Value World Tours, a California tour operator specializing in international river cruises, is discounting select “Egypt Explorer” packages by $1,000 per couple. The discount will help introduce the company’s new 2008 Egypt river cruise programs. The discount applies to the July 20, Aug. 31, and Sept. 14 departures.

Costa Cruises will debut two new ships in 2009 and the line is giving travel agents a chance to be part of the celebrations.

The godmother for the Independence of the Seas will be an “ordinary British woman who has done extraordinary things,” said Royal Caribbean, which will launch the new ship from Southampton, England, in April.

A low pressure system over the North Atlantic which generated huge high swells across the Caribbean forced cruise ships to leave Grenada on Thursday.

Princess Cruises announced that the Caribbean Princess will return to New York in summer 2009 for a second season of the line’s roundtrip sailings to Bermuda and the Caribbean. The ship will change directions in late summer to head north for a season of roundtrip Canada & New England sailings.

The first phase of the project to build the Sans Souci cruise ship terminal is concluding with the reconstruction of piers, new infrastructure, and with the improvements of nautical systems, at a cost of more than $50 million.