| From: Jon Koplik | 8/14/2018 9:37:10 PM | | | | | | WSJ -- The Debate Over Cruise Vacations: Wonderful or Torturous ? .................................
Travel
Off Duty Travel
Love / Hate Relationship
Aug. 14, 2018
The Debate Over Cruise Vacations: Wonderful or Torturous?
High-seas holidays have as many boosters as they do detractors. Two savvy travelers debate the pros and cons
By Mark Childress, William Sertl and Sara Tucker
Why We Love Them
I am a Travel Loner. When the crowd heads off to see the sunset, I go east. Once, before a Costa Rican volcano tour even reached the volcano, I paid a taxista $100 to take me back to the capital, far from the chatty tourists on the bus.
I spent a lot of years dragging my suitcase up those long stairways to European train platforms because I thought cruises were stupid. I was entirely sure that only old folks and sheep go on cruises. Who wants to board a gigantic floating condominium? Who would choose to be trapped inside a hotel that wallows in the waves? Then we have “The Poseidon Adventure” factor: I can swim, but so could Shelley Winters! And we all saw the pictures of that Italian cruise liner beached on its side on the rocks -- who wants a holiday like that one?
Then, an incredibly cheap deal on a cruise from Valparaiso, Chile, to Boston lured me in. Seventeen days, through the Panama Canal. How else would I ever get a chance to visit the remote western coast of South America? I jumped.
Aboard the ship, I unpacked. Once. (Unpacking just once is the first great thing about cruising, I’ve come to realize.) I put my socks in the drawer, stowed the suitcase, and brought my room along with me on a journey of 4,790 nautical miles, 12 ports-of-call. I had a tiny bathroom, a desk, a balcony about the size of a lounge chair. A rectangle of blue Pacific to call my own. A vacation, to me, is best spent reading long books and not wearing a watch. There’s no better place to do that than a lounge chair with the ocean rolling by at 15 knots. (Knots are miles per hour plus the glamour of the open sea.)
What about the herd of sheep? Turned out to be a wildly eclectic mix of European bargain hunters, South American wanderers, North American party animals, couples young and old, families, large friend-and-family groups -- and I learned the second great thing about cruising. You can find your people, or no people at all. You can slip through the crowd unnoticed with your Proust and your tea, or party the night away with 20 hedonists who won’t be going to yoga at dawn. If you choose the party option, you are never farther from your room than an elevator ride, and you won’t meet law enforcement on the way.
No other mode of transportation allows time to read David McCullough’s “The Path Between the Seas” as you approach the Panama Canal, then to watch the canal’s spectacular machinery from the deck while an expert narrates everything over the ship’s PA in satisfying detail. Ocean travel is all about time. And a day aboard ship can seem endless, in the nicest possible way. The horizon, like the vacation, goes on forever.
-- Mark Childress
Why We Hate Them
In the glory days of oceanliners, your fellow passengers might have been actresses, CEOs, spies or card sharks. The glamour was self-perpetuating. Then magazine ads for Cunard began promising a bit desperately that “getting there is half the fun.” The jet age was dawning, and steamship companies knew how things were going to end: Travel-hungry Americans would opt to fly to Europe to spend as much time there as their vacations allowed, foregoing the sheer pleasure of a trans-Atlantic crossing. But even without the threat of jets, a cloud hung over the liners as they steamed across the Atlantic, the legacy of the Titanic.
As a kid in 1956, I was mesmerized by TV coverage of the sinking of the Andrea Doria off Cape Cod on its way to New York. While my parents read danger on the screen, all I could see was adventure -- scary, sure, but also thrilling. As I grew up, that changed. “Ship” came to mean “cruise.” While it was great to be on the water, no cruise ever met my expectations. The only people I met onboard were unglamorous strangers who refused to remain strangers forever.
Cruise fans insist there’s a lot to do onboard, but if I wanted to see a Broadway show, I’d stay in New York. If I wanted to learn Spanish (or Urdu or Mandarin), I’d stay in New York. Should I decide to climb a wall, what better place to struggle upward than my walk-up apartment in New York?
What about those small luxury cruise ships, full of like-minded folks, headed far up a lazy river? Sounds good, but I have a problem with them too. I am by nature an Existentialist. I need chores -- a rock to roll up the hill every day -- to give my meaningless life meaning. I ride my bike to the grocery store, the post office, the farm-stand. When cycling just for the sake of cycling, with no destination in mind, I end up asking myself the same question I do on a cruise: “Why am I doing this?”
