Carnival Pulls out of Europe; Who's Next?

Carnival Cruise Lines just announced that the Carnival Liberty, which was scheduled to begin sailing in Europe for the summer of 2009, will remain in the Caribbean instead, doing 7-night sailings out of Miami. The decision was based upon the economy and high airfares to Europe, and Carnival execs state that their customers would prefer to sail out of domestic ports which are close to home.

This unfortunately is not surprising news, as we are beginning to see cruise lines shortening or removing cruise options to far-away ports, such as Australia (see a previous blog post regarding Celebrity pulling out of Australia) and now, Europe. I believe that while it is true that many Americans would prefer to save on airfare by cruising from a domestic port, pulling ships out of Europe, especially on the contemporary lines, is a mistake. With the U.S. Dollar so weak right now, it makes more economic sense for Americans to visit Europe by paying for their vacations in advance in U.S. Dollars, and we all know what a great value a cruise vacation is compared to a land-based vacation. Taking away an opportunity for someone here who always sails on contemporary lines, such as Carnival, to cruise to Europe, is really sad. Now those of us who are on tight budgets but who still would like to travel to Europe will have one less opportunity to do so.

I know our economy is struggling right now, but people still need to take vacations for their peace of mind and mental health. The cruise industry has weathered the storm pretty well so far, but I pray that the entire cruise market does not change as a result with hardly any ships visiting exotic and far-away ports of call, because that has always been one of the best parts of a cruise vacation; visiting beautiful and wonderful places that are far away, and having to unpack only once!

Celebrity Cruises Discontinues Australia/New Zealand Cruises for 2009-2010

Apparently, Celebrity feels that its customers would prefer to sail from the Eastern Seaboard instead of visiting the Land Down Under, so the cruise line is discontinuing its voyages to beautiful and exotic Australia and New Zealand. The Millenium will finish her Alaska run completing cruises that were originally scheduled to be on the Mercury; then she will head down to San Juan, where she will sail to the Southern Caribbean for 10 and 11-night cruises. The Mercury will head to the Eastern Caribbean from Baltimore from November 2009 to February 2010, then she will sail to the Eastern and Western Caribbean from Charleston through April of that year.

Personally, I think this has both positive and negative impacts. A positive is that with the additional sailings to the Caribbean from the east coast and San Juan, clients have more choices for longer sailings to that area, as many cruises to the Caribbean are for 7 days only. With the economy the way it is, it seems that many people would prefer to sail out of ports close to home to avoid spending big bucks on airfare so this should work out well. However, the negative is that there will be fewer opportunities for clients to sail to Australia and New Zealand, especially for those clients that sail on upscale cruise lines like Celebrity. It's really a shame, but hopefully things will turn around and Celebrity will re-deploy some of its ships to that beautiful part of the world soon.