Last week officials from Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey approved a $70 million plan to expand the port to accommodate Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas and this new deal has some thinking that this could be the catalyst for the area becoming a tourist hub.

With the Royal Caribbean deal in place, the city of Bayonne may be on the verge of inking an agreement for the development of a new hotel and possible complex to accommodate incoming and outgoing passengers.

Bayonne officials say they have been working towards getting a hotel development near the cruise port for months, but negotiations hinged on moves by the Port Authority.

“The new Royal Caribbean Cruise Terminal will provide the people of New Jersey and New York with the world-class travel experience they deserve,” said Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni. “We welcome the significant investment Royal Caribbean is making in our region and look forward to welcoming the Quantum of the Seas to her new home in our port.”

Construction is scheduled to begin this summer and be completed by October 2014. 

Royal Caribbean has released a new photo from the development that is ongoing for Quantum of the Seas.  Today, we have a photo of the North Star observation pod, featuring a scale model of the top of the ship and arm.

In the background, we can see a full size replica of the observation pod that will be attached to the North Star "arm". 

When finished, North Star will be a first of its kind innovation for a cruise ship, where passengers can go up to 200 feet above the ocean's surface to get what is sure to be beautiful views.  The inspiration for the North Star was revealed to be the London Eye.

Quantum of the Seas is Royal Caribbean's next cruise ship that will be built and will have her first official cruise in November 2014.

As we reported earlier this week, Royal Caribbean got the official go-ahead to build a new cruise terminal at Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey and today we've got more details as to what the facility will entail.

The $70 million terminal will be paid for by Royal Caribbean and includes a 36,000-square-foot check-in terminal, a 60,000-square-foot luggage area, a parking deck, additional parking and berth improvements. Construction will begin this summer and should be completed by October 2014.  Quantum of the Seas is scheduled to have its first cruise out of Cape Liberty in November 2014.

As part of the agreement allowing construction of the cruise terminal, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the marine terminal facility in Bayonne, agreed to extend Royal Caribbean’s operating agreement for the terminal for an additional five years through 2043.

Passenger volume at the Cape Liberty port have been increasing steadily over the past three years, from 393,000 in 2010 to 476,000 in 2012. Once the new cruise terminal is complete, officials expect the passenger volume to increase to about 600,000.

Officials from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have approved a proposal by Royal Caribbean to redevelop the Cape Liberty cruise port in Bayonne, New Jersey.

The Board of Commissioners approved the plan earlier tonight at a meeting.  The purpose of the proposal is to allow the port to handle Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ship, Quantum of the Seas, which will arrive in November 2014.

Port Authority Director Bill Baroni commented on the decision, "This new lease extension will bring to Bayonne one of the most modern cruise terminals in the country. Royal Caribbean is going to invest $50 million in the new terminal and two parking facilities for people going out of Bayonne."

Baroni believes Quantum of the Seas will also give Bayonne's economy a boost.

"This new terminal will help create jobs in construction and will have a long term economic benefits on our region.  When a ship like this calls a port that ship brings about $1 million a trip to the city in local economic activity. Once completed, the terminal is expected to bring in 600,000 people every year." 

Baroni did say that Royal Caribbean's proposal still needs to have its finances approved by the Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority and once that happens, construction will begin in a few months.  The project should be completed by 2014 right before the new cruise ship arrives.

Royal Caribbean will fund the project in conjunction with the city of Bayonne, which would issue $70 million in bonds. 

Once completed, the new terminal will see passenger volume rise by 25 percent to 600,000 per year, according to Baroni.

Royal Caribbean has proposed a plan to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to allow the cruise line to make significant changes to the Cape Liberty cruise terminal in Bayonne, New Jersey that would be needed for the arrival of Quantum of the Seas.

Quantum of the Seas, which is Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ship and about to start construction, will be home ported in Bayonne.  The changes Royal Caribbean is proposing are aimed at accommodating the brand new ship, which arrives in late 2014.

The Port Authority's board of commissioners will vote on the plan later today.

Port Commerce director Richard Larrabee says the agency would lose about $1 million a year in rent at the cruise port. But he says that will be more than offset by increased passenger and parking revenue tied to the new ship.

Royal Caribbean has been working hard, along with the rest of the cruise industry, to prepare its cruise ships for new air pollution rules set to go into effect in 2015.  The fear is these new laws will make North American cruises more expensive and so Royal Caribbean has been slowly rolling out a solution to its cruise ships that will aim to be compliant without being too expensive.