I’ll admit to taking one cruise -- from Lisbon to London -- that I thoroughly enjoyed in spite of myself. On the way to the Thames, we traveled up the Gironde Estuary to Bordeaux and up the Seine as far as Rouen. I was enchanted as rural France rolled slowly by, so close I could almost milk a cow. For the grand finale, Tower Bridge triumphantly opened to welcome us. Passengers stood on deck cheering, as jubilant as a conquering army. We could see the HMS Belfast, a warship-cum-tourist-attraction from World War II that is permanently moored by the bridge. We had tied up right beside her. I went back to my stateroom to grab my luggage. To my surprise, when I opened the door, no expanse of ocean greeted me through the window. Instead, I looked across the cabin at huge antiaircraft guns from the Belfast, aimed straight at my balcony. I threw up my hands in mock surrender and cried: “I confess. I loved it. Let me go, and I’ll never do it again.”
-- William Sertl
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| From: Jon Koplik | 9/4/2018 11:34:28 PM | | | | | | WSJ -- Change in maritime regulations boosts demand for liquefied natural gas .....................
Aug. 23, 2018
The New Gas Market: Shipowners Needing Cleaner Fuel
Change in maritime regulations boosts demand for liquefied natural gas
By Paul Garvey
The global shipping industry could become a new market for liquefied natural gas, thanks to a drastic change in maritime law that aims to curb air pollution.
Major cruise liners and the world’s biggest freight companies have ordered 125 new LNG-powered vessels and another 119 are already in operation, according to current figures from maritime consultancy DNV GL. That is partly because new regulations taking effect in 2020 will reduce the maximum amount of sulfur permitted in the oil used by ships from 3.5% to 0.5%.
LNG is gas that is super-cooled until it turns into liquid. While LNG use as a shipping fuel is still too small to affect its prices, the projected uptake is supporting the outlook of companies like Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A 0.05% PLC that LNG demand will continue to grow.
The shipping industry currently consumes about 5 million barrels a day of oil, and most of the industry is expected to meet the new obligations by either switching to more expensive low-sulfur fuels or installing ”scrubbers” that clean sulfur out of exhaust fumes.
But the rule changes will make LNG a cost-competitive option for shipping fuel. Analysts say that just converting 5% of the global fleet to run on LNG would create a new market equivalent to the fifth-largest in the world, behind major consumers Japan, China, Korea and India.
Carnival Corp.’s CCL -0.47% AIDAnova is currently under construction at a shipyard in Papenburg, Germany. When the 1,106-foot vessel launches later this year, it will be the first cruise ship fully powered by LNG. Carnival, the world’s largest cruise company, plans to take delivery of 11 new LNG-powered ships between now and 2025.
Cruise passengers will be able to enjoy the difference of journeying under LNG power, Steve Hill, a vice president at Shell, said in an interview earlier this year.
“If your customer proposition is to have people lying on the deck and enjoying the sun, it’s much nicer to not have pollution from fuel oil being spread all over them all day,” he said.
Carnival isn’t alone: Swiss-based MSC Cruises said in June it ordered what will be its fifth LNG-powered vessel. Royal Caribbean also said this year that it has two LNG-powered cruise liners on order.
In freight, Siem Industries is building LNG-fueled car carriers for Volkswagen AG . France’s CMA CGM SA has ordered nine new ultra-large LNG-powered container ships and has struck a 10-year LNG supply deal with French oil and gas producer Total. Teekay Corp. , one of the biggest shipowners, and Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company, also have LNG vessels in order.
LNG does faces challenges in the maritime industry. Credit Suisse oil and gas analyst Saul Kavonic said many shipping companies would meet the emissions rules by fitting their vessels with scrubbers. Carnival, for example, will use scrubbers on 69 of its 103 ships.
“Only a very small percentage of the international shipping fleet will adopt LNG as a fuel over the next five years,” Mr. Kavonic said.
The lack of ”bunkering” -- the infrastructure for storing and refueling LNG -- is likely the biggest hurdle. LNG requires dedicated facilities to store the fuel at the temperatures needed to maintain its liquid form and load it onto vessels.
LNG fuel tanks also take up almost twice as much space as their oil equivalents, which would impact the design of new vessels. Ships powered by LNG are also more expensive than traditional vessels. Introducing LNG to a fleet requires retraining of engineers and crews.
Shipping companies are also used to working in the highly liquid oil market, where supply is easy to source and deep futures and hedging markets help manage their exposure. In contrast, until recently LNG has been dominated by decades-long contracts and its futures market is still nascent.
But short-term, more flexible LNG sales are becoming more common. Producers are increasingly willing to trade single LNG cargoes. The percentage of LNG cargoes sold on the spot market has grown from just over 10% in 2010 to almost 25% in 2017, according to Shell.
Tom Strang, who has been leading Carnival’s LNG strategy, said the nature of the LNG market requires longer-term contracting and planning.
