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!
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