The new rules are part of the North American Emissions Control Area (ECA), which surrounds the United States and Canada and extends up to 200 miles offshore.

Royal Caribbean's plan is to add "scrubbers" to their ships.  Scrubbers remove pollutants from engine exhaust as a kind of filter.  The downside to scrubbers is the technology is still a work in progress and requires a variance permit from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Royal Caribbean is planning on installing scrubbers on Quantum of the Seas and Anthem of the Seas when they are built.  They've already been testing scrubbers on Liberty of the Seas and Independence of the Seas and the EPA has granted trial exemptions for six Royal Caribbean ships.   In addition, it has authorized an “emissions averaging” solution in certain subregions of the ECA in which Royal can use fuels with differing sulfur levels, as long as the average equivalent sulfur emissions meet the ECA limits.

Special Needs Group has announced it is adding all accessible ships in Royal Caribbean's fleet to its Web portal/accessibility content resource.  Included in the index is Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ship, Quantum of the Seas, which launches in November 2014.

The Special Needs Group portal offers detailed cruise ship accessibility features and provides helpful information including:

• Number of accessible staterooms
• Accessible stateroom features
• Food & Beverage venues accessibility
• Recreational facilities accessibility
• And more

The Royal Caribbean accessibility information launches today with sister brands Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises later this month.

For Quantum of the Seas, the portal lists 34 accessible staterooms, which have have wider doors, roll-in showers, grab bars and turning spaces.  The ship also features braille/tactile public room signage, amplified phones, lowered counters at select locations and more.

SNG President and CEO Andrew Garnett said, "By continuing to add ships/cruise lines to our accessibility content resource, we're reinforcing our corporate responsibility to help educate travel professionals, as well as the traveling public, that individuals with special needs have the ability to travel now more than ever before. The content that we create and provide is mainly informational as opposed to commercially-driven, allowing individuals with special needs to choose the most appropriate ship/cruise for them."

The Bermuda Sun is reporting that Royal Caribbean's newest cruise ship that is under construction, Quantum of the Seas, will make regular stops to Bermuda in 2015.

Last night a spokesperson from Bermuda said: “We have received an application from Royal Caribbean to deploy the Quantum of the Seas on a Bermuda itinerary for 2015 but no decision has been made."

“The Ministry is continuously working with our partners in the cruise industry to secure new itineraries for their ships.” 

As of now, Royal Caribbean is only allowing bookings on Quantum of the Seas through April 2015, but itineraries after April 2015 have yet to be announced.

Bringing Quantum of the Seas to Bermuda is a boon for the local economy, with up to 4,180 passengers descending onto the island to put money into the local economy.  It's especially good news after Royal Caribbean cut back the number of cruises going to Bermuda in 2013 by 11.

Quantum of the Seas will sail out of Port Liberty in New Jersey and replace Explorer of the Seas.

Keen eyes have spotted what appears to be the beginning stages of laying the keel for Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Seas cruise ship at the Meyer Werft shipyard.  Meyer Werft provides a web cam to track the progress of their ship construction and a web cam that was pointed at a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship under construction appears to have caught sight Quantum of the Seas' keel.

The timing sounds about right for Meyer Werft to begin construction on Quantum of the Seas. We had heard her keel was expected to be laid on August 5.

The process of keel laying is basically the joining of the first modular blocks of the cruise ship and is the ceremonial beginning of the ship's life.

Do you think this is the first building block for Quantum of the Seas?

Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein posted a new question and answer post on his blog and not surprisingly, many questions were about Quantum of the Seas.  We haven't heard much in the way of new details about this brand new class of cruise ships, but today we got a few more tidbits.

One guest asked Goldstein what was the the biggest motivating factor behind Quantum of the Seas.  

Goldstein responded, "With every new ship class our focus is on providing an enriched guest experience. In addition to that, the Quantum class of ships gave us an opportunity to introduce major advancements in ship design. Our internal teams have worked hard to integrate many diverse experiences into a comfortable and exciting cruise vacation. The newbuild design process has been a fundamental building block of our culture as I discussed in a blog article earlier this year."

Another question was posed about if the Schooner Bar will exist on Quantum of the Seas.  Fans of this fun bar will be happy to know Goldstein confirmed that the Schooner Bar will indeed be onboard Quantum of the Seas.