Cruises

Royal Caribbean names 2 new ships

The first piece of steel was cut last week for Royal Caribbean’s next ship, the 158,000-ton, 4,100-passenger Quantum of the Seas, scheduled to debut in the fall of next year.

Royal Caribbean has kept details of the ship — first of two “Project Sunshine” ships — under wraps. The line has not said where the ship’s home port will be or which features it will incorporate.

The name of the ship and its sister ship, Anthem of the Seas, which will be launched in spring 2015, were announced Tuesday at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany .

National Parks

A virtual canyon

Google is giving people a way to virtually hike the Grand Canyon.

The search giant used a rosette of cameras mounted for the first time on a backpack to gather thousands of panoramic images last year mapping the most popular trails.

The so-called trekker captured images every 2.5 seconds, showing the steep switchbacks of the Bright Angel Trail, the change from juniper trees to scrub brush and the Colorado River.

Google has said it wants to deploy the backpacks to other national parks and forests, and to ancient ruins and castles.

The company also has used tricycles, push carts and snowmobiles to map places where vehicles cannot travel.

River trips

Speaking of the Grand Canyon, anyone wanting to guide a noncommercial river trip through the canyon can start applying.

The National Park Service says 450 permits will be available for 12- to 25-day trips on the Colorado River. The permits will be for specific launch dates in 2014.

Additional draws will be held for trips that are canceled or left over after the Feb. 26 application deadline.

The main applicant must be 18 years or older, and at least one person on the trip must be experienced in whitewater rafting.

Those who are drawn can participate in only one commercial or private river trip per year.

The lottery system replaced a waiting list in 2006.

Airlines

New service

Frontier Airlines has launched nonstop service between Fort Lauderdale and Princeton/Trenton, N.J. The flights operate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Lodging

Pricey Moscow

For the ninth consecutive year, Moscow hotels ranked as the most expensive in the world for business travelers, followed by Lagos, Nigeria, and New York City, according to a survey by Hogg Robinson Group, a travel, expense and data management firm in Britain.

Business travelers on a tight budget might want to stay clear of Moscow, where a room last year cost a whopping average of $414 a night.

The cheapest hotel rates among major business centers were in Hyderabad, in southeast India, where rates dropped to about $140 last year from about $162 in 2011, according to Hogg Robinson Group.

Miami Herald

wire services