The phrase “boo-hoo-hoo” comes to mind: According to the Miami New Times, a passenger on a September 2011 Carnival Legend cruise is suing Carnival, claiming he burned the soles of his feet while strutting the pool deck during the men’s hairy-chest contest.

One cannot make these things up: According to the story, Kurt Geis of Orlando, Florida, has filed suit claiming “injuries, pain, and mental anguish” resulting from his failure to, y’know, wear flip-flops.

The story quotes Geis’s attorney, Gregory Glasser, as saying, "He burned his feet and got a severe infection, and the treatment wasn't appropriate either.” It also quotes a Carnival representative as saying, “There is no record of any guest reporting to the ship's medical center with burns to his or her feet."

So OK, let’s repeat it here for the benefit of those who may not know: When the sun is really hot, sometimes the deck (or sidewalk, or beach, or whatever) gets really hot too. Ain’t physics remarkable?

Yesterday, at the Fincantieri shipyard in Monfalcone, Italy, workers lowered a 500-ton block of hull, decking, and bulkheads into the yard’s building dock, marking the ceremonial start of construction for Princess’s newest vessel, which is to be named Regal Princess.

A sister-ship to the new Royal Princess, which is also under construction and slated for a June 2013 debut, Regal Princess will measure in at 141,000 gross tons and carry  3,600 passengers. She’s expected to debut in spring 2014.

Regal Princess’s first keel block being lowered into Fincantieri's Monfalcone building dock by a computer-guided crane (photo: Princess Cruises)

Like her sister, Regal Princess carries a recycled name: The original Regal Princess was a 70,285-ton vessel originally ordered for Sitmar Cruises, but merged into the Princess fleet before her construction had even begun. Upon her debut in 1991, she was hailed for her distinctive exterior profile, designed by noted Italian architect Renzo Piano. The ship sailed for Princess until 2007, when she went to P&O Australia as Pacific Dawn.

Like Royal Princess, the new Regal Princess will be a new-generation ship for Princess, extending and modernizing many of the features of the line's most recent ships while adding new features like an over-water SeaWalk (a top-deck, glass-bottomed walkway extending more than 28 feet beyond the ship's edge), private poolside cabanas that appear to float on the water, a pastry shop, and a private dining experience called Chef’s Table Lumiere, in which diners are surrounded by a curtain of light.

With Hurricane Isaac bashing New Orleans and Louisiana’s Gulf Coast, officials have closed both the Mississippi River and the Port of New Orleans.

Currently, the only cruise ships operating regularly from the port are Carnival’s Carnival Elation (which offers a rotating series of 4- and 5-night Western Caribbean cruises) and Carnival Valor (which sails 7-night Eastern and Western Caribbean cruises). Carnival Elation is scheduled to return to the port on Thursday, offloading passengers and beginning its next cruise. However, Carnival has acknowledged that the river and port closures “may cause a delay in our return to New Orleans.”

The line is encouraging passengers scheduled to sail on Elation’s August 30 sailing (and any other interested parties) to sign up for text alerts by texting CCL1 to CRUISE (278473).

Tropic Storm Isaac ripped through Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the southern tip of Florida over the past three days, and is now likely to make landfall on the U.S. gulf coast late Tuesday or early Wednesday. By that time, it is also likely to have strengthened into a category 1 or 2 hurricane. Currently, forecasts see the storm aimed at New Orleans.

Isaac's projected parh as of Monday night (Source: National Hurricane Center - www.nhc.noaa.gov)

High winds and heavy rain, seaport and airport closures, and an abundance of caution have prompted cruise lines to alter the itineraries and schedules of ships currently sailing the region.

Though tropical storm Isaac is churning north toward Florida's gulf coast and picking up steam, cruise lines have largely been able to avoid altering their ships' itineraries.

• On the current sailing of Carnival's Carnival Valor, a planned call to Curaçao was scrapped and a Saturday visit to Nassau was added.
• Due to high winds and heavy swells, Carnival's Carnival Liberty cancelled its call to Grand Turk on Thursday, and will replace it with a visit to Nassau on Friday.
• Royal Caribbean's giant Allure of the Seas switched its current sailing from the Eastern Caribbean to the Western Caribbean.