Still, LNG producers are eyeing the industry as a promising new source of demand. Shell’s Mr. Hill said the energy giant is betting LNG will grow at a faster pace than oil. Shell is working with Carnival to source LNG and developing bunkering facilities for its cruise ships.
“Historically LNG has struggled to compete with heavy fuel oil which is cheap,” said Mr. Hill. “But in this new world, where the costs of the alternatives are a lot more expensive, LNG will be a lot more competitive. We’re starting to see a lot of interest and a lot of activity.”
Write to Paul Garvey at paul.garvey@wsj.com
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| From: Jon Koplik | 11/15/2019 5:56:12 PM | | | | | | WSJ obituary / Edwin Stephan / Founder of Royal Caribbean ..........................
Nov. 14, 2019
Edwin Stephan Sold Sea Cruises to Middle-Class America
Founder of Royal Caribbean persuaded Norwegian shipowners to finance his vision
By James R. Hagerty
He grew up far from the sea, in Wisconsin, didn’t particularly like to travel and was prone to seasickness. Yet Edwin Stephan, who died Nov. 8 at age 87, was among the first entrepreneurs to see the vast potential for Miami as a base for cruises in the Bahamas and Caribbean.
Founding what is now Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. in 1969, he joined two other outsiders -- Knut Kloster of Norway and Ted Arison, an Israeli -- in persuading middle-class Americans that cruises weren’t just for the idle rich, or the “overfed and nearly dead,” as one of Mr. Stephan’s aides put it. Serving a mass market that didn’t exist in the 1960s, Royal Caribbean is now the world’s second-largest cruise operator, after Carnival Corp. , founded by Mr. Arison. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., founded by Mr. Kloster, is third.
World-wide, cruise lines carried about 28.5 million passengers last year. About 40% of those passengers were on Caribbean, Bermuda or Bahamas voyages.
Mr. Stephan, the shy son of an insurance salesman, had wavy hair and movie-star looks when he arrived in Miami Beach in 1954. He was looking for a bit of peace and warmth after a hitch in the U.S. Army, fighting in the Korean War and earning two bronze stars.
Once his money ran out, he went to a hotel school and worked as a bell captain in the Casablanca Hotel in Miami Beach. He later gained management experience at the Biscayne Terrace Hotel in downtown Miami. By 1965, he was general manager of a tiny cruise operator, Yarmouth Cruise Lines, operator of the Yarmouth Castle, a 38-year-old steamship partly made of wood.
Around 12:45 a.m. on Nov. 13, 1965, the Yarmouth Castle caught fire en route to the Bahamas. Most of the approximately 550 passengers and crew members were rescued before the ship sank, but 90 died. Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about it.
youtube.com
In Miami, Mr. Stephan, then 33 years old, was besieged by questions from reporters and Coast Guard investigators. “The airlines would be set up for something like this,” the Miami News quoted him as saying several days later, “but for a cruise liner to catch fire and sink -- this was a shocker.” A Coast Guard report in February 1966 criticized officers of the ship for failing to sound a general alarm and take firm action in organizing the crew to isolate the fire.
Mr. Stephan moved on, working with a partner to set up Commodore Cruise Line before leaving to found Royal Caribbean. Haunted by the Yarmouth Castle disaster, Mr. Stephan believed a cruise line should have new ships, designed for cruising in warm waters and built for safety.
In the cruise business of the 1960s, “nobody really had new ships,” he recalled later. He couldn’t afford them, but a ship broker introduced him to Sigurd Skaugen, who headed I.M. Skaugen & Co., a Norwegian shipowner. Mr. Skaugen agreed to provide funding for the first of several cruise ships to be delivered to Royal Caribbean in the early 1970s by a Finnish shipyard. As the cost of building ships grew, two more partners -- Anders Wilhelmsen & Co. and Gotaas-Larsen Shipping Corp. -- invested in the cruise line.
Early seven-day cruises on Royal Caribbean cost as little as $368 a person. Onboard entertainers included the comedian Henny Youngman and the opera singer Patrice Munsel. “It was sort of a Catskills at sea,” said Rod McLeod, who headed marketing. To bring in more customers, Mr. Stephan organized charter flights from California.
There was glamour: Ingrid Bergman christened the line’s second ship, the Nordic Prince.
And romantic comedy: “The Love Boat,” a TV series introduced in 1977, spurred interest in cruising. In the late 1970s, Royal Caribbean cruises were selling out so fast that the line expanded two of its ships by having them cut in half so that a new middle section could be inserted, increasing capacity to more than 1,000 from about 700.
Viking Crown lounges, wrapped around the ships’ funnels, provided 360-degree sea views and spurred drink sales. Mr. Stephan, who designed the lounges, said he got the idea from Seattle’s Space Needle.
