Norwegian Cruise Line says surveillance video captured a 46-year-old New Jersey woman falling from her stateroom balcony shortly after the ship left New York on Sunday. The woman disappeared after the fall. “The details are likely to end growing speculation that foul play was involved,” USA Today reports.

Related on World Hum:
* ‘Man Overboard’: A Look at Cruise Ship Disappearances

We’ve touched on what a navigable passage through the Arctic will mean for international shipping and travelers. The latest issue of Foreign Affairs offers a thorough look at the economic and political implications of an ice-free Northwest Passage, something that, according to experts, could happen as soon as 2013.

Related on World Hum:
* Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet

Photo of the Arctic Sea by wili_hybrid, via Flickr (Creative Commons).

You have to love all the rampant speculation and wild ideas floating around about Cuba tourism following news of Fidel Castro’s resignation this week. Take this USA Today report that ”Cruise lines are ready to pounce on Cuba.” Um, is there any sector of the U.S. travel industry that hasn’t been ready to “pounce on Cuba” for decades? It drew a number of comments, including one from someone claiming to be a former security officer at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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Steve Storton is one hardcore cruiser. He was shot during a port call on the island of Margarita in Venezuela, “then was rushed to hospital, where docs put him in a wheelchair and x-rayed him three times before discharging him two hours later with just painkillers,” according to The Sun. He was having so great of a time that he then climbed back aboard the P&O cruise ship Oceana and completed the last five days of his trip.

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The sinking of the cruise ship Explorer in Antarctica a few days ago has prompted some interesting questions, including the one posed by Jim Barnes in a story in today’s New York Times. “There’s been kind of an explosion of tourism in Antarctica,” said Barnes, who is the executive director of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. “Do we want this to become Disneyland or do we want some controls?” While roughly 7,000 tourists visited Antarctica in 1992-93, more than 35,000 are expected this season, and because the region is outside any one country’s domain, controls seem to be few and far between.

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The hole in the cruise ship’s hull was “about the size of a fist,” according to a spokeswoman for the ship’s owner. If true, that’s all it took to sink the nearly 40-year-old Explorer, the first cruise ship built to ferry passengers in icy Antarctic waters. The G.A.P. Adventures-owned ship was in the midst of a 19-day “Spirit of Shackleton” trip when it hit submerged ice before dawn Friday, the Los Angeles Times reports. So began a harrowing ordeal that should put the usual Thanksgiving week travel headaches—congested highways, airport delays, etc.—into perspective.

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Terrorism fears. New and confusing passport requirements. A slumping U.S. dollar and a surging loonie. These are a few of the reasons put forward to explain Canada’s sluggish tourism industry. But, writes Brian Flemming in a Globe and Mail opinion piece, they’re all flimsy excuses that obscure the real issue: “The real reason for the latest crisis is the failure of imagination of those involved in Canadian tourism, in both the private and public sectors. Until this imagination deficit is cured, Canada will continue to be seen worldwide as a boring, boreal tourist destination.”

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Their seven wonders, our seven wonders and the wonder of the Dreamliner top the minds of wide-eyed travelers this week. Here’s the Zeitgeist.

Most Read Feature
World Hum (this week)
Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet
* From “Airworld” (pictured) to Starbucks in the Forbidden City, an alternative take on the seven wonders of the world.

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
By Popular Vote, the World’s ‘New 7 Wonders’ Named

Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
Where to Stay: Amsterdam

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
10 Great Places to Get in Tune, be Outdoors

World’s Best City
Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards (2007)
Florence
* Travel + Leisure’s 12th annual readers poll also ranks the world’s best hotels, islands and more.

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
‘Man Overboard’: A Look at Cruise Ship Disappearances

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Carl Hiaasen’s novel Skinny Dip opens with this line: “At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Perrone went overboard from a luxury deck of the cruise liner M.V. Sun Duchess.” Perrone was tossed overboard by her husband. She survived the impact and clung to a “bale of grass,” then, with the help of a sympathetic ex-investigator, embarked on 300-plus pages of detective work and glorious revenge. When I read the book, it felt fresh. I hadn’t heard much about cruise ship crime drama or disappearances. My, how that has changed.

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The U2 singer, global activist and fly sunglasses wearer devoted his attention to Africa as guest editor of Vanity Fair. This week travelers, too, are taking great interest in the continent as well as in China, Savannah, “Glacier Girl” and the hot spot of Boise, Idaho. Here’s the Zeitgeist:

Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
10 out of 10 for Hong Kong
* The skyline (pictured) is No. 3 on the list.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
36 Hours in Savannah, Ga.

“Hot This Week” Destination
Yahoo! (this week)
Boise, Idaho

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Beijing: Forbidden No More
* The flood of stories about China continues.

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Hut-to-Hut Hiking in New England

Most Popular Page Tagged Travel
Del.icio.us (recent)
SeatGuru.com

Most Read Feature
World Hum (this week)
Suffering and Smiling: Vanity Fair Does Africa
* The issue’s best story: Binyavanga Wainaina’s Generation Kenya.

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (this week)
‘Glacier Girl’ Set to Complete Flight Begun 65 Years Ago

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Lorraine Artz has spent at least 10 months of the year aboard a cruise ship for each of the last 20 years. At last count that’s 4,120 days, or more than 11 years of bouncy seas and buffets. Or, to put it another way, enough time to get back and forth to Mars in a spaceship 11 times. It’s not a lifestyle I’d ever want to live—I’ve cruised once, and though I’d like to try it again sometime, it can wait—but I have to admire such dedication to travel. In an interview with USA Today’s Gene Sloan, she says she doesn’t know how anyone can get bored on a cruise ship. 

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Goodbye, high seas. Hello, Palm Jumeirah. One of the world’s grandest cruise ships, Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2, has been purchased by a division of a Dubai-owned corporation and by 2009 will become yet another mega spectacle in a land of mega spectacles. According to the AP, Istithmar, a division of government-owned Dubai World, purchased the famed British ship—it has carried royalty, troops to the Falklands War and the Norovirus from Acapulco to San Francisco—for $100 million and plans to turn it into a “floating hotel, retail and entertainment destination” off the coast of the manmade Palm Jumeirah island.

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