Universal Orlando Resort has announced two new hotels that will be located adjacent to its forthcoming Florida theme park, Epic Universe: Universal Stella Nova Resort and Universal Terra Luna Resort.
Both hotels will be co-owned and operated by Loews Hotels & Co. and will fall into the Prime Value category of hotels. Universal Orlando has four categories of hotels: Value, Prime Value, Preferred and Premier. With 750 guestrooms apiece, they add a total of 1,500 rooms to Universal's campus in Orlando. In total, Universal Orlando will have 10,500 guestrooms once the new properties open in early 2025.
The Universal Stella Nova Resort is expected to open for stays in January 2025, and the Universal Terra Luna Resort in February 2025.
"Featuring tranquil accommodations, Universal Stella Nova Resort is inspired by distant galaxies, new stars and mysterious black holes, while Universal Terra Luna Resort is inspired by the massive and diverse planetary elements of the universe," Universal said in a release.
Staying at a Universal property offers guests a number of perks, including complimentary transportation to its theme parks, resortwide charging privileges and Early Park Admission, enabling guests to access its three theme parks up to an hour before opening.
It will join Universal's other theme parks, Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure, waterpark Volcano Bay and eight other established hotels.
The campus surrounding Epic Universe will be located a few minutes south of Universal Orlando's existing hub. Universal said it will connect the two new hotels with its other offerings in Orlando via "convenient and complimentary shuttles."
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JetBlue has launched its first service to Belize, becoming the only airline flying to the Central America destination from New York JFK.
JetBlue's inaugural flight between JFK and Belize City, operated with an Airbus A320, departed Wednesday. The carrier is flying the route three times per week.
Belize is JetBlue's 26th destination in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Though no other airline serves Belize from JFK, JetBlue will compete against longstanding United flights between Newark and Belize. United flies the route twice weekly during the winter and weekly during the summer, with a pause during September and October, Cirium flight schedule data shows.
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The Israel-Hamas war has had a damaging effect on bookings and cancellations for tours and cruises in neighboring Egypt and Jordan, according to suppliers attending the USTOA Annual Conference and Marketplace.
Bookings are in steep decline and cancellations have spiked through at least the first quarter of next year.
"The impact has been pretty severe, quite honestly, for the first quarter of 2024," said Pamela Hoffee, president of Avalon Waterways, which offers chartered Nile River cruises. "Close to half of our guests canceled for the first quarter of 2024. The rest of the year has not seen as much impact."
Customers who cancel lose their $250 deposits, Hoffee said, which is not a steep loss for those who have not made final payments and have purchased the line's travel insurance, which includes a cancel-for-any-reason policy.
Collette has also experienced mass cancellations for Egypt and Jordan. "The cancellation rate is in the 30-40% range for our near-term departures," said Jeff Roy, executive vice president of revenue management, pricing and worldwide operations for Collette. Roy added that the war has negatively impacted travel bookings beyond Egypt and Jordan, slowing down fourth-quarter bookings overall. Roy said there was a noticeable falloff after October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel to spark the war.
"We're getting a lot of activity on the website, just a lot less conversion right now. So it seems like people are still shopping a lot," Roy said.
Not only has the war affected bookings, it has increased concern about terror attacks, which have historically depressed bookings for months after an incident, not only in the country where it happened but sometimes an entire region.
According to USTOA's annual survey of active members, terrorism is their third-highest concern; it was at the bottom of the list of concerns last year at this time.