The ships kept getting bigger. Royal’s Sovereign of the Seas, launched in 1988, could carry 2,690 passengers and had two swimming pools and a five-story atrium. Today the company’s ships can carry as many as 6,680 passengers each.
Carnival tried to take over Royal Caribbean in 1988 but was thwarted when Anders Wilhelmsen and the Pritzker family bought out other investors and secured control. Royal Caribbean went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993.
Edwin William Stephan Jr. , known as Ed, was born Dec. 15, 1931, in Madison, Wis. He studied mathematics, accounting and economics at the University of Wisconsin but didn’t finish his degree before being drafted into the Army.
At Royal Caribbean, he held various titles, including chief executive and vice chairman. When he retired in 2003, there was little fanfare. “It’s about time,” he told the Miami Herald. “I’m happy to see the company still in existence.”
Mr. Stephan was married to the former Helen Morin, his onetime secretary. She survives him, as do four children and three grandchildren. He enjoyed demonstrating his hook shot with a basketball and was a dedicated runner. One of his goals was to compete in a marathon at age 90.
He kept business trips as short as possible. In the 1970s, he flew to a board meeting in Oslo and insisted on boarding his return flight the same day.
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
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| From: Jon Koplik | 12/18/2019 1:40:06 PM | | | | | | WSJ -- Trick to Making a 180,000-Ton Carnival Cruise Ship Feel Cozy ...................
Travel
The Middle Seat
Dec. 18, 2019
The Trick to Making a 180,000-Ton Carnival Cruise Ship Feel Cozy
The company is re-imagining small and large spaces while building its largest ship ever, the Mardi Gras, which can hold 6,641 people
How to Fit More Than 6,000 Guests Onto a Ship and Not Feel Cramped
Cruise ships are getting larger and the activities on board more extreme. WSJ’s Scott McCartney visits a shipyard in Finland to see how the cruise operator Carnival is able to pack so much on a ship -- including a roller coaster -- and still have it float.
By Scott McCartney
Where does replacing a nightstand with a small tray for phones give you a shower door instead of a clumsy curtain that sticks to you? On a cruise ship.
Cruise ships are getting bigger and more popular. Yet even with their massive size, every little bit of space counts, especially in small cabins. Sometimes saving inches bedside allows for a significant bathroom upgrade.
Cramming in as many people as possible -- with at least a modicum of comfort -- is the major challenge of travel, whether on planes, trains, hotels or ships. Individual space is on the decline as travel companies try to boost profitability. Think of the shrunken airplane bathroom.
Cruise ships, which now cost upward of $1 billion to build, present a significant challenge: Repeat customers and social media reviews are crucial to the business. So comfort for the masses actually matters, and it drives ship design.
Carnival, the largest cruise company, is building its largest ship, a 180,000-ton floating town three football fields long with 18 decks and even the first roller coaster at sea. The Mardi Gras, which will sail late in 2020, will carry a maximum 6,641 passengers in 2,641 cabins.
“It’s not really packing more in. We are already dense,” says Ben Clement, Carnival Cruise Line’s senior vice president for new builds, ship refurbishment and product innovation.
With ships, like planes, bigger size not only allows more features but also brings more restrictions. The size of large rooms or cabin layout on a ship is limited by requirements for fire doors, for example. More weight means it takes more fuel to move, and fuel represents one of the biggest costs. A big ship still has to be fast enough to complete voyages on time.
In addition, a vessel that’s too large can’t sail under some bridges or use certain ports. The Mardi Gras, for example, will be too big for its namesake port, New Orleans.
“You cannot put a ship in a copy machine and press size two,” Mr. Clement says. “If you double the size of the ship, you cannot double the size of the entertainment, of the dining room.”
Figuring out how to make a bigger area feel small and small spaces feel big are the challenge of many travel companies. Carnival let me explore Mardi Gras in the shipyard where, unfinished, she reveals some of the secrets of putting 6,000 customers on a single boat and not making it feel crowded.
Some spaces become multi-functional. Most big cruise ships have a large atrium in the middle of the ship, a public square to add a feeling of openness and grandeur.
With Mardi Gras, Carnival decided to move the atrium to one side, creating a first-ever three-story glass wall with ocean views. At night, the atrium transforms into a show lounge for 600 to 800 people, featuring everything from acrobats walking on the glass wall with ceiling-mounted rigging to stand-up comedians and musicians. Screens can descend from the ceiling and rise from the floor to turn the atrium into a giant Super Bowl watch party. Benches and chairs, all fixed to the floor per regulation, have been designed for double duty.
The strategy is to make the atrium a more useful space day and night to help disperse passengers throughout the ship. But the placement, crucial for the ocean views that Carnival hopes will make it a popular resting place during the day, became an engineering challenge.
