AmazedByCruising

I guess a liability that can be insured? Sometimes companies come up with a new variety of crisps with a coupon attached to get your money back. So it feels like "free", but in reality people lose the coupons or once back home, simply don't feel like going through the trouble for a few bucks. Companies insure themselves to make sure they don't need to actually pay 100%, so instead of a somewhat vague liability their balance shows that they spent 30% on the insurance. It's different, of course, for a $5000 FCC but even then. If someone actual bought it (on the previous cruise), they will probably use it for an already planned cruise to get a rebate. But if they got it because their cruise was cancelled, or the ship was on fire, it's different. The cruise had been planned for 5 years to get all family members across the US to align their agendas and it's not easy to do so again. Nephew X married to someone who is totally opposed to cruising as it hurts the environment, Y got seasick the first day and vowed to never cruise again. And of course, people get illnesses and die. I wonder how the company values FCC that is given as compensation.

What exactly is the opposite bet? At least 70% using their FCC? It's not very fair to bet on a really small part of the market, but I'll take it for a nice bottle of wine. I guess these guests care even less about redeeming FCC and book a cruise when they feel like it and possibly their TA would notice that there's FCC left to use.

I think FCCs shouldn't be valued as "debt", because people cannot turn FCC into actual money but need to sail, and are supposed to buy drinks and Tanzanite while doing so. It's more like a coupon, and you can insure against too many people actually using it. I wonder how much FCC that wasn't bought on a ship but was given away is actually used. I got an offer by the Casino once, but I'd need to fly to Miami and back from Holland to enjoy it. A sure bet to give me a present that I won't use. Also, people tend to have work that doesn't match the itineraries. And some of them are sick or die. It would be nice to see the Excel sheet showing FCC bought, FCC given (for a cancelled cruise, for gambling, for missed ports, for a burning ship), and FCC used. It wouldn't surprise me if the last column for "involuntary" FCC would show an actual used percentage of like 30%.

I've never asked for Indonesian food in MDR (which I know I can ask for and even get it) but that would be a hassle for an already overworked waiter. If I needed distilled water it shouldn't be a hassle, neither for me or the steward. I'd want a smooth procedure like "check this box for distilled water" during check-in, and not try to get my steward to try to fix things the company can easily fix (and knows that it needs to be fixed 10?, 50?, at least many times each and every cruise) I honestly thought you were joking about a nation wide shortage of distilled water but Google tells me otherwise. HAL sells the beds they use, maybe they can sell "authentic distilled water from real sea water". (More serious: I know a company that literally buys sea water to grow sea weeds on land in a controlled environment. The by-product (salt with all micro nutrients) could actually be very valuable)

Yeah. NCL should put it in their FAQ. "If you need distilled water for medical needs, all you need to do is simply ask your steward to bribe an engineer. It's that simple! It once again shows how much we at NCL are committed to providing you a care-free vacation!". 😃 I believe a CPAP machine can easily survive a cruise using tap water, but it's not outrageous to expect a cruiseship to supply you with distilled water if you ask for it, maybe at a small charge. Unless their "policy" is to get 8 million US CPAP owners to think twice about sailing with NCL again.

Yes, but CCL at 14.32? Quote from: Carnival Will Take Time to Recover From Covid-19 Ship Outbreak (msn.com) : It was recently discovered that Covid-19 was found on board a Carnival cruise. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched an inquiry. As a result, in the last five trading days, Carnival Corp’s (NYSE:CCL) stock fell 15.5%, and it doesn’t look like the losses will stop anytime soon. Covid! On a ship! That explains 15.5% easily. I wonder how much the author gets paid for this insight. I did some wild calculations. At $14.32, a market cap of 16.6 billion, it's even not impossible for Poland (maybe with the help of the EU) to buy CCL, and have of-the-shelve housing for 223,000 Ukrainian refugees on 87 ships. And those are "lower berths", but when anchored in their own waters every couch can be used, and cradles installed, without looking at official maximum capacity (based on available life boats). Let's say 300k places to sleep with all facilities to feed everyone at the Lido Deck, 55k per person. I'm not in the hotel business, but that sounds really low to me. 3 years at $50/person/night and the property is paid (and a bizarre situation where Poland itself can guarantee 100% occupancy). Certainly, some entrepreneurs will find profitable uses for Casino, MDR, Theatre, and spa, and pay good rent to exploit those, too. Once the war is over, RCCL would be more than happy to buy the ships, and have them dry docked and ready to sell Tanzanite again. And to hire many previous CCL-employees. They wouldn't mind CCL not competing for a while either, so they could even subsidize Poland to get rid of most competition, and have raised prices for a while. Not saying this is a likely event, but it would be very cool 🙂

Would stabilizers be able to reduce fuel usage on cargo ships?

It was never about the straws being sold, it was about the inability to sort the straws back out of the waste stream for proper disposal. Ah, it didn't know that! Well, they simply said the eggs should not be from cages (if that's the word) but free range, and shamed X for still selling cage eggs while complimenting other companies. It was very successful. It shouldn't be automatically the state. I'm not familiar with FOE but organizations like Greenpeace are very wealthy, and they could make sure the whisteblower gets legal support and financial security. That's for sure, not only by environmental organizations but also as a general scapegoat. For instance, Amsterdam has a problem with too many tourists making a mess of the city. Everyone knows the problem are British bachelor party goers, not the small fine dining, museum and flowers visiting crowd from the ships. So let's ban the ships from Amsterdam.

If FOE or similar can get someone to say on camera "I was the very important environmental officer at ship X and then I lost my job because Y happened and I wasn't allowed to stop it", that's an extremely powerful message. Of course, only if the public decides that Y is a serious thing, like throwing garbage into the sea and not plastic straws being sold or similar non-issues. If they'd simply pay ex-officers enough to blow the whistle and then retire, I believe it would all work out like it's meant to be. I mean, it doesn't add that much to the cost of operating a cruise ship to abide to the rules, it does cost when people won't buy a cabin because everyone they know would frown about choosing CCL. An organization similar to FOE in Holland simply said in an advertisement, repeated over and over again, that supermarket X still sold eggs from chickens treated poorly, and also said that Y and Z did not. It didn't take long for X to give in.