Carnival Corporation has dissolved the Holland America Group...

[Mary229]

4 minutes ago, mowogo said:

I think Costa is dead line walking.  The fact that they have been transferring ships to Carnival and seeing how little work they can do to convert them and still make money proves that management has already given up on the line.  

I think the European lines are not CCL’s strong suit.  

[Destiny0315]

7 minutes ago, mowogo said:

I think Costa is dead line walking.  The fact that they have been transferring ships to Carnival and seeing how little work they can do to convert them and still make money proves that management has already given up on the line.

I have said many times on here that CCL is dismantling Costa ship by ship. That will make it easier to merge or sell off what's left when the time comes to abandon ship! (pun intended)

[mowogo]

7 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

I think the European lines are not CCL’s strong suit.  

MSC has definitely had an impact on that market, especially with all the newer ships offering cabins at prices comparable to older ships.  Same strategy they are trying to apply in the US

[BermudaBound2014]

6 minutes ago, mowogo said:

MSC has definitely had an impact on that market, especially with all the newer ships offering cabins at prices comparable to older ships.  Same strategy they are trying to apply in the US

 

MSC is another cruise company to watch. While the big three took on insurmountable debt while shuttered for 18 months, MSC Cruise has extremely wealthy parents to help soften the blow.

 

MSC shipping is the Worlds largest container shipping company and reported record profits during the pandemic. Profits they shared with MSC cruise.  This company is no joke either. 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by BermudaBound2014

[Destiny0315]

1 minute ago, mowogo said:

MSC has definitely had an impact on that market, especially with all the newer ships offering cabins at prices comparable to older ships.  Same strategy they are trying to apply in the US

MSC has for some time now been going after one of the hottest trends in cruising, the solo passenger. They have continually offered dozens of cruises with a 0% single supplement along with other SS reductions on every one of their cruises.

[mowogo]

Just now, Destiny0315 said:

MSC has for some time now been going after one of the hottest trends in cruising, the solo passenger. They have continually offered dozens of cruises with a 0% single supplement along with other SS reductions on every one of their cruises.

And don’t forget the status match.  Getting all the benefits I’ve earned elsewhere honored on my first cruise definitely helped make me open to them.

 

And then for Bahamas islands, Ocean Cay is magical with a sunset departure being an early departure.

[BermudaBound2014]

Sadly, shoreside customer service continues to be a thorn in MSC's side. While vastly improved since the early days of the Orchestra sailing from Miami, MSC's shoreside service continues to be the bottom of the barrel in the industry. I often wonder if a language barrier plays a role. 

[OlsSalt]

Middle East has significant geographical advantages - one way is the Mediterranean, North Africa, Black Sea and Europe. The other way is India and Asia.

 

Last trip a number of years ago into the UAE, one guide explained their goal was to create a tourism center since approx 6 billion people lived within an 8 hour plane flight to the UAE. Medical tourism, entertainment tourism, shopping tourism, cultural tourism, amusement park tourism ....... build the hotel and airport infrastructure for that and you also built the infrastructure for a central location cruise port.

 

Middle eastern cruise tourism, extending out in every direction of the compass is reasonable for this part of the world.  Dubai Ports has long set the standards for commercial port facilities, again why not cruise port facilities.

 

So is UAE in competition now with the Saudi's -- particularly since so many of the western economies are rushing headlong into the elimination of fossil fuels - good to have a back-up revenue diversification plan and a place to park all those electric planes flying in from 8 hours away. 

[Mary229]

3 minutes ago, OlsSalt said:

Middle East has significant geographical advantages - one way is the Mediterranean, North Africa, Black Sea and Europe. The other way is India and Asia.

 

Last trip a number of years ago into the UAE, one guide explained their goal was to create a tourism center since approx 6 billion people lived within an 8 hour plane flight to the UAE. Medical tourism, entertainment tourism, shopping tourism, cultural tourism, amusement park tourism ....... build the hotel and airport infrastructure for that and you also built the infrastructure for a central location cruise port.

 

Middle eastern cruise tourism, extending out in every direction of the compass is reasonable for this part of the world.  Dubai Ports has long set the standards for commercial port facilities, again why not cruise port facilities.

