Last year, the cruise industry caught the sniffles. The slumping economy, looming war clouds and fears of terrorism–not to mention a Norwalk-like virus that churned the stomachs of more than 1,000 passengers on several ships–didn’t quite sink the industry, but they sure sloshed waves over the gunwales.
This year, it appears much remains unchanged. The economy still has rubber legs, Tom Ridge, head of Homeland Security, alternately raises green and orange flags, and Iraq teeters high on President Bush’s hit list.
Despite optimism from cruise line executives who tout a record number of passengers boarding ships last year–about 7.4 million, according to Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), up from 6.9 million in 2001–the forecast for smooth sailing is cloudy. Even pro-travel magazines such as Travel Weekly aren’t entirely optimistic. “U.S. travel to Europe will rebound within the next four years,” the trade publication timorously predicts, “but in the short term the market recovery will be stunted by security concerns.”
To combat the resistance of travelers, cruise line execs are doing more than putting on a happy face. They are responding with beefed-up security, more domestic departures and a continued flotilla of new vessels. And all that could herald good news for cruisers.
The regatta of new ships not only increases the variety for passengers, it’s also a harbinger of another year of low fares, according to Anne Campbell, editor of Cruisemates.com, a popular consumer Web site. “Due to the enormous influx of new ships, in 2003 cruisers will benefit from low prices in all categories of ships,” Campbell says. “This is especially true in regions where there is a great deal of competition, such as the Caribbean, Alaska and Mexico. But vacationers will have to do their own research to find the travel agency that has the best prices.”
New ships
A record number of vessels will launch this year, according to CLIA, with at least a baker’s dozen setting sail from major lines.
With so many ships afloat bloating the seascape, options and come-ons for cruisers abound. Through mid-April, Costa is offering promos for kids and seniors on CostaVictoria’s Caribbean cruises: Children age 17 and younger cruise free when booked in a cabin with two adults, and seniors can cruise at fares starting at $399. First European Cruises has reduced fares for 10-night Canary Island winter cruises on its newest ship, the European Stars. And while just about everyone knows not to pay published rates, even those 20 percent discounts of yesteryear can be as high as 50 percent in the new cruise climate. Seabourn has extended its offer of up to half off on cruise-only fares to include all Med cruises this year on Spirit and Legend.
For years, cruise lines tried to persuade cruisers that the best deals were to be had by booking early. Nowadays, waiting for last-minute bargains may be in again. As disconcerting as that is for cruise lines, nearly everyone now wants to wait.
There’s “still a preponderance of last-minute bookings,” says Mark Conroy, president and CEO of Radisson. Carnival Corp.’s Micky Arison concurs, conceding to Travel Weekly that this trend puts the pressure on pricing: “We have always tried to get the right pricing from the outset [early] and then, based on demand, push prices up closer to departures; but after 9/11, we had to throw that out the window.”
Steve Sibille, president of New Orleans-based Crown’s Adventures at Sea, seconds that. He told the trade publication: “I think the consumer’s catching on that buying in advance is not a good deal . . . .Right now, it’s more expensive to buy a cruise on Royal Caribbean or Carnival [departing from New Orleans] in September, during hurricane season, than for one in February.”
Win some, lose some
While the launch of a record number of vessels this year has its benefits, diminishing profits for cruise lines has a downside for cruisers: Lower fares lead to higher onboard costs. Overbuilding during the last few years has put the squeeze on fares and, in an attempt to increase profitability, cruise lines compensate by jacking up onboard revenues–read: added charges for selected services and a push to entice you to make more onboard purchases. In fact, nary a line calls its cruises “all-inclusive” anymore.
If anyone knows about cruisers’ ire regarding increased onboard costs, it’s Campbell, whose Web site runs a popular bulletin board. “The largest number of complaints I see in CruiseMates is a result of the cruise lines’ attempts to generate more revenue aboard ships. While food and entertainment are still included in the price of a cruise, optional items like shore excursions and photos have doubled in price. On some ships, there are charges for some exercise classes . . . and daily pressure to purchase at the art auction and the ship’s shops. Passengers feel nickel and dimed.”
On most cruise ships now, you not only fork over fees to dine in alternative restaurants (anywhere from $5 to $25), but you might even pay extra for certain featured menu items. This could presage the day when even food on a cruise ship is no longer included in the fare.
Even mini-amenities now come with a price tag. And we’re not talking just bottled water or specialty coffee, for which lines have charged for years. Your cabin steward on Princess might leave a little disposable camera on your pillow, but unwrap it to snap pictures and it’ll set you back $20 on your shipboard tab. As casino technology turns slot machines into arcade games, swallowing your money even faster than before, even bingo is getting a makeover so that lines can rake in more. On Royal Caribbean, for example, bingo cards now are bar-coded, eliminating wait times to buy one; and you’re likely to find bingo cards on your bed in your stateroom, inviting you to play.
