Bermuda debates its approach to the cruise industry

The future of Bermuda cruises hang in the balance, as competing interests debate how welcoming the exclusive island should be to the cruise industry. The issue has come to a head since within several years, fewer and fewer of the new, large cruise ships will be able to dock in St. George's or Hamilton without major engineering projects to enable them to handle these bigger vessels.

On one side of the argument are those who consider the visitors from cruise ships to be second-class citizens who suck up local resources like taxis, degrading the experience of the "real" visitors who fly to Bermuda, stay in a hotel, and perhaps leave behind more dollars.

On the other side are realists who point out that discouraging cruising will not necessarily translate into more fly-and-stay visitors. Take the booming New York cruise market, from which one can sail on terrific ships to either Bermuda or the Caribbean. If the Bermuda cruise option shrinks, it's clear that the Caribbean would gain more trips and tourism, Bermuda would lose out, and the cruise lines would be largely unaffected.

Assuming that it is interested in growing tourism, Bermuda will be best served by ensuring consumers can continue to make their own choice about how to visit the island, whether by ship or plane. And that, in turn, will require the investments to accommodate large ships at St. George's and Hamiton.

Bermuda Sun: We are at a crossroads on the cruise ship issue

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Boxing? Bowling? On a cruise ship?

In this Olympic season, you have to wonder whether the cruise industry, given ten years, will be adding snowboarding half pipes, slalom runs and ski jumps to their ships, since it seems anything's possible onboard nowadays. For the time being, though, we'll have to made do with the most recently announced gee-whiz features, a boxing ring and a bowling alley.

Norwegian Cruise Line announced that its Norwegian Pearl, to be launched in 2007, will offer a full-size, four-lane bowling alley. The alley will be the focal point of the sports-bar-by-day, ultralounge-by-night, complex named Bliss. Norwegian has been doing a great job creating surprising, stylish nightspots on their ships, and this promises to be another. Although championship bowling won't be in the offing due to the motion of the ship, the four lanes will undoubtedly provide a lot of amusement.

Meantime, Royal Caribbean has unveiled another feature on the soon-to-sail, world's largest Freedom of the Seas... a regulation-size, 20' by 20', Everlast boxing ring. The facility named Fight Klub will give Rockys-in-training the chance to step into the ring to spar with an instructor, work with speed bags, jump ropes, punching mitts and heavy bags. Royal Caribbean continues to impress us by embracing and building on their brand identity of "active cruising," and the boxing facility fits perfectly alongside the previously announced onboard surfing, and now-iconic onboard rock-climbing walls and ice skating rinks.

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QM2 headed to drydock for pod repairs

Remember the propulsion pod damage suffered by Cunard's Queen Mary 2 cruising out of Fort Lauderdale in January? The ship has been sailing on its three remaining pods since then, and Cunard had hoped to make repairs without disrupting any sailings. Unfortunately, drydock service will be required twice--once for removal of the damaged pod and again for its reinstallation--causing a May cruise to be shortened and a November trip to be cancelled.

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Carnival ship housing Katrina evacuees breaks loose from pier in New Orleans

Carnival's Ecstasy, still housing New Orleans city and emergency personnel after Hurricane Katrina, broke loose Saturday morning from the Poland Avenue Pier. After a tense several minutes, Ecstasy avoided any collisions as it was pushed around by the mighty Mississippi prior to being brought under control.

The nearly mile-long unscheduled cruise started when a bollard on the pier, one of the huge and theoretically unbreakable posts to which ships are tied, gave way. This started a chain reaction of broken lines, leading the ship to take off stern-first downriver. Quick action by the ship's crew to power up the bow thrusters, and by alert river pilots and tug boats, averted collisions (narrowly) and injuries.

Imagine the surprise of the sleeping passengers, thinking they're tied up safely at the pier, to be roused by the emergency signal and announcement to gather by the lifeboats.

After a major renovation following the end of its FEMA duties, the Ecstasy is scheduled to resume Galveston cruises on April 8.

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Cruise ship housing evacuees breaks loose

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Norwegian Sun first post-Katrina ship to homeport in New Orleans

Our industry has always been supportive of New Orleans cruising, and now Norwegian Cruise Line has won the race to return a home-ported ship there. The beautiful Norwegian Sun will begin sailing from the Big Easy on October 15, 2006.

Norwegian Sun's 7-day itinerary from New Orleans calls on Costa Maya, Mexico; Santo Tomas De Castilla, Guatemala; Belize City, Belize and Cozumel, Mexico. The 1,936-passenger ship features nine restaurants as part of Norwegian's popular Freestyle Dining concept.

