The Economy and Cruising

[billroddy]

A member wrote this on NCL pulling another ship from Hawaii.
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Just a thought--could this be the first sign of the economy impacting the travel industry?
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In line with this I am reading a book, "The Coming Economic Collapse. How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrell, " by Stephen Leeb.
He says he did not want to write this book and hopes he is wrong, but the evidence shows he is right.
Bill

[Mr Veendam06]

Yes i saw this happen in the very early 1980"s !! But there wasn"t as many ships and cabins to be filled back them !!

[jhannah]

I personally do not think this has anything to do with the economy. It's just NCL's major mis-judgment in their business decision.

Check this thread (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=697680) for recent discussion of the economy and cruising.

[airlink diva]

I really hate to say this, but I know co-workers that sailed on NCL Hawaii cruise that just hated it. They all cited poor food and poor customer service by the staff. Unlike other cruiseships, these ships are mainly Americans in all areas of staffing.
The ships had a high turnover in staffing (I know that NCL had job fairs in my area several times) because of the long hours that's required.
For a while, I was getting e-mails with rates low as $199 and $249 for the 7 day Hawaii cruises. But with so many of the people that went on these deals coming back with bad cruise trips, I did'nt bother.
Frankly it's a good idea for someone to see all of the islands of Hawaii, but it just didn't pan out.
Happy sailing!!

[SeanCU79]

It seems like this has more to do with the economics of having a U.S. flag ship versus a foreign flag not the state of the economy. The cost of wages, training, regulation etc puts them at a competitive disadvantage. As well as the fact that the West Coast to Hawaii cruises have increase with many lines offering these from SD and Los Angeles. IMO, NCL is learning the hard way why there are so few U.S. flag cruise ships in todays cruise industry.

[TCF]

While I think there are some valid concerns about how the current economic downturn in the US will impact the industry, I think the NCL America issue is not connected.

NCL made a business decision to flag some ships US for the Hawaii market, and, it would appear that it was not a good decision for several reasons. They underestimated the American market's desire to support American flagged and crewed ships just because they are American; they underestimated the American young workforce in terms of their committment to hard work, long hours, and not so great accomodations; and, they tried to sell NCL America as the same low-fare cruises that NCL is famous for. It appears that it didn't, and will not, come together for them. But, at the end of the day it would seem that NCL America may just fall victim to an antiquated and silly law designed and written for ships and travel in US waters at the turn of the century....a law that has no relevance in today's global economy.

It's too bad because I think it was a good idea to re-introduce the American flag to cruise ships.