“It’s a rather large hole in the side of the ship,” says Katja Lankinen, the principal engineer on the Mardi Gras project for Meyer Turku, the Finnish shipbuilder. The open space meant one side of the ship would be heavier than the other -- that’s why atriums have traditionally been put in the center of the ship. And the three-story glass wall meant little structural support in a crucial area.
The solution: lighter insulation and other weight-saving moves on one side of the ship, and strengthened pillars in walls and horizontal girders in floors to compensate for the glass wall.
Standing in a long line waiting for food would only cement that overcrowded feeling. To disperse hungry passengers, Carnival is strategically placing restaurants in six different neighborhoods-themed zones where it hopes people will not only go to eat but linger. That’s in addition to the big, traditional seated dining room.
The French Quarter, for example, will have an Emeril Lagasse bistro as well as a jazz club, street entertainers, a fortuneteller and a cooking school. It will be packed into two decks, with a portion of the upper deck cut out so you’ll see people either above you or below you.
“It’s more open, yet you get twice as many things in,” says Brett Vitols, Carnival’s director of new builds.
Another neighborhood will have a brewery and barbecue restaurant. The brewery makes beer on board, a source of fascination for some passengers, but doesn’t take up much space.
The growth rate for the cruise industry tops just about anything in the travel world. Last year, 28.5 million people took a cruise, nearly 7% more than in 2017, according to the Cruise Lines International Association. The growth rate in North America was 9%.
A total of 19 new ocean ships are expected to sail in 2020. CLIA says the global passenger count should reach 32 million.
Some of the higher passenger numbers come with the increasing popularity of shorter cruises -- three- and four-day escapes. And some has come by filling bigger boats. Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas, launched last year, is the largest in the world at 228,000 tons, more than 20% bigger than Mardi Gras, with 118 more cabins.
Mardi Gras will represent a significant step up for Carnival, one-third bigger than Carnival’s current largest ship, Panorama, launched earlier this month out of Long Beach, Calif. The passenger capacity will be 50% larger, 6,000 compared with 4,000. (Its total capacity is 8,376, including 1,700 crew members.)
Carnival Corp. , the Miami-based parent of Carnival, Princess, Cunard, Costa, Holland America, Seabourn and other cruise lines, won’t say how much Mardi Gras will cost to build. The company does say when Mardi Gras opened for booking, cabins were reserved for the initial sailings seven times faster than Carnival’s last new class of ships, which includes Panorama.
Mardi Gras will float for the first time at the end of next month. The steel is all in place and workers are installing heating and air-conditioning ductwork and electrical wiring. Cabins built in a nearby factory are being hoisted onboard intact, slid in through the side of the ship.
Those cabins got their own Marie Kondo-type redesign. An English design firm worked to make them feel more spacious in the same square footage.
Bathrooms grew, largely a result of the bedside table change to trays mounted on the wall. Instead of a coffee table in front of the couch, an Ikea-type ottoman is used. The padded top comes off to reveal additional storage space, and flips over if you want a flat tabletop.
Right angles were largely eliminated -- a wall enclosing the bathroom is curved to give a more open feeling. Lighting was redesigned, with large, round lamps instead of small spotlights. The closet has a pullout shoe rack and more storage space. It’s Container Store at sea.
“Everything we have,” Carnival’s Mr. Vitols says, “we try to use efficiently.”
Write to Scott McCartney at middleseat@wsj.com
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| From: Jon Koplik | 2/6/2020 1:41:16 AM | | | | | | WSJ -- Coronavirus Cruise Passengers Face Infection Worries, Blown Travel Plans and Boredom
Feb. 5, 2020
7:24 am ET
Coronavirus Cruise Passengers Face Infection Worries, Blown Travel Plans and Boredom
About 3,700 passengers and crew are on board, some in windowless cabins
The Diamond Princess, off the shore of Yokohama, south of Tokyo, is under two-week lockdown after a passenger tested positive for coronavirus. Photo: Hiroko Harima/kyodo/associated Press
By Alastair Gale, Suryatapa Bhattacharya and Miho Inada
TOKYO -- As the 116,000-ton cruise liner Diamond Princess started chugging toward Yokohama earlier this week, passengers savored the last few days of an Asian journey at buffet restaurants, theaters and the ship’s nightclub, which is called Skywalkers.
Then came the two-week lockdown.
An 80-year-old man who left the vessel in Hong Kong earlier in the trip had tested positive for the novel coronavirus that has killed around 500 people and infected more than 24,000 others around the world. Japanese authorities quarantined the ship and found 10 other people with the virus who were sent to hospitals back on land.
The rest now face two more weeks holed up on the ship—the quarantine period for the virus—worrying about infection and scrambled travel plans, as well as battling boredom. About 3,700 passengers and crew are on board, some in windowless cabins.
