For those who wonder why Celebrity has cut back on Hawaii cruises...

[florisdekort]

NCL just announced a $60 million loss for Q1, and blames it all on its Hawaii operation. And as previously reported, they are therefore pulling one of their three ships out of the Hawaii market.

 

There simply seems to be over-capacity in the Hawaii market... Celebrity can make more money elsewhere.

 

Cheers -

Floris

[Moeve]

The problem is it had NOTHING to do with the Desination Hawaii! BUT absolutely everything to do with their choice to use ships under US flag with US crew and expecting them to provide the same service their international crews do... long hours, etc. It is an experiment that simply didn't work but since it was the "baby" of NCLs current Boss he is just not fessing up to being wrong.

 

Now the reason the others are leaving has to do with NCL - NCLA was getting first prioity for ALL ports in Hawaii since most of NCLA crew comes from Hawaii and the State of Hawaii was giving NCLA a leg up on port for the employment... In effect if X for example had booked a dock and NCLA changed its mind or brought in a new ship for that port on the same day X simply lost its berth and these are very scarce in Hawaii anyway. End of the game was X had to change Itins so often lots of folks including ourselves cancelled our Hawaii cruise and cruised another destination.

[sasset]

Princess has remained very active in the Hawaii itineraries.

[C 2 C]

We've booked two Mercury Hawaii cruises at great prices for Oct & Nov Next year.... but then Mercury no longer does the Mexican Riviera.

We like the sea days without having to fly to Europe.

[atb]

We are booked for the Summitt in Oct 2007. :D We are flying from the East to the West Coast. Not willing to fly to Hawaii. :( If we were - - We would book another type of trip - not NCL.

We book for the ship as much as the itinerary. And :confused: we are not willing to fly from the East to the West anymore. We have 1 more scheduled for 2008, but after that - we will be sailing from whatever East Coast ports are operating in 2009.

[flag fan]

There were certainly growing pains with the NCLA American crews, but I think it was over-capacity that really caused the problem that led NCL to move the Pride of Hawaii from Hawaii to the Mediterranean (next year, as the Norwegian Jade). The Mediterranean is a hot market and Hawaii had more supply (cabins) than demand.

[leoandhugh]

And RCI continues to have round trip Hawaii scheduled from both San Diego and LA. We are on Serenade OTS in October this year for a 15night round trip.:)

[BobN]

We are in the process of booking the 10/26 summit trip now. This will be our 6th cruise on the Summit and she is one of our favorite ships, we did the Hawaii trip in April, 2006 and we are looking foward to repeating it.

[Kapricorn]

We've booked two Mercury Hawaii cruises at great prices for Oct & Nov Next year.... but then Mercury no longer does the Mexican Riviera.

We like the sea days without having to fly to Europe.

 

I also booked two Mercury Hawaii cruises for the winter of 2008/09, just because Mercury no longer does the Mexican Riviera (which I have enjoyed six times on her). The ship is a nice destination, away from our Canadian winters, and on a couple of her cruises I never once stepped ashore in Mexico. I just relax at the poolside in the sun with a good book and a couple of icy cold beers.

 

I love sea days! I'm not a touristy person, running around on tours or shopping for trinkets. Been there, done that ...

 

Donald.

[Maraprince]

As was said earlier, the NCLA "experience" with lower staffing levels, poorly trained staff, poor level of service (not delivering luggage until 8PM or later on boarding day, passengers finding unclean bed linen and other debris in their cabins upon boarding, only coming once a day make up the room and give new towels and no turn down service, etc.), older ships not built for "free style", A/C problems, etc. was not at the same as other cruise lines. This was the real story. They didn't have a good product but were first to offer it and an all American crew. NCLA tried to cash in while cutting corners thinking passengers would accept lower standards and just be happy to be sailing to Hawaii disregarding the shipboard experience. With no casino on board, they had to make up the loss in revenue in other ways. They even cut out the local luau provider and sold their own. NCL tried to play with the "big" guys and got burnt. Now they have set their sights on Europe. Let's see what will go wrong here!

 

 

MARAPRINCE

[Brad1185]

NCLs parent company Star cruises lost an additional $70 million in the first 3 months of 07. $130 million loss combined.

[cruisin'cats]

My husband and I are booked on SUMMIT for the LA to HI and back RT cruise over the end of the year holidays and I'm looking forward to relaxing at sea and enjoying meeting friends who live in Kona (we met on the Paul Gauguin in March of this year). Why did we book this cruise? Between the vouchers from Celebrity to make up for the mess with the Millennium over last New Year's eve cruise--engine issues (AGAIN!) and a near riot from some of the pax (not us--we'd pay for extra days at sea instead of seeing the DR and Nassau again) plus shipboard credit for various other reasons on top of our agent's shipboard credit so that we're basically going as a buy one get one half off kind of deal. Can't complain. Hawaii is the last of the 50 states that my husband has to set foot in to have been to all fifty.

 

Would I have done this on NCL? H3LL NO! I heard horror stories from several people whom I know well enough to trust their opinions and who all went on separate cruises around HI on NCL. There was enough commonality between their complaints to see a pattern that was going to damage any cruiseline's bottom line.

[Rev22:17]

Floris,

 

NCL just announced a $60 million loss for Q1, and blames it all on its Hawaii operation. And as previously reported, they are therefore pulling one of their three ships out of the Hawaii market.

 

There simply seems to be over-capacity in the Hawaii market... Celebrity can make more money elsewhere.

 

I honestly doubt that Celebrity's "Hawai'i" itineraries (fourteen nights, round trip from either Los Angeles or San Diego) were in direct competition with the "NCL America" itineraries (seven nights within the islands). Those of us who booked the fourteen nighters were not about to settle for seven nighers and the folks who are taking the seven nighters are not about to ride the ship across the Pacific.

 

To the extent that there are cutbacks, it's simply a question of Celebrity having limited resources with the smallest fleet of any major cruise line (only seven ships, three of which are in the Pacific and four of which are in the Atlantic) and the need to deploy those resources where they will generate the most revenue. For Celebrity's Pacific Fleet, that's currently Australia & New Zealand (GTS Millennium after she swaps places with GTS Summit) and South America (GTS Infinity), leaving MV Mercury to pick up the Hawai'i, Panama Canal, and Mexican Riviera destinations. The "crunch" will ease over the next four years as the ships of the Solstice class join the fleet.

 

Norm.

[Kathie44]

I don't know about changes with Infinity or Summit, but after next winter Millenium will be swapping places with MERCURY to Aust/NZ. (Unless there has been a drastic change in ships. :eek:) We are booked on the Mercury's 1/20/08 cruise from Sydney to Aukland.

Mercury will not be doing the MR except as part of its Panama Canal cruises.

We lucked out last year by booking the 1/29/07 MR cruise, not knowing it was Mercury's last season for the MR. Glad we are taking Mercury again on X's first Aust/NZ season because the Millie's prices will be higher.