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Simple steps to avoid travel scams

In any industry, you're going to have some rotten apples, the travel business is no different. Those of us travel retailers who dedicate ourselves to providing fanatical customer service cringe whenever we read the occasional "travel agent runs off with customers' deposits" news story, as we saw recently in Pittsburgh. That's the bad news.

The good news is that it's simple to protect yourself and book a cruise with confidence. First, use your credit card for all of your payments, since you have terrific consumer protections that way. Second, make sure your payments are being charged to your credit card by the cruise line itself, so you know your money went straight toward your booking. Third, check your travel agency's Better Business Bureau record at http://www.bbb.org to be sure any complaints were successfully resolved. Fourth, review your written confirmations carefully, since miscommunications or mistakes can happen and they're easier to fix the earlier they're caught.

Working with a cruise-specialist travel agency like SureCruise.com, whether online or in person, helps you set sail on the ship and itinerary that's right for you, saves you some money, and gives you an advocate in case of any problems with the cruise line. Contrast this with booking directly with a cruise line's order department, which has no reason to educate you about the pros and cons of other cruise lines, nor to help you pay less for your cruise.

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Monster Royal Caribbean Genesis cruise ship announced

Royal Caribbean shook up the cruise industry today, announcing plans to build a monster 5,400-passenger ship for delivery in 2009. This Project Genesis vessel has Royal Caribbean one-upping itself, as it will be larger than the line's Freedom of the Seas, which itself won't even set sail until later this year.

The first Project Genesis ship will dwarf everything else afloat today (or currently planned for the future, for that matter), and Royal Caribbean has an option for a sister vessel. At 220,000 gross registered tons, 1,180 feet long, 154 feet wide and 240 feet high, the $1.1 billion vessel will be in a class by itself. The two nearest competitors, Freedom of the Seas and the Queen Mary 2, weigh in at a lithe 158,000 and 150,000 GRT respectively.

Royal Caribbean has yet to announce specifics about new features and guest experiences to be introduced on Project Genesis, but if experience is a guide, there will be interesting iconic hardware (like the Voyager-class rock climbing wall, and Freedom-class onboard surfing) whose details will be dribbled out to maximize publicity buzz.

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Israeli passport stamp gets couple jettisoned from cruise

From the Washington Post comes the story of an American couple from Vienna, Virginia whose cruise was ruined when Costa Cruises kicked them off the ship in Malta on day 3 of their 7-day trip, prior to a stop in Libya.

The reason? A passport stamp denoting a previous visit to Israel, which makes the passport's holder persona non grata in certain Islamic countries, including Libya.

As far as Costa's responsibility, we don't think its reasonable to expect them to grill their passengers at the time of booking about everything that might possibly impact their immigration status at ports of call.

But, we still can't imagine what the ship's staff was thinking with their response once the problem did become clear. Why couldn't these passengers have simply stayed on the ship while it was docked in Libya? If the Libyans objected to that solution, then why wouldn't Costa arrange for the couple to overnight in a hotel in Malta and catch up with the ship at its next port of call after Libya?

It seems Costa's executives agree that a better solution should have been found by the shipboard staff, as Costa is now covering the couple's extra expenses and delivering a full refund.
What lesson can be learned here? If you're an American traveling to unusual areas of the world, invest the time in advance to read the U.S. State Department's Consular Information Sheets. Libya's prominently mentions this Israeli passport-stamp restriction, for example.

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Egyptian ferry "Salaam 98" sinks to apparent huge loss of life

The passenger and cargo ferry Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 sunk in the Red Sea last night 40 miles from the Egyptian port of Hurghada with 1,400 passengers and crew on board. The vessel sailed from Dubah, Saudi Arabia at 7 pm Thursday for Safaga, Egypt, 120 miles away, and never arrived.

The first hint of disaster to shoreside personnel came when the ship disappeared from radar, and rescue operations began an hour later.

Helicopters and rescue vessels arriving on scene have, so far, found few lifeboats and few survivors from among the mostly Egyptian travelers on board. The cause is still unknown, although rough seas were reported in the area.

Such "roll-on, roll-off" ferries, with a huge bow door that swings down to let vehicles easily drive on and off, have a disquieting history of sinking like a rock in the event there is a mechanical problem with the bow door's watertight seal or if it is operated incorrectly.

UPDATE 2/3/06 8:40 PM: A cause for this tragedy has not been officially determined, but we predict it will involve the bow door, either as a primary or secondary cause. The problem with these "ro-ro," roll-off, roll-on, ferries is that if anything at all goes wrong with the bow door, the result is quick catastrophe as water floods in. Reports of heavy weather support this theory, in that a minor problem with the bow door, that wouldn't cause problems in calm seas, would become a major problem when put to the test.

There remains no cause for optimism, as reports have only about 300 of the 1,400 souls on board accounted for as rescued.

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