Passengers were startled from their slumber at around 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday by a broadcast telling them to remain in their rooms. Later, the captain announced: “The ship is under quarantine and it is expected to last at least 14 days.” Crew members in protective medical gear fanned out to wipe doorknobs and other surfaces clean with disinfectant.
Life on a Cruise Ship Struck by the Coronavirus
About 3,700 passengers and crew on a cruise ship docked in Japan are being quarantined on the vessel after 10 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus. A passenger talked about his time aboard the Diamond Princess. Photo: Behrouz Mehri/Getty Images
Rebecca Frasure, a 35-year-old passenger from Forest Grove, Ore., said her husband noticed some movement in the hall when someone tried to get a bucket of ice. The passenger was asked by a crew member to return to his room and told that ice would be delivered.
Mrs. Frasure said she and her husband are worried about their prescription drugs running out before they are released from quarantine. They hope to talk to their doctors in the U.S. about how to stretch out supplies.
“We both brought just enough to see us through,” said Mrs. Frasure. In an announcement on the ship later Wednesday, the crew said they would collect requests from passengers for prescription medication.
A similar scene is also playing out in Hong Kong. About 3,600 passengers and crew on a cruise ship haven’t been allowed to disembark in the city as planned on Wednesday pending health checks, a city official said, after eight passengers who took a previous trip on the ship were confirmed to have the virus.
Tammy Smith, a 73-year-old retired elementary school principal from Southern California, aboard the Diamond Princess. Photo: Provided by Tammy Smith
The novel coronavirus threatens to deal a blow to the cruise industry, which attracts travelers across Asia, the center of the viral outbreak. Princess Cruises, the operator of the Diamond Princess, said it has canceled two other cruises from Japan, while Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. said on Tuesday it would cancel eight cruises out of China.
Food was an immediate concern among passengers on the Diamond Princess as the restaurants were closed and crew members delivered meals to each cabin. Tammy Smith, a 73-year-old retired elementary school principal from Southern California, said she was served a breakfast of yogurt and fruit after 1 p.m. on Wednesday, followed by a turkey sandwich for lunch about an hour later.
Princess Cruises, in a statement, said it was working to keep all guests comfortable and was bringing supplies onboard. The ship was scheduled to arrive in Yokohama on Thursday morning after a detour out to sea to dump wastewater.
Mrs. Smith has had to cancel a tour of Tokyo and Kyoto and her flights to the U.S. “We can’t make plans now until we know more about when we will get off the ship,” she said. She is spending her time texting with family and friends, watching movies and talking with her roommate.
“Korona,” who is the unofficial quarantine mascot aboard the Diamond Princess, according to passenger Tammy Smith. Photo: Provided by Tammy Smith
British passenger David Abel, who is traveling on the cruise with his wife for their 50th wedding anniversary, took to Facebook to publish a series of videos about his experience. “The meals have completely changed. We’re definitely not on a luxury cruise now,” he said in one of his posts.
Adding to the uncertainty, only 31 test results for 273 passengers feared to have the virus because of symptoms such as fever have so far become available, meaning there could be additional cases on the ship. Of the 10 already people confirmed to have the virus who were brought to shore for treatment, nine are passengers -- two Australian, three Japanese, three from Hong Kong and one from the U.S. -- and one is a Filipino crew member, according to Princess Cruises.
Officials on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, nine passengers and one crew member have been confirmed as having the virus. Photo: handout/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
The first passenger to contract the virus left the cruise ship on Jan. 25. When the ship arrived in Okinawa in southern Japan on Feb. 1, several passengers were found to have a fever but none said they had been to Wuhan, nor had they had contact with people from the central Chinese city, and the cruise was allowed to continue on to Yokohama. On Feb. 2, the captain of the ship was told that the first passenger had been confirmed to have the virus. The ship was put under quarantine on Feb. 3.
The ship published an entertainment guide for passengers on Wednesday as it had for other days during the cruise, including an afternoon line dancing class and karaoke session. But socializing with other passengers is now out of the question.
Mrs. Smith says she and her roommate have decorated a yellow rubber duck with a surgical mask similar to those worn by people concerned about contracting the virus and have named it “Korona.”
“This is our quarantine mascot,” she said.
-- Joyu Wang in Hong Kong contributed to this article.
Write to Alastair Gale at alastair.gale@wsj.com, Suryatapa Bhattacharya at Suryatapa.Bhattacharya@wsj.com and Miho Inada at miho.inada@wsj.com
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| From: zax | 3/11/2020 8:19:38 PM | | | | | | Rating Action: Moody's downgrades Carnival's senior unsecured rating to Baa1, ratings are on review for downgrade
moodys.com
11 Mar 2020
New York, March 11, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service, ("Moody's") downgraded the senior unsecured rating, and senior secured revenue bond ratings of Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc (together, "Carnival") to Baa1 from A3. At the same time, Moody's placed the company's ratings, including its Prime-2 short-term rating for commercial paper on review for further downgrade.
