Enjoy your cruise!

For a cruise to be a success, it’s not just only the voyage that has to go right, everything needs to be on the ball from embarkation, through the cruise, shore excursions, and finally disembarkation and onward connections, especially with regard to fly-cruises. This was brought to mind last week when I had a drink with a cruise ship photographer friend of mine who had just returned with his wife from an Alaskan fly-cruise with Princess Cruises. The cruise aboard Diamond Princess was excellent, said my friend. However, the experience started going down hill as soon as they disembarked to make the journey back to the UK. They left the ship in Whittier and were taken by coach to the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage for an overnight stay before flying from Anchorage to London, via Seattle the next morning. Their baggage had left the ship separately for the hotel. As they couldn’t check-in to their hotel until nearly five hours after arriving in Anchorage they were taken to Princess Cruises’ Hospitality Centre, but as all bays for parking coaches were occupied their bus had to make three trips ‘around the block’. During these trips they passed their hotel and noticed that all of their bags were outside in the heavy rain, it was only on the third pass that a tarpaulin had been placed over the bags. By then the damage had been done! When they got to their room in the hotel they found that all clothing in the bags was soaking wet! Complaints where made to the hotel who ‘were not interested.’ The following morning after boarding the coach to take them to Anchorage Airport for their Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle they were told that the flight had been cancelled due to ‘technical’ reasons. However, some passenger had said that they had been told about the cancellation the night before. My friend, who spent many years as a senior executive in the airline industry, said that if this was the case why hadn’t there been any contingency plans made? This question was met with a zero response from Princess Cruises’ staff, with one of them saying that their responsibility ended with delivering the passengers to the airport! On arrival at Anchorage Airport the 40 plus group of passengers who were returning to London were put on the next flight to Seattle but missed their connection to London. Although they were all put on the next London flight, nearly three hours later, many people missed onward connection in London. The cruise experience should be a seamless positive experience. It’s no good offering just the good experience at sea, if the land-side operations fail abysmally. Sphere: Related Content

"In-House" Marine Operations, as Credit Crunch sinks in

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One of the results of the continuing credit crunch globally is that a number of cruise liens are looking at the marine and technical management of their fleets, especially if they outsource this work to a ship management company. Having direct control of the technical and hotel side of a ship’s operation can result in noticeable savings. So it’s been something of a bad week or two for leading cruise ship management specialist V. Ships Leisure which has lost major contracts with luxury brands Oceania and Seabourn. Seabourn believes that by bringing its ship management operation in-house it can achieve greater efficiency as well as having greater control of its marine and technical operations. Oceania, which has two newbuildings underway in Italy, believes that having its ship management operations in-house will bring in ‘economies of scale.’ The decision by both operators to drop V. Ships Leisure is not believed to be a reflection of the level of service provided by the Monaco-based specialist.

Staying with Oceania, the line’s boss Frank Del Rio, who heads up parent Prestige Cruise Holdings, has been giving some insight into the company’s first ever newbuilding. Marina, as she will be named, is set to enter service in September 2010. Frank said that Marina’s interior will be ‘transitional and eclectic, warm not load. The look won’t be English, but more elegant.’ Ouch! Sphere: Related Content

The thorny problem of smoking onboard Cruise ships

The thorny problem of smoking onboard cruise ships has raised its head again this week with the news that British operator is to ban smoking inside on three of its vessels from October this year. However, those who must smoke will be allocated designated smoking areas on deck and, incredibly, will be allowed to smoke on their cabin balconies, if they have one! I’m a non-smoker and recently travelled in a balcony cabin on a newly-delivered cruise ship. The balcony experience was never great because of the constant stench of cigarettes from cabins next door, above and below, even though you weren’t supposed to smoke on the balconies! I was also recently aboard a small, luxury-brand vessel, having a look around. While passenger through the casino and then into the show lounge the smell of cigarette smoke was overpowering, even though the Hotel Director insisted that the ship was non-smoking inside. Most non-smokers have a very sensitive ‘nose’ for smokers! I appreciate that those who have to smoke should be allowed to – but not to the detriment of non-smokers. Not only is there a health problem with smoking, not just aboard ship, but also a safety one. Perhaps one way to get around the problem is for owners to offer ‘smoking’ and ‘non-smoking’ ships. But perhaps that’s just a pipe dream!

Read this weeks articles @ www.offradar.info Sphere: Related Content

Cruise credit crunch

It was only a matter of time before the global credit crunch impacted on the cruise industry. Last week leading cruise line RCCL announced that as part of its cost savings programme 400 shore-side jobs would go. With record fuel prices being paid by cruise lines there is only so much you can do to cut fuel consumption. So the axe had to fall on some of the company’s people. I wonder which line will be next in a major personnel culling exercise? Sphere: Related Content