At the moment, none of the major lines that have ships in the region (Carnival, Royal Caribbean, NCL, and Disney) expect changes to any sailings departing on or after Thursday, August 23, 2012.

Tropical Storm Isaac began sweeping across the Western Caribbean today, moving westward at 21mph, with maximum sustained winds this morning reported at 45mph. At this writing, the storm was positioned about 150 miles east of Guadeloupe, following a path that at this point will send it directly over the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Cuba before hitting Florida sometime Monday. Forecasters say the storm will likely reach hurricane strength by Friday.

Tropical storm warnings are in effect for Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. Cruise lines are monitoring the situation. To stay ahead of the storm, Carnival's Carnival Valor is cancelling its planned visit to Curaçao and replacing it with a visit to Nassau on Friday. No other Carnival sailings are currently affected, and the line anticipates no changes to any cruises departing on or after Thursday. At the moment, Royal Caribbean, NCL, and Disney Cruise Line have announced no changes to the itineraries of any ships set to depart Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

In 1997, I took my very first cruise. It was late summer, and the vessel was Cruise West's Spirit of '98, a modern vessel that had been designed to mimic the look of coastal steamers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a great trip (10 days, Seattle to Juneau) and I've remembered it so fondly that I felt an unhappy pang when Cruise West went out of business in fall 2010 — and then another, more pleasant pang when I learned in August 2011 that Spirit of '98 had been acquired by American Safari Cruises.

And now we know what they're doing with her: Beginning in summer 2013, the 88-passenger vessel, renamed Safari Legacy, will begin sailing "Heritage Adventure Cruises" retracing the gold rush routes of Alaska and Lewis and Clark’s route along the Pacific Northwest's Columbia and Snake Rivers. Service will commence with two 11-night cruises between Seattle and Juneau departing August 11 and August 22, 2013. In fall and spring, Safari Legacy will sail weeklong Columbia/Snake River cruises round-trip Portland, Oregon. In summer 2014, she'll return to Alaska for a full season of weeklong cruises between Juneau and Ketchikan.

The Heritage cruises, says ASC, will "bring history to life with an innovative Living History program on board and ashore" featuring educational presentations, expert guest speakers, character reenactments, guided museum visits, tours of historical sites, and opportunities to visit with local people and historians.

“In both destinations, historical characters and stories come to life in unexpected ways,” said EVP of sales and marketing Tim Jacox in a media statement. “You may meet naturalist John Muir on the bow of the boat in Alaska or Meriwether Lewis along the river.”

The two 11-night Gold Rush Legacy sailings between Seattle and Juneau (and reverse) visit Washington's San Juan Islands and Friday Harbor; sails Canada’s Inside Passage; visit the Alaska towns of Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Sitka, Haines, and Skagway; and include sailing time in Frederick Sound, Icy Strait, and Glacier Bay National Park. Rates start at $7,895 per person, double occupancy.

The weeklong Legacy of Discovery cruises from Portland include sailing time in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, Hells Canyon, and the Washington Wine Country, and visit towns including Richland and Walla Walla (Washington) and The Dalles and Astoria (Oregon). Rates start at $3,195 per person, double occupancy.

Rates include include entry fees to museums, national parks, and preserves, plus free wine, premium spirits, and microbrews on board, and a complimentary massage.

If we interpret "shipwrecked" loosely, that is: On Sunday morning, Holland America's Volendam was sailing toward Marjorie Glacier in Alaska's Glacier Bay when it received a distress call from the 79-foot sightseeing boat Baranoff Wind, which had struck a rock in the bay and was taking on water, in addition to losing its propulsion and steering.

Volendam responded immediately, lowering a tender to collect Baranoff Wind's 69 tourists and one park ranger who was aboard to provide information. All were then brought aboard Volendam, where they were fed. Volendam continued on to Marjorie Glacier as scheduled, then rendezvoused with a third vessel that took Baranoff Wind's passengers aboard and returned them to Bartlett Cove, where their tour had originated.

"It's the code of the sea to provide assistance in an emergency, and Captain Peter Bos and his crew responded quickly and professionally to render aid to the passengers of Baranof Wind," said HAL President and CEO Stein Kruse in a media statement. "We are proud of our officers and crew, and this is shining example of how our training prepares us to react to any situation."