"The downgrade reflects Moody's expectation that soft booking trends and increased cancellations related to the global spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) will significantly impact Carnival's earnings in 2020, resulting in metrics outside of levels appropriate for a single A rating," stated Pete Trombetta, Moody's lodging and cruise analyst. "Following earnings pressure in the second half of 2019 due to the ban on travel to Cuba and European pricing pressure, Carnival entered 2020 with metrics that were slightly within the range for an A3 long-term credit rating with minimal cushion to absorb a shock such as COVID-19," added Trombetta. While the cruise industry has seen past cyclical downturns including recession and terrorist attacks, Moody's believes that the COVID-19 coronavirus will more significantly pressure the cruise companies' earnings, cash flow, and liquidity as compared to previous cycles.
The cruise industry has been one of the sectors most visibly impacted by the spread of COVID-19, with quarantined ships due to confirmed cases of infected passengers prominent in global media coverage that could cause some customers, especially first time cruisers and older passengers, to pull back from cruising altogether. With COVID-19 cases increasing exponentially and global countermeasures becoming increasingly severe and restrictive, Moody's sees scope for a significant drop in cruise passenger volumes and net yields in 2020 as well as the potential for a reduction in demand for cruises beyond 2020. The industry's seasonal peak in the third quarter of 2020 will be impacted, and as the virus continues to spread across North America over the coming months, we expect to see lower demand and pricing pressure into 2021 and possibly beyond. While cruise demand has proven to be resilient following previous challenges, the eventual return to a more normalized state is likely to take longer than in the past and could alter the trajectory of demand in the industry.
</snip> Read the rest here: moodys.com |
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| From: zax | 4/1/2020 5:53:18 PM | | | | | | Carnival's stock follows biggest-ever quarterly selloff with a 23% plunge
finance.yahoo.com
Shares of Carnival Corp. plunged 23% on heavy volume Wednesday, as cruise operator followed up its worst-ever quarterly performance with its biggest one-day drop in two weeks. Trading volume swelled to 84.9 million shares, already nearly double the full-day average of 42.8 million shares. On Wednesday, Carnival said it launched a $1.25 billion public offering of stock, and offerings of a total of $4.75 billion worth of notes. Carnival's stock had plummeted 74.1% in the first quarter, much worse than the previous record quarterly decline of 48.1% over the first quarter of 2000. Wednesday's selloff comes as part of a sharp selloff in the broader stock market, as President Trump's warning that a "very, very painful" two weeks lies ahead sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling 820 points, or 3.7%. Other cruise operators also took a beating, with shares of Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. shedding 14% and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. losing 9.2%. |
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| From: Jon Koplik | 5/24/2020 1:11:27 AM | | | | | | Bloomberg -- Cruises Are Coming Back. Here’s What They’ll Look Like ..................
May 22, 2020
Cruises Are Coming Back. Here’s What They’ll Look Like
Yes, cruising is returning -- as soon as June. But it'll sure look different.
By Fran Golden
While hotels across the world are struggling to keep the lights on, the cruise industry is already planning for initial trips to depart in several weeks. Amid the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, however, that will look considerably different from what regular cruisers have come to expect. Among other changes, pre-boarding health checks and masks will be in, and self-serve buffets will be out.
Perhaps most notable, the first itineraries won’t get you to a different country each day. Post-pandemic sailing will stay closer to home -- or at least, home port.
But first, given the early spread of Covid-19 among some ships’ passengers and crew, any line restarting cruises will have the daunting task of convincing customers that their health and safety will be sufficiently safeguarded.
Cleaner, Safer, Smaller Cruising
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently has a no-sail order for U.S. waters aimed at ships carrying more than 250 passengers and crew, in effect until at least until July 24. This means that smaller, boutique ship companies will get to blaze a trail ahead of the major players.
“The fact that we only sail on domestic rivers has definitely provided a greater opportunity to resume our operations in a responsible, safe, and timely manner,” says John Waggoner, the founder and chief executive officer of American Queen Steamboat Co., whose American Duchess carries only 166 passengers and 70 crew down the Mississippi.
In announcing the company’s plans to return in late June with “Antebellum South” itineraries, Waggoner detailed new safety protocols that include pre-boarding temperature checks, limited-capacity shore excursions, and an end to self-serve buffets. These changes are likely to be echoed by big-ship cruise companies that have yet to reveal their plans. But guests on American Queen’s riverboats will have an additional benefit: quick, guaranteed access to regional U.S. health-care systems. Passengers who become sick or feverish at any point during their trip will be removed from the ship and transferred to a local hospital, ensuring better medical care and minimizing risk for other passengers.