 

So is UAE in competition now with the Saudi's -- particularly since so many of the western economies are rushing headlong into the elimination of fossil fuels - good to have a back-up revenue diversification plan and a place to park all those electric planes flying in from 8 hours away. 

Electric planes😂. Though I did visit the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity.  On their premises they had a prototype nuclear powered jet engine.  It was a massive beast. 

[Florida_gal_50]

7 minutes ago, Mary229 said:

Electric planes😂. Though I did visit the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity.  On their premises they had a prototype nuclear powered jet engine.  It was a massive beast. 

It’s going to be interesting to see in Canada how they plan to be reliant on electricity by 2035.  My power goes off for 2-4 hours it seems every few months if not more. What’s going to happen  when we all have to plug in our electric cars? What about electric cruise ships?  The world will be reliant on fossil fuels until all of us are gone.

[mowogo]

36 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Sadly, shoreside customer service continues to be a thorn in MSC's side. While vastly improved since the early days of the Orchestra sailing from Miami, MSC's shoreside service continues to be the bottom of the barrel in the industry. I often wonder if a language barrier plays a role. 

Their customer service in general takes some getting used to. 

[Destiny0315]

4 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

It’s going to be interesting to see in Canada how they plan to be reliant on electricity by 2035.  My power goes off for 2-4 hours it seems every few months if not more. What’s going to happen  when we all have to plug in our electric cars? What about electric cruise ships?  The world will be reliant on fossil fuels until all of us are gone.

I have been following this story for awhile now with friends in South Africa who have shared their personal stories of how SA's energy crisis is affecting everyone. 

https://menafn.com/1106349753/South-Africas-Power-Crisis-Is-A-Warning-For-The-World

[Lakesregion]

2 hours ago, OlsSalt said:

Cliff note version: Holland and Seabourn now "somewhat partnered", while other CCL brands stay administratively intact. Not bad company to be in.

 

This to me feels like more emphasis on the travel and service part of the cruise equation; perhaps less on the floating resort hotel aspect. Time will tell.

 

Those must have been very interesting discussion and something had to happen - you cannot carry as much "covid" debt as the cruise industry was forced to accept. 

Looks like it might be a move to make it easier to sell off a brand or two if needed to help out paying off debt.

[Destiny0315]

3 minutes ago, Lakesregion said:

Looks like it might be a move to make it easier to sell off a brand or two if needed to help out paying off debt.

Well the 3 lines that after the restructuring are working alone and without partners are Aida, Costa, and Princess. So eventually shedding the two European lines Aida and Costa could be in the future plans. 

[St Pete Cruiser]

A lot of Holland America's captains are now onboard Seabourne ships.  Those of us who liked the Prinsendam as well the S class ships would like to cruise on Seabourne but can't or won't pay the premium.  

[LAFFNVEGAS]

A friend brought this to my attention yesterday, I was going to post the article from seatrade. I then saw where a few professional groups I belong to were discussing this. The discussion was that over all this is good for Princess and not so much for HAL/Seabourn and they also agreed that this was a way to easily sell off Costa.

I am hoping that it will help HAL get back to the way they were before they started the Princess/HAL merger some 10 years ago. The biggest problem is they are so intertwined there are division that will be hard to seperate and will take some time. But over all the first seperation which I suspect will be ship management could actually improve HAL or at least that is my hope.

[Haljo1935]

4* who loves HAL, warts and all. Next are Princess then Carnival. I've done about 25 cruises, all on these 3.

While I agree HAL has definitely taken a hit in services, dining, and other areas, so have the majority of cruise lines. I welcome changes for the purpose of progress, not just for the sake of change. I think we've seen a bit of both recently with some definte misses.

I'm not in a position to sail HAL if it were to truly go premium and would greatly miss cruising with them. So, selfishly, I hope that's not the end result. As a CCL stockholder, I hope for whatever gets the company to better financial health. I think those are not aligned - disappointment and a breakup are likely in my future. 😪🤧

Having been on the AK opening season cruise on Eurodam and watching the ceremony at the gangway, it was kinda a special proud moment. 150 years for HAL and 76 seasons in AK. I hope the rest of the story is not "congratulations, happy birthday, goodbye, so long..."

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, Mary229 said:

Electric planes😂. Though I did visit the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity.  On their premises they had a prototype nuclear powered jet engine.  It was a massive beast. 

