Summer

NEW YORK - Carnival Cruise Lines prices have taken a dip this spring, according to pricing data, and some industry observers blame headlines about problems on several Carnival ships. Todd Elliott, owner of Cruise Vacation Outlet, said his agents had seen a drop in price of 20 percent or more for equivalent cruises. "Rates are far lower than I have seen in a while; for example, the Carnival Dream, seven nights, Eastern Caribbean out of Port Canaveral, May 4 is $299 per person," he said.

If you are part of a new program offering locally grown fruits and vegetables or locally raised meat, poultry and dairy products this summer, we'd like to hear from you. Send a note about your program, along with your contact information, to dmarder@phillynews.com .   - Dianna Marder  

School's out, and for students from John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls' High School, 19th and Wood Streets, that calls for whooping it up in Logan Square's Swann Fountain. The girls took their dip after school let out for the summer yesterday.

The first weekend of the summer of '90 was as good as it gets: a bright, sunny sky, a gentle breeze and (surprise) no rain. So, what do you do on a weekend like this? For hundreds at Belmont Plateau in Fairmount Park, yesterday was perfect for rocking to the reggae beat provided by several bands who performed in the city's annual Reggae Tribute Day. Or, like the pair below, you could just row, row, row your raft.

For many years a map was tacked to the back wall of my classroom. Its colors had faded and its edges had lifted. Except for some indecipherable graffiti in the Indian Ocean, it had been forgotten - until a visiting Icelandic student challenged: "There's something wrong with this map!" Sure enough, just to the southeast of Greenland - where Iceland should be - there was nothing but water. So much for maps. Arni (pronounced "ought-knee") grew up in Saudarkrokur, Iceland (pop.

A lawn is actually made of millions of individual grass plants, which, left unmowed, will grow a few feet tall. Most grasses are perennial, meaning they come back year after year. Uncut, the grass will bloom in late summer and spread seeds in the fall.

Millie Trivett found relief from July's heat wave by sleeping in front of a fan in the living room of her Baltimore Avenue home. The summer of '95 was the hottest on record in Philadelphia, claiming 88 lives in the city and its suburbs in a 25-day period. A break in the heat finally came on Aug. 5.

Along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, people take advantage of the traditional treats of summer, enthusiastically eating ice cream and ices and downing cold drinks. Although the temperature at the resort peaked at 85 yesterday, a southerly wind kept conditions pleasant.

Payton Faries, 5, cools her feet in the water at Penn's Landing during the 13th annual Jam on the River. Tonight, blues singers Koko Taylor and Ruth Brown will be featured, along with the music of Buckwheat Zydeco to welcome summer to the city.

Summer is the season you remember. Who remembers winter, really? Unless there was a blizzard, and you got into a fight over the legality of whether two wobbly kitchen chairs and a broom constitute a reserved parking space, in which case you'd rather forget winter anyway. Spring is fine, especially when you catch an unexpected whiff of lilac on a soft breeze. And autumn is spectacular, until those golden maple leaves lose their brilliance and clog your gutters. But summer is the season that creates warm memories.

Revel's exit strategy from Chapter 11 bankruptcy was approved by a judge Monday, clearing the way for the lavish but financially troubled casino to restructure its finances and pump resources into better marketing and new amenities in time for the busy summer. "I can conclude that withstanding the challenges that await the debtor - including difficult competing circumstances of the industry and Atlantic City as well - a reasonable prospect of success has been shown on this record," Judge Judith Wizmur said in approving the plan.

Festivals, concerts, movie screenings and more will be plentiful and better coordinated on both sides of the Delaware River this summer, officials said yesterday. One sign of cooperation: Camden's Adventure Aquarium is springing for the America's Birthday weekend fireworks that go along with the Wawa Taste of Philadelphia Concert (July 6). And no Philly complaints that Cirque du Soleil will set up its tents on the Jersey side (adjacent to the Susquehanna Bank Center) for the first time, for the premiere run of "Totem" May 30-June 23. The Great Plaza at Penn's Landing is mostly about freebie fun this year - including this weekend's Art Star Craft Bazaar, the 10-event strong Peco Multicultural Series on Saturdays and Sundays through August, and "Screenings Under the Stars" series of recent hit flicks on Thursdays in July and August (including "The Hunger Games" and "Silver Linings Playbook")

