Carnival Cruises return to Baltimore

Carnival Cruises return to Baltimore

BALTIMORE

Carnival Cruise Lines has returned to the Port of Baltimore after completing extensive renovations to the Carnival Pride ship.

The Maryland Port Administration celebrated the ship’s return recently.

The Carnival Pride left Maryland in October 2014 to undergo a multi-million-dollar renovation. The ship has new technologies to reduce ship emissions.

Port officials say nearly 200,000 passengers sailed on 89 cruises from the Port of Baltimore in 2014. The port ranks No. 6 on the East Coast for cruise passengers.

The 2,124-passenger Carnival Pride now has new dining venues and entertainment features, including a new water park.

Carnival says it has the steepest and fastest water slide at sea.

Geography quiz

Q. What is the capital of Tunisia?

A. Tunis. Located on a bay of the Mediterranean, the city proper has about 650,000 residents, with the metro area containing about 2.7 million. The Romans once destroyed the town in 146 B.C.

Alamo explores travel trends

New research from Alamo Rent A Car provides insight into Americans’ work habits before, during and after family vacations.

The study found 40 percent of American workers who received paid vacation as a job benefit did not use all of their available paid vacation days.

In addition, 50 percent did not unplug while on vacation, with one in four reporting they worked every day of their vacations.

When asked why they didn’t use all their vacation days, 47 percent reported they were too busy at work.

In fact, 19 percent reported five days or more of paid vacation went unused in 2014.

Interestingly, Americans who used all of their paid vacation were more likely to unplug while on their trips (54 percent vs. 37 percent).

The study also found that parents are more likely to get paid vacation than non-parents (59 percent vs. 47 percent).

However, parents tend to take shorter vacations than non-parents, with 37 percent reporting their family vacation lasted five days or less (vs. 26 percent of non-parents).

Airline loyalty programs merging

The merger of American Airlines and US Airways took another key step forward recently as the nation’s largest carrier began to fold together the loyalty reward programs for the two airlines.

Once the loyalty programs are merged, nearly 100 million travelers will be members of American’s AAdvantage program, making it the largest airline rewards program in the world.

The good news for American’s AAdvantage members is that the number of accumulated miles needed to book a flight hasn’t changed, said Brian Karimzad, founder of the rewards program monitoring site MileCards.com.

Combined dispatches