The U.S. Coast Guard thanked the crew of Volendam for their quick response to the emergency.

Some days, I don't want to do much of anything besides troll YouTube. Today (via the Minneapolis Star Tribune's Lileks@Lunch column, giving finder's credit where it's due) comes this two-part bit of history:

What we have here is a 1967 short called Atlantic Crossing: Life on an Ocean Liner, produced by Encyclopedia Brittanica Educational Corporation. As the film begins, a mother and her three young sons are seen arriving at New York's west side docks, then boarding the Italian Line's Leonardo da Vinci, a 1960-built ocean liner that, among its many distinctions, included the fact that it was designed so that its engines could eventually be swapped out and replaced by nuclear reactors.

The film is a real time machine. Note, among other things:

1. The three kids are traveling alone, for eight days, to a foreign country! And all that time, they'll have to dine with Mrs. Feingold, "unless she got seasick or fell overboard, or something."
2. Mom is able to come aboard to see them off, then hurry off to the gangway when the ship sounds the "all ashore" signal — as if, if she didn't hurry, the ship might inadvertently depart with her still aboard. Heavens!
3. The kid who narrates has a definite dark streak. The ship, he notes, has enough lifeboats for everybody — "in case the Leonardo sunk." Later, he introduces the captain, who'd been at sea for forty years "but hadn't lost a ship yet." Later still, he notes that the Leonardo has mechanisms that, in the event of a collision, "seal off the water in the smashed-in part, and we probably wouldn't sink."

I won't spoil the rest for you. Suffice to say, the kids explore the ship, dressed in their finest late 60s Willy Wonka style. The film brings up both the fact that so much hasn't changed about sea travel in the intervening 45 years, while some other things surely have — like the ship's decor. I wouldn't mind having some of that great 20th century modern decor back, for sure.

FYI, the Leonardo da Vinci only continued in service for another 11 years after this short was made. She was laid up after 1978 and scrapped in 1982.

Princess Cruises' next ship, the 141,000-ton, 3,600-passenger Royal Princess, touched water for the first time early Thursday when the huge building dock at Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri's Monfalcone shipyard, near Trieste. Once the waters were of sufficient depth, Royal Princess was towed out and moved to a quayside outfitting dock where construction will continue until the ship's anticipated debut in June 2013.

Royal Princess will be the third Princess ship to bear that name. The first, christened by the late Princess Diana in 1984, boasted an open, airy layout, all-outside cabin arrangement, and an unheard-of number of cabin balconies, and became a trendsetter in the cruise business. That vessel was finally retired from the Princess fleet in 2005, going first to P&O Cruises and then to German line Phoenix Reisen, where she sails as M/V Artania.

A ceremony that accompanied this week's float-out of the new Royal Princess gave more than a passing nod to her illustrious forebear. Acting as "madrina" for the vessel — a kind of pre-godmother — was Victoria Nash, daughter of longtime Princess captain Nick Nash. In 1996, Ms. Nash was herself christened as a baby aboard the old Royal Princess. Following tradition, the ship's bell was used as the baby's christening bowl that day, and this week the same bell was brought back to be mounted aboard the new Royal Princess. What goes around comes around.

“The original Royal Princess left our fleet some time ago, but we wanted to bring the spirit of that much-loved ship, also a prototype design, to the new Royal Princess,” said Princess President and CEO Alan Buckelew during the ceremony. “And who better to do that than Victoria, who has grown up into a beautiful young lady who will now have a special connection with both vessels.”

The new Royal Princess will be a new-generation ship for Princess, extending and modernizing many of the features of the line's most recent ships while adding new features like an over-water SeaWalk (a top-deck, glass-bottomed walkway extending more than 28 feet beyond the ship's edge), private poolside cabanas that appear to float on the water, a pastry shop, and a private dining experience called Chef’s Table Lumiere, in which diners are surrounded by a curtain of light.

Following her debut, Royal Princess will sail a summer of Mediterranean itineraries, then sail transatlantic in the fall to begin a winter season of Eastern Caribbean voyages.