Carnival Spirit's arrival in Sydney...

[The_Big_M]

Originally Posted by Cruise ship fan

It still doesn't explain why all ties were cut of with the Carnival US fleet. Carnival cruises in Europe are still on the website.

It does, because Spirit was transferred here. The ships operating in Europe are only deployed there temporarily (like the RCL ships do here), head back to the US and are still part of the Carnival US group.

Also when you look at Princess the Australian based ships have always remained on the website.

That's another way it could have been done, but Princess' website is already set up for that, with IP recognition and redirection so you have a single booking system holding all the details. Customisation is done for visitors with local contact and booking details, and pricing in the relevant currency.

With Carnival, the US website doesn't have the smarts like that and it's designed for US customers. They need to build a local site for each place they target customers.

The accounting differs depending on the approach taken (e.g. for Princess vs Carnival) and it may well have been simpler for them to do it the way they did for Spirit. With Princess, they still can and do deploy the 'local' ships to and from other regions so they're not as 'permanently' deployed here.

[The_Big_M]

Originally Posted by Cruise ship fan

Well in terms of quality, Carnival should actually be the cheapest (in terms of service etc, excluding the ship), then P&O, Royal Caribbean then Princess. But Carnival wants to be the more expensive.

Carnival is positioned above P&O, and equivalent to Royal Caribbean, but with differences between them.

[Cruise ship fan]

Originally Posted by The_Big_M

Carnival is positioned above P&O, and equivalent to Royal Caribbean, but with differences between them.

Thats how they want it but they really shouldn't be they are way, way down the line. They are like a Formula one hotel and Royal is like a Hilton, when they are compared.

[The_Big_M]

Originally Posted by Cruise ship fan

Thats how they want it but they really shouldn't be they are way, way down the line. They are like a Formula one hotel and Royal is like a Hilton, when they are compared.

We'll agree to disagree. There are some things Carnival do better, and some things RCL do better, but overall facility and service wise they're broadly equivalent in what they offer/include.

[fishtaco]

Originally Posted by The_Big_M

We'll agree to disagree. There are some things Carnival do better, and some things RCL do better, but overall facility and service wise they're broadly equivalent in what they offer/include.

Is that broard equivalence Carnival Australia V RCI or Carnival USA V RCI ?

Den

[The_Big_M]

Carnival USA.

Although it's not meant to change too much, it's too early to say for sure whether there are more changes than those announced.

Keep in mind though that there are also small differences in RCI from when their ships are operating here to when they operate elsewhere...