EBR-1 located in Idaho at Argonne West generated enough power in 1951 to light 4 light bulbs.  However, CP-3 at Argonne outside of Chicago was the first to light a Christmas tree.  My office was in a building about 500 feet away from CP-3 (Energy and Environmental Systems Division), though many years after it was deactivated.  CP-5 was also close by.

Edited June 7, 2023 by ldtr

[Guest ldtr]

23 minutes ago, Haljo1935 said:

4* who loves HAL, warts and all. Next are Princess then Carnival. I've done about 25 cruises, all on these 3.

While I agree HAL has definitely taken a hit in services, dining, and other areas, so have the majority of cruise lines. I welcome changes for the purpose of progress, not just for the sake of change. I think we've seen a bit of both recently with some definte misses.

I'm not in a position to sail HAL if it were to truly go premium and would greatly miss cruising with them. So, selfishly, I hope that's not the end result. As a CCL stockholder, I hope for whatever gets the company to better financial health. I think those are not aligned - disappointment and a breakup are likely in my future. 😪🤧

Having been on the AK opening season cruise on Eurodam and watching the ceremony at the gangway, it was kinda a special proud moment. 150 years for HAL and 76 seasons in AK. I hope the rest of the story is not "congratulations, happy birthday, goodbye, so long..."

Doubt HAL will go premium.  I expect it will remain mass market.  However, I do expect it to have the smallest average ship size of the mass market adult focused  lines (HAL, Celebrity and Princess) and focus more on longer unique itineraries.  Where as Princess will go with larger average ship sizes of the three, with some longer routes than Celebrity, but less than HAL due to the ship size.  HAL will have a higher cost per day than Princess due to the ship size impact on economics.  The long unique routes will also be a higher cost due to the nature of the itineraries.  The restructuring of the CCL owned divisions should allow more variation as each line is a bit freer to execute their brand and the unique features of it.

[REOVA]

2 hours ago, St Pete Cruiser said:

A lot of Holland America's captains are now onboard Seabourne ships.  Those of us who liked the Prinsendam as well the S class ships would like to cruise on Seabourne but can't or won't pay the premium.  

I would love for a HAL/Seabourn sale (debt swap) to Saudis and away fro CCL. CCL has lost interest in both brands. Keep the small ships and plenty of money to build new small ships. Focus on 2 levels of passenger Luxury or Mass/Premium with good food, good entertainment and exotic enrichment programs and itineraries. They would fare well. Still demand for MS Amera (Prinsendam). 

[OlsSalt]

Can't be cost-efficient when similar cruise lines within the CCL family compete with each other. 

 

The "covid" downtime debt was/is staggering. There is no bailout for revenues lost and massive expenses incurred during that unexpected time frame - only probably very sad, hard-nosed decisions ahead for all of CCL. 

[HappyInVan]

16 minutes ago, REOVA said:

I would love for a HAL/Seabourn sale (debt swap) to Saudis and away fro CCL. CCL has lost interest in both brands. Keep the small ships and plenty of money to build new small ships. Focus on 2 levels of passenger Luxury or Mass/Premium with good food, good entertainment and exotic enrichment programs and itineraries. They would fare well. 

 

+1

 

Otherwise, it makes no sense to put Seabourn under a declining HAL. Sale of a major division would dramatically improve their bottom line, in these days of industry over-capacity.

[Mary229]

7 hours ago, ldtr said:

EBR-1 located in Idaho at Argonne West generated enough power in 1951 to light 4 light bulbs.  However, CP-3 at Argonne outside of Chicago was the first to light a Christmas tree.  My office was in a building about 500 feet away from CP-3 (Energy and Environmental Systems Division), though many years after it was deactivated.  CP-5 was also close by.

In 2016 Idaho was still operating.  Interesting afternoon 

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

12 hours ago, TiogaCruiser said:

So does this result in less upper management, or more?🤔

That is the $1000 ?

[Sir PMP]

10 hours ago, St Pete Cruiser said:

A lot of Holland America's captains are now onboard Seabourne ships.  Those of us who liked the Prinsendam as well the S class ships would like to cruise on Seabourne but can't or won't pay the premium.  

I will and I am.