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Hello! This is the animated news from the cruise industry this week, April 30, 2011.
(I'm not real, but the news and our sponsor, Cruise News Daily, are.) OK. Here are the
top stories.
Royal Caribbean released their Winter Caribbean program for 2012-2013. In it were some noteworthy
trends for the line. Royal Caribbean will have 13 ships in the Caribbean and Bahamas,
more than half their fleet. Of those, four will be based at non-Florida ports moving
them closer to large population centers so more people can cruise without flying to the
port. But the most interesting change is that in 2012, Royal Caribbean has all but abandoned
the port of Miami. The only Royal Caribbean ship sailing from Miami will be Monarch of
the Seas on 3 and 4 night cruises to the Bahamas, marking the first time the line has had no
Caribbean cruises from Miami, which is also their headquarters. All other Royal Caribbean
ships sailing from South Florida will sail from Port Everglaes.
Carnival Corp passed a significant milestone this week when they took delivery of Carnival
Magic, because it became the 100th ship in their fleet. They celebrated with a champagne
toast on Friday for all 227,000 passengers across their ten brands. But that nice round
number of ships didn't last long. At the end of the week, P&O's Artemis left the fleet.
Many readers will remember Artemis best as the original Royal Princess christened by
Princess Diana in 1984. But the Carnival fleet will be back to 100 ships in late May when
they take delivery of Seabourn Quest.
Those are our top stories. In today's feature item, there are many in the US thinking that
cruise lines have put too much capacity in Europe, especially in light of discounts which
are appearing in America on Mediterranean cruises, and the repositioning of Navigator
of the Seas to the Caribbean next winter. In their conference call for financial analysts
Thursday, RCCL executives explained why they still have confidence in their 11 ship deployment
to Europe. They said that high air fares and political unrest in northern Africa is only
affecting demand from America. And less than 25 per cent of their passengers on European
cruises come from the US. Because ships are homeported closer to where many people live,
fewer and fewer passengers are arriving in the ports of embarkation by air.
They said the unrest in northern Africa only seemed to affect demand from the US and UK,
but in recent weeks, bookings have returned to more normal levels, although at lower yields.
The lower pricing isn't necessarily in discounts directly on the cruise product, but rather
in heavily subsidized air and other incentives. The executives said that stronger pricing
in the Caribbean and Alaska will offset the discounts in Europe.
Those are the top stories of the week. The complete detailed stories and perspective
on them were delivered to CND subscribers daily via e-mail.
Among the dozen other stories that were included in Cruise News Daily this week, we also covered
other things you'll want to know such as Port Everglades posting a whopping 18.4% increase
in multi-day cruise activity for the last six months over the same period a year ago.
These numbers will keep the port solidly in first place for the title of Cruise Capital
of the World with the port on track to handle more than 3.9 million passengers this year.
After several years of declining cruise traffic, Juneau Alaska is considering building a floating
dock to handle larger cruise ships. The proposed two new berths would be ready for the 2015
cruise season and carry a $92 million price tag which would be paid off with revenue from
existing passenger taxes.
More and more ports are offering cruise lines incentives to remain in port during the evening.
The latest is Gibraltar which will be allowing cruise ships to open their casinos and shops
if they remain in port at night.
Those are the top stories of the week and other things you'll want to know from the
cruise industry. Other headlines and photo features are on our website at www.cruise
news daily.com. I'll be back next week with more news from Cruise News Daily. So long!