These days before you board, you may want to ask your travel agent or the cruise line exactly what is and isn’t free.
Staying closer to home
An impending war with Iraq, international terrorism and long lines at airports continue to keep cruisers closer to home. In fact, 2002 was a banner year for the number of departures that set sail from North American ports. The Western Med still swells with berths, but the Eastern Med and far-flung destinations languish, and more ships continue to crowd U.S, Mexican and Caribbean harbors.
“Passengers seeking a more exotic itinerary outside North America will find the world is a much smaller place these days,” Campbell says. “Terrorism and the threat of war have made Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean and the West Coast of Africa out of bounds for nearly all U.S. cruise ships.” The prime cruising regions, Alaska and the Caribbean, promise even more congestion, she adds.
Among several new vessels in Alaska this summer: American West Steamboat Company’s 236-passenger Empress of the North, the first genuine paddlewheel steamboat to cruise The Last Frontier in more than 100 years.
Elsewhere, a new line, Ocean Club Cruises, is slated to begin short two- and three-day Bahamas sailings from Port Canaveral, Fla., in March. The midsize ship, formerly known as the Magic 1 (no relation to Disney), has not been named and is being refurbished in Greece.
There’s even a permutation that lets you call at exotic ports while still plying American waters. Holland America adds Molokai to Statendam’s Hawaii itinerary, the first such call at the island outpost for any major cruise line. However, in an ironic twist, the ship never got to shore. Statendam’s first attempt to reach the island was thwarted by high winds and chopping seas that prohibited tendering. Coincidentally, protestors’ concern about potential harm of a megaship to the environment stood in wait to object to Statendam’s arrival. The ship’s second attempt also was aborted, but this time due, more heroically, to the ship being called upon to alter its course to rescue some yachters stranded at sea. Stay tuned.
Concern about the world political situation also compels many lines to keep alert to the possibility of redeploying fleets at a moment’s notice. As a result, if war breaks out, even more vessels could pack the Caribbean. “If there is a major crisis, that will be evaluated at the time and changes will be made accordingly,” says a Crystal Cruises spokeswoman.
Radisson, with ships in Europe and the Med, has a backup plan: “If Europe goes south because of world events, we could put a second ship in Alaska if we can get the port capacity,” says CEO Mark Conroy.
More North America ports
Providing another twist on staying closer to home, a raft of lines have scrambled to offer domestic departures, inviting the traveling public to access cruises sans flying. In fact, the so-called drive-cruise segment has become a growth industry. So many vessels now embark stateside, you’d think the U.S. shoreline were a magnet and ships worldwide metal filings.
Celebrity Cruises offers its first series of California coastal and Mexican Riviera cruises and several Caribbean sailings from Baltimore and Charleston. Crystal Cruises offers its first fall foliage itineraries between New York and Montreal since 1997. And Radisson’s Seven Seas Navigator homeports in the Big Apple for the line’s first-ever full season of Bermuda cruises. Carnival will clock a record 50 New York City departures, including eight-day cruises to the Caribbean. Royal Caribbean has more than a dozen ships cruising Caribbean waters. A host of other lines, including Norwegian Cruise Line’s Homeland Cruising program, offer departures roundtrip from Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Orlando (Port Canaveral), Seattle and Houston, as well as all the usual suspects, including Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa.
For differentiation, some lines are making inroads, if you will, foraying further afield of tried-and-true ports. For instance, while Holland America’s eight ships will rack up a record 144 cruises to Alaska on mostly familiar routes, a small expedition line ventures into an Alaska backwater wilderness that is bypassed by almost all other cruise ships, large or small. Cruise West explores coves and inlets around the perimeter of Admiralty Island National Monument, where bears outnumber the inhabitants; and passengers can tour a village of 700 Tlingits on Kupreanof island.
Those charmed by Americana and river travel along some of our most revered waterways will be pleased that, after flirting with filing bankruptcy, Delta Queen’s American Queen dipped its paddlewheel back in the Mississippi for the first time in 15 months, on Jan 18.
Arguably, the most domestic of departures is floating your own boat: Europe-based Crown Blue Line plans to bring its popular self-drive vessels stateside, offering boats on the Chesapeake Bay and waterways of Florida.
And a new ferry service from Tampa to Mexico even takes cars and RVs. So we’ve come full circle: You not only can drive to a port now, but drive off when you reach your destination.
New security policies
Since 9/11, all cruise lines have beefed up their security, perhaps making cruising one of the safest forms of vacation travel. The INS now requires up-to the-minute manifests of all passengers within 15 minutes of a ship’s departure. Concerned that such heightened scrutiny will cause delays in some ports, cruise lines are still feeling their way around this thicket. But be warned that, on any itinerary, zero tolerance policies now in effect require official documentation and photo I.D.s.
