Any Europeans?

[seattlejoe]

Last year our family and a group of friends did a Eastern Mediterranean cruise on the Costa Serena. This year we are doing a Western Med on the Carnival Magic. What we loved so much about the Costa cruise was that we were the only Americans out of 4,000 European cruisers. It was amazing being immersed in their culture. So my question is, Will there be many Europeans booked on this cruise? Does Carnival advertise or even market to the European community? Thank you so much!

[*Mach*]

Yes, Carnival certainly does market these cruises heavily in the European market. I'd guess that Americans will be in the minority on board but not by much...

:)

[seattlejoe]

Yes, Carnival certainly does market these cruises heavily in the European market. I'd guess that Americans will be in the minority on board but not by much...

:)

Thanks so much Mach! Just got even more excited!! :)

[Jolimont]

Do French-Americans count? That's what we are and we're going on the Magic. BUT, Carnival had this policy of English only (at least until 2009), so they didn't attract that many locals. We did one Carnival cruise out of Civitavecchia and another out of Dover and both were 75%+ anglo with a splatter of Europeans where most were quite comfortable in English.

 

Then last summer we sailed out of Malaga, Spain on Royal Caribbean and they do more in the local language. At least 50% of the passengers were Spanish and everything was done in two languages, sometimes 3 or 4, and everyone on the crew spoke at least two languages. That's where I felt really dumb with my two fluent languages only. Some of these waiters could do 3 or 4 quite naturally! RCI also advertises heavily in Spain and do great specials for locals. So yes, they are trying to develop the local market. I haven't seen Carnival do that yet. But it'll come I'm sure.

[magiccruiser]

Interesting question. I was wondering that myself. My son and daughter-in-law took a Costa cruise for their honeymoon last September and said there were very few Americans aboard, but the staff all spoke English well. Costa is a cruise line that caters to Europeans and not very Americans know about it. Carnival on the other hand is definitely an American line so I am presuming there will be more Americans aboard. Plus the ship is only there for the summer so I wonder how many Europeans will be willing to give it a try. Guess we will find out! I know all the plugs will be for American appliances!

[seattlejoe]

Interesting question. I was wondering that myself. My son and daughter-in-law took a Costa cruise for their honeymoon last September and said there were very few Americans aboard, but the staff all spoke English well. Costa is a cruise line that caters to Europeans and not very Americans know about it. Carnival on the other hand is definitely an American line so I am presuming there will be more Americans aboard. Plus the ship is only there for the summer so I wonder how many Europeans will be willing to give it a try. Guess we will find out! I know all the plugs will be for American appliances!

Yeah when we were on Costa last year all of the crew spoke perfect English. In fact a lot of the crew spoke 5 languages. Although they always greeted you with a "buongiorno!" just in case you were Italian. But I too am interested to see what happens! I really hope it is a multicultural cruise!

[kicia]

We did B2B cruises on the Freedom in the Med in 2007 and the Baltic in 2008 on the Splendor and they were very much American cruises. There were groups of Europeans and I know that special dinner menus were printed in whatever language they needed and I would assume the Fun Times were also specially prepared. All announcements were in English and the shows were all in English. There were more non-Americans than on a Caribbean cruise but still mostly from the US.