Wall Street Journal, 4/22/04 - Shore Excursions

You may be interested in an article in the Wall Street Journal 4/22/2004 edition, entitled:

Ditching the Cruise Director-Ships Beef Up Shore Trips To Cash In on Rebound;

Booking Your Own Sea Plane

Here's a brief extract:

Cruise lines are making it easier to book extra trips like these through their reservations systems. Princess, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Star Cruises Ltd.'s Norwegian Cruise Line Group, among others, let passengers book trips online before boarding. Passengers on the Queen Mary 2, the world's largest ocean liner, can book trips through the TV screens in their rooms. In some cases, the ships offer extra goodies on their excursions. Passengers taking Royal Caribbean and Celebrity excursions in Florence, Italy, and Rome, for example, receive emergency packages with coins and phone numbers to dial if they get lost. Tour representatives are dispatched to help when called...

...Tour operators report an increasing numbers of calls and e-mails -- some from people who have read postings on Web sites such as cruisecritic.com (www.cruisecritic.com) ... about plotting their own itineraries...

Walt Tuthill

Cruise Board Moderator

Contact at Shiptender@aol.com

[This message was edited by Host Walt on 04-23-04 at 03:31 PM.]