More Balconies on Pacific Dawn and Pacific Jewel

[jessica3152]

Both Pacific Dawn and Pacific Jewel are still very nice ships and well sized for Australia and South Pacific ports. The only thing that really ages them is the comparative lack of balconies compared to slightly newer conte marines such as Princess' Sun class.

 

I was having a look at the ship's design and due to the positioning of their lifeboats/tenders it appears these ships would be good candidates for the snap on balconies such as those added to the old RoyalPrincess/Artemis.

 

I believe the entire deck above the life rafts would be candidates for these balconies as well as aft of the life rafts on that deck below.

 

These new balconies look great on the old Artemis and are much better than Carnival's efforts when it added balconies to its Fantasy class. do you think P&O/Carnival Australia should bite the bullet and extend the life of these ships by making them more competitive?

[GuddyWit]

Interesting thought. I suppose given that P&O Aust make up just 3% of Carnival Corps. entire fleet, and about 2% of all of their berths, it's unlikely they'd spend the sort of money that those works would cost.

 

I think they'll stick to what seems to be their recent strategy of taking older tonnage from P&O UK, Princess and Carnival and place it here when new tonnage comes available in their bigger U.S. and European markets.

 

With Royal Princess coming online this week, Regal to come next year and a newbuild for P&O UK on the way, we might yet have, for example, one of the older Grand class boats from Princess (eg. Grand, Star or Golden) or say Oriana or Aurora from P&O UK rebranded and placed here permanently.

 

You're certainly right, though; more balconies means more competitive and ultimately more $$$.

[jessica3152]

I think they'll stick to what seems to be their recent strategy of taking older tonnage from P&O UK, Princess and Carnival and place it here when new tonnage comes available in their bigger U.S. and European markets.

 

, we might yet have, for example, one of the older Grand class boats from Princess (eg. Grand, Star or Golden) or say Oriana or Aurora from P&O UK rebranded and placed here permanently.

 

You're certainly right, though; more balconies means more competitive and ultimately more $$$.

 

I think you are probably right and we are already seeing that with the 2 Spirit ships coming downunder. I guess I see the mods to PD and PJ being attractive is because, of the 70K+ tonne ships, it is only them and the Princess Sun Class ships that can go under the Harbour Bridge. Everything else, including the Spirit twins, have to use the OPT which is problematic particularly during the peak summer season.

[GuddyWit]

Agreed. The whole White Bay vs OPT could be quite problematic, going into the future. As more non-Carnival Corp boats (think RCCL, NCL etc...) enter our market to compete, they're going to dump capacity in order to take market share from P&O, Carnival and Princess - much like the airlines do. Best way of doing this is to bring in BIG tonnage. Carnival Corp could/will respond by bringing newer and bigger boats, too. Problem is, any large tonnage built post mid-90s won't be able to get to White Bay.

 

In the end, we end up with capacity constraints, an OPT that can't cope, and the much discussed White 'Elephant' Bay. Garden Island could be a possibility, and QM2 has used it when she's been in, but as I understand it, the Navy aren't too happy about having their facility used as a passenger terminal on a regular basis.

 

 

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[karmac]

One thing you have to remember is that P&O are a very family oriented cruise line and with that in mind, I personally don't think they need many (if any) more balcony cabins. 1) it adds to the cost and when travelling as a family, holidays are expensive enough. 2) parents with small children would probably not want a baclony due to the safety factor. I know that in general the balconies are safe but we all know that young children can be extremely quick!!

[GuddyWit]

Good points, Karen. And we can presume that this is why Pacific Dawn, Jewel & Pearl were retrofitted with quad share cabins and interconnecting rooms when they were placed here. Carnival corp aren't silly - they've been doing this for a long time.

 

Back on a more financial/strategic note, Carnival would also need to consider how long it would take to amortise the cost of any alterations and whether they could recoup the costs over the remaining lives of the respective ships.