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S.I. Consultant: Cruise Bookings Not Suffering After Wreck, Stranding

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - You've probably seen the images - the Costa Concordia on her side off the coast of Italy and her sister ship the Costa Allegra adrift in the Indian Ocean.

WCBS 880's Peter Haskell On The Story

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Twice in six weeks, there have been high-profile problems with cruise ships.

You might think that would drive down bookings, but Staten Island-based cruise consultant Arlene Hall expects any impact on bookings will be nominal.

"I think the industry has got a very strong following," she said.

"Cruise bookings are basically holding about the same as they were last year and the January incident with the Costa Concordia didn't really affect them," said CBS News travel editor Peter Greenberg.

But that doesn't mean there aren't deals.

"There's such excess capacity in the cruise industry anyway that they were having sales before the Costa Concordia incident," said Greenberg told WCBS 880 reporter Peter Haskell.

Greenberg says it is a remarkably safe industry.

"As I'm speaking to you now, there are over 300,000 Americans on cruise ships somewhere in the world and nothing happened," he said.

Greenberg's advice: find a ship built after the year 2000.

How do you feel about cruise ship travel? Sound off in the comments section below!

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