I know there is a lot of negativity right now surrounding cruising with all the issues that have surfaced in recent months on Carnival then to add to that Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas had a horrible fire last week that could have been tragic if not dealt with swiftly and efficiently. But I think there is a huge difference between the two situations and that's what I want to talk about today.
It may just be that I've had a bad taste in my mouth about Carnival since the solitary cruise that I took on a Carnival ship 6 years ago. For the last 6 years, I have said that I would never make the mistake of boarding a Carnival ship again and so far I have held true to that vow. There was nothing that the crew did on board to turn me off. It was more about what the entire cruise line didn't do. From the moment we boarded the ship, you could see that the upkeep just wasn't all that good. It was just run down. It seemed that one of two things was happening. Either the crew didn't care about taking care of things properly or the cruise line didn't give them the tools they needed to do what had to be done. After a few days on the ship, I was convinced that the problem wasn't with the crew. They were as helpful, friendly and well meaning as any crew I have ever encountered on any other ship. I was therefore convinced that Carnival was not supplying them with the tools they needed to take care of their ship.
Perhaps they had enough cleaning products, staff and mechanical tools and they simply weren't given the opportunity to conduct the maintenance that needed to be done. Or perhaps they didn't have the training to get it all done or to get it done in an efficient manner. I really don't know exactly what the problem was, but the crew certainly seemed willing to do whatever was required of them. My personal theory on the situation is that they market to an opening price point cruise customer which can often times be someone who has never experienced much beyond leaving home on the Saturday that Spring Break begins, staying drunk for 7 days straight and then returning home a week later after having vomited all over Mexico. Stick that person on a ship and you have about 60% of the passengers who were on the cruise we took 6 years ago. And let's just face facts, if 60% of your passengers are concentrating all of their efforts simply on getting drunk, you are going to need one heck of a crew to keep things clean and in working order.
So, I feel like Carnival is already a little behind the 8 ball simply due to the passengers they attract. Then if you combine that with a company which only thinks about profits and exploiting those profits for as long as possible, you will eventually run into problems. If you fill your ships up every single week, year after year, and you continue to only take prices up as your costs increase then the only way to increase your revenue is to cut back on what you spend. In order to increase your prices beyond cost increases, you will need to offer your passengers a better product. The product has not improved over the years so that only leaves the option of cutting back in other areas of spending. If you cut back in on board service, you will eventually stop getting return passengers. So, in my opinion, that only leaves cutting back in maintenance. This is only an opinion, but it is what I believe that Carnival has done over the years. Then when they began to see the negative results rather than addressing the issue and going above and beyond to make people happy and satisfy the public that they took it seriously, they did the bare minimum that was required of them.
Granted, they got their passengers home after the Triumph debacle... eventually. They gave them their money back. They even gave them a discount on a future cruise for those who are willing to take one. My guess would be that if the Triumph or as I like to call it "SS Floating Toilet" hadn't been so highly publicized, the passengers would not have seen all the compensation that they received. When one of Carnival's crazy passengers falls overboard, sure, they turn around and go back to try to find them. When the Crown Princess (Princess is owned by Carnival) sailing out of Houston had a toilet problem last month which affected more than 400 staterooms and had passengers reporting "foul odors, long lines for public bathrooms and flooded rooms for up to three days" Carnival was kind enough to offer those passengers an apology and $50 each.
Meanwhile, I was on a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Galveston a few years ago that was 7 hours late leaving port due to intense fog (a natural phenomenon which RCI has absolutely no control over) and every passenger on board was given $25 shipboard credit and profuse apologies. We didn't miss any stops, at no point was there any sewage visible to me, no inconvenience whatsoever and yet, I got approximately 3.1 free drinks of the day out of it. So, this week following the fire on board Grandeur of the Seas, the ship made port in Freeport, Bahamas (it was redirected from CocoCay to Freeport due to the fire) where damage was assessed. The CEO and other high ranking executives flew in immediately and boarded the ship. Even before assessments were complete the CEO, Adam Goldstein was on board visiting with passengers after meeting with the crew to reassure everyone that they would be taken care of.
Since the fire, all passengers have been flown back to Maryland where the ship set sail from, (mind you, the fire was Sunday and their passengers are already back home.... If it was a Carnival ship, I can't help but wonder if they would be floating around at sea still) they are being reimbursed for the price of the cruise and being given a 50% discount on a future cruise. Then this morning I got an email from RCI stating that any travel agents who had passengers on the ship during the cruise or booked for a future sailing that was being canceled due to the fire would still receive his or her full commission. Additionally, they intend to award a $50 bonus for all travel agents re-booking those clients on RCI.
Now you may ask, how was their maintenance and did it cause the ship to catch on fire? I can't answer that. But I do know that RCI takes all of their ships out of rotation regularly for maintenance. I can tell you that the ship was refurbished just last May. Currently, they are working on a 3 year roll out in which all 22 of their ships are going into dry dock for full maintenance and retrofits on updated interiors. As one ship comes out of dry dock, another goes in. Royal Caribbean goes out of their way to educate travel agents on these roll outs. My sense is that with as much information as they give me, their employees must be remarkably well informed.
I just think that the way the two companies handle their difficulties is very telling in what kind of an operation they run. For me, I'd rather trust my vacation dollar with Royal Caribbean. Have a great Wednesday!
No comments:
Post a Comment