And if pets still aren’t permitted on cruise ships, you’ll see plenty of dogs at the dock. They’re recruited routinely now to sniff luggage for every sort of contraband. There’s so much increased business in security that one company– American Detection Technologies–opened a Palm Beach Gardens headquarters just to be closer to its burgeoning South Florida port and cruise ship clients.
With the big bucks cruise lines are laying out for increased security, pass-along fees may sometimes be built into your fare to defray costs. For example, last December, Royal Olympic, introduced a $3 per day, per passenger security surcharge, but quickly withdrew it this year when passengers voiced outrage. (In a goodwill gesture, the line is refunding those passengers $9 per person, per day.) No word yet from other lines.
New course for cuisine
Cruise lines know the best way to their passengers’ hearts is through their stomachs and, for years, have dished up new menus and dining venues. Among this year’s innovations are menus from some of the world’s most renowned chefs and more options that include alternative restaurants and open-seating policies.
Freestyle fans continue to praise Norwegian’s 2-year-old innovation in onboard dining. NCL, the smallest of the big lines, offers so many options, it’s like alternative dining on steroids. The line’s newest ship, Norwegian Dawn, proffers 10 restaurants, though several cost extra.
A trend to customize your cuisine includes tableside dining, which brings the entertainment out of the galley right to your seat. And if it’s kosher food you seek, set your sights on Crystal. The line becomes the first line to introduce “kosher-style” foods aboard its ships–Harmony and Symphony–as part of the regular menu. And if you can’t make it to Manhattan to sample sublime sushi at Nobu, you’ll find it on Crystal’s Serenity–as well as “kosher-style” foods–when it debuts in July.
For the ultimate freedom in fine dining, NCL introduces an eat-ashore program in Bermuda, with purchasable chits applicable to some 50 island eateries.
Puttin’ on the enrichment
Going overboard to get you aboard makes sense when cruise fares go soft. Of course, for many passengers the ultimate lure is novelty. In the last few years, cruise lines attempted to lure you to sea with more balconied ships. This year, they’ll try to seduce you with, well, everything.
Cunard’s QE2 introduces the seagoing’s first Pillow Concierge service, which lets passengers select any of nine pillow styles to help make their dreams come true.
In January, Silversea expanded its Personalized Voyages program fleetwide. The option offers ultimate flexibility: You custom design your vacation by choosing the cruise length (a minimum of five consecutive nights) and your preferred embarkation and disembarkation ports.
Berkshire-based Canyon Ranch Spa promises to up the ante on amenities when it debuts on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. And on the drawing boards: the renowned spa operator plans to launch its own amenities-laden vessels in 2005.
Seabourn and Holland America now arrange to ship your luggage from your home to the ship.
The Next Big Thing in enrichment: a program on Coral Princess that bears the clever moniker ScholarShip@Sea. It offers approximately 20 seminars and extended courses that let you learn anything from cooking and visual arts to computer skills and finance–plus a first in the industry, pottery.
For truly fun stuff, ships of Disney and SeaDream Yacht Club now offer passengers the chance to sample Segway, the world’s first self-balancing electric-powered scooter that lets people go anywhere a person can walk (tooling along at 7 miles per hour.)
Increased consideration for handicapped passengers has Princess and Norwegian offering wheelchair-friendly excursions in St. Thomas. For the hearing impaired, Carnival’s shipboard theaters provide earphones, while Uniworld’s fleet provides them during shore excursions.
Finally, one feature gaining popularity on a number of lines is the automatic charging of your tips to your bill, which can be viewed as an amenity or extortion, depending on your perspective.
Staying in touch at sea
Innovative in 1999, when NCL introduced the first Internet cafe on the Sky, it seems as if it took only a nanosecond for nearly all ships in all fleets to offer Internet access now. Some Internet cafes are open 24 hours, others boast as many as 40 terminals, but most have fees that tick quicker than a taxi’s meter. You can e-mail for about 75 cents per minute, which is a lot cheaper than satellite telephone calls or computer connections from your cabin’s dataport.
Another sign of the times: NCL and Princess rent laptops. Some lines even are toying with wireless communications that let you stay connected anywhere aboard ship. This handy Internet access already is available on Norwegian Sun.
Handwringing about hygiene
And what about that Norwalk-like virus outbreak? Chastened by the bug that sent two ships into emergency dry-dock last year (Holland America’s Amsterdam and Disney’s Magic), many lines have increased hygienic oversight, though most of it is invisible to passengers, according to Erik Elvejord, spokesman for Holland America. However, on Norwegian Dream, passengers may find baskets of handiwipes to encourage swabbing before meals and buffets that are no longer self-serve. But on sister vessel Norwegian Sky, buffets are still self-serve, and sanitary wipes are nowhere in evidence. So how each ship guards against a gastrointestinal outbreak doesn’t seem to be standardized. Washing your hands frequently is still the best byword on the briny.
