Caribbean, the company said.

Norwegian and Carnival Cruise Lines are also pulling their ships from the area.But the loss of Mariner of the Seas, Norwegian Star and Carnival Splendor represents most of the cruise ship traffic in Southern California to Mexico, which has been beaten by the violence and slow U.S. economic recovery.

"Certainly, Mexico has some problems," said Sanfield.

Luxury cruises in Southern California have traditionally made stops in Mexican tourist destinations like Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas, which have prevented some of the worst drug violence that has swept Mexico in recent years.

"However, people are taking a broader view (...) to violence in other parts of Mexico," Sanfield said.

An estimated 755,000 cruise passengers passed through the Port of Los Angeles last year, but expects that number to drop to 605,000 in 2011, said the port. Only the Mariner of the Seas transported 320,000 passengers in the port in 2010, and Royal Caribbean has had a presence in place for most of the past 20 years.

"They have been one of the main pillars, and we hope you come back here in the future," Sanfield said. "Each time a cruise ship visits a port in southern California, contributes 1 to $ 2 million to the local economy."

Drug-related violence in Mexico began to grow in 2006, the year that President Felipe Calderon sent the army to fight the cartels. On January 8, in the latest bloodshed that has occurred in a tourist destination in Mexico, 14 decapitated bodies were found in the resort of Acapulco.  The bodies were found near a shopping mall, with handwritten messages signed by the leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.

Stewart Chiron, an industry analyst CruiseGuy.com, said that apart from the poor economy, another factor contributing to the decline in travel to Mexico is that passengers are just tired of these routes.