These inexpensive gadgets will help you maximize summer fitness goals. They travel easily, too. 1. ePulse2 The first strapless, continuous heart-rate monitor, pedometer and calorimeter. No more chest strap, no more complicated watch, no more periodic heart-rate measurements. Strap this baby on your arm and watch it go to work. Three for one, under $100. 2. WEIGHTED JUMP ROPE Takes personal fitness into the stratosphere - if you are up for a challenge. Torches calories, significantly increases strength and improves coordination, agility and endurance.

Contrary to the Mayan calendar, which had Dec. 21, 2012, penciled in as the day everything was to go ka-boom, we're all still all here. But at the movies, the apocalypse is now. Take a look through the films premiering between next weekend - when Iron Man 3 explodes on a zillion screens, kick-starting Hollywood's summer season - and Labor Day weekend. Doom and gloom are everywhere, from global holocaust to alien invasions to putting Jay Gatsby and Jay-Z in the same movie.

So enough already with superheroes and $150 million-plus sequels, the apocalypses, buddy pics, and blowing stuff up. Here's a run through some of the summer's less-explosive, less-star-studded, less-mega-budgeted fare, which doesn't mean these films are in any way less worthy. (Dates may change.) In the black-and-white indie Frances Ha (May 24), Noah Baumbach steers his muse (and girlfriend) Greta Gerwig through a wistful Gen-Y study of friendship, loneliness, and spur-of-the-moment trips to Paris.

THERE ARE ONCE again so many numbers on the summer-movie calender, it's starting to look like a math test. Question one: What do you get if you divide "Fast & Furious 6" by "Hangover 3?" Two furious hangovers? The number two is surely a theme: "Red 2," "Smurfs 2," Despicable Me 2," "Kick-Ass 2," the second JJ Abrams "Star Trek," the second Hugh Jackman "Wolverine," a second "Monsters Inc.," a second "300," a second "Percy Jackson. " There are two comedies about the end of the world - "The World's End" and "This is the End," and one of the two comedies about the end of the world is one of four movies with two directors - also "Girl Most Likely," "Lovelace" and "Way Way Back.

A Delaware County man, who formerly taught at the Episcopal Academy for 20 years,  has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting four children at a Massachusetts summer camp 30 years ago. Richard P. Smith, 65, of Media, was charged with rape of a child, indecent assault and battery and other related crimes. He was arraigned and held on $10,000 bail, according to the Barnstable County District Attorney's office. In 1981, Smith was a counselor at Camp Good News in Sandwich when the assaults took place.

Cartoons, sports, video games, Jerry Garcia, the Great American Songbook: Orchestra season at the Mann Center continues to track ever more toward pop culture. This summer's orchestra roster of artists and repertoire being imported by the Fairmount Park presenter aims to bring new listeners to classical music by way of just about anything else. "It is a tactical approach to building audiences," said Mann president and CEO Catherine M. Cahill. "We believe if we can get families into the Mann to experience what we have, it will get people to consider coming back and trying something else.

The Benjamin Franklin Museum may reopen this summer after all. Until Wednesday morning, it looked as if the Old City museum, which is undergoing a $23.1 million modernization, would not have enough staff to open because of the federal budget cuts known as the sequester. But on Wednesday afternoon, officials of Independence National Historical Park, of which the museum is part, announced that a regional office of the National Park Service had permitted the park to hire enough seasonal workers to reopen the museum.

A LEJANDRO Gac-Artigas, 24, of Center City, wants to eradicate the literacy gap among Philly's schoolchildren. Two years ago, the Harvard grad and then-first-grade teacher at Pan American Academy Charter School founded the nonprofit Springboard Collaborative to run a summer-reading program. This summer, Springboard expects to have 960 students in the program.   Q: What's your background? A: From 2009 to 2011, I taught 34 students literacy and social studies. I also got a master's degree at night from the School of Graduate Education at Penn and I was tapped for Wharton's Venture Initiation Program.