Competitor American Cruise Line is also looking for a June restart on the lower Mississippi and along the Columbia and Snake rivers out west -- initially operating two boats at 75% capacity with new health protocols in place, according to a spokeswoman. Those protocols include hourly sanitation rounds and the availability of full personal protective equipment, including face shields and gloves, for all passengers and crew. The company plans to sanitize all luggage before it comes on board, shift all dining away from buffets, and provide disposable covers for much-touched items such as TV remotes.
Cleaning standards reflect the most improvement, industry-wide. Colorado-based Avalon Waterways, which focuses on river sailings in Europe and Asia, is eyeing a September return; its ships have taken installation of electrostatic and UV disinfection systems that will help crews sanitize public spaces hourly. In Norway, Hurtigruten, whose ships also carry cars and cargo to remote coastal communities, says the line will add “hundreds of small and larger measures” to keep guests and crew safe and healthy -- including reduced guest capacity, to allow for social distancing, and strict hygiene protocols. (The specifics of those measures have yet to be disclosed.)
The first and only big ship company to lay out enhanced health measures thus far has been Hong Kong-based Genting Cruise Lines. In April, it announced that its Star Cruises and Dream Cruises ships, which may start sailing as soon as July, will have infrared fever screening and sanitizing fogging protocols, whereby entire rooms will be sprayed with disinfecting mists. In addition, guests aged 70 and older will be required to have a doctor’s certificate stating they are fit to travel. (Crystal Cruises, also part of Genting’s portfolio, may set sail as soon as August, though it has made no announcements regarding health procedures.)
New, Limited Routes
The U.S. focus on Mississippi River trips is part of a broader trend of regionalized, limited itineraries. In Europe, expect to see tried-and-true itineraries cut down to component parts. On the Danube, for instance, trips may stop short of Bratislava and Budapest, sticking to reopened Germany and Austria. Even some ocean voyages will focus on a single country, such as Norway, where they’ll spend more time at fewer ports or out at sea.
[ Note from Jon : "more time at fewer ports or out at sea" -- is this some kind of I.Q. test trick question ? ]
Across the board, the details of where people can sail and what they'll be able to do in the process are still being ironed out.
The focus on cruising in just one country isn’t entirely a response to border closures, though they present ongoing challenges. (In an extreme example, the Seychelles, off Africa’s east coast is banning cruises until 2022.) The first players returning to sea are reckoning with sparse air connections, which means cruisers eager to hop aboard need to be close enough to drive to departure points.
“It’s a lot like what happened immediately after 9/11,” says Andrew Coggins, a cruise expert and professor of management at the Lubin School of Business at Pace University. “Back then, ports of call suddenly became home ports because people were reluctant to fly.” In other words, cruise companies are diversifying departure points so more consumers can board a ship without having to board a plane.
Border closures present thornier issues for the industry’s giants, which helps explain why the most familiar names will take longer to return. A majority of these companies' ships are registered outside the U.S., which subjects them to a 100-year-old U.S. law called the Jones Act. Under those provisions, foreign-flagged ships must include at least one international port of call for every U.S.-based voyage. That means that destinations that cruisers may feel comfortable with, such as wide-open Alaska, will remain inaccessible, thanks to border closures in Canada, where such trips need to touch land.
The Big Unknowns
While its operations remain grounded, the world’s largest cruise brand, Carnival Cruise Line, has also been busy developing its own approach to America, planning to link three Florida and Texas home ports to any Caribbean destination it’s allowed to visit. But that’ will depend on the CDC lifting its cruising ban in July -- and Caribbean ports welcoming the vessels.
Both are questionable. Thus far, Carnival and its competitors, including Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line, have been mum regarding their onboard health plans -- or how they might handle future outbreaks. The CDC is expected to collect proposals from these companies about post-pandemic protocols before it issues new guidelines.
Pace University’s Coggins says the lines are probably watching as restaurants and movie theaters set the tone on best practices. Sit-down dining may replace buffets, and show productions may add matinees to allow for social distancing in shipboard theaters, he says. To deal with the possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 infections, “they may have to set up some kind of flying [medical] squad that can be airlifted to the ship,” Coggins adds.
Looking for “Normalcy” in Europe
In Europe, where border restrictions are starting to loosen, ocean sailings may resume with short itineraries no longer than a week, focused more on days at sea than visiting many ports. That’s according to Jens Skrede, managing director of Cruise Europe, a business-to-business network of ports and destinations.
Local and national authorities have yet to sign off on such plans. Even as international flights begin to connect the EU’s Schengen countries, ocean cruising remains at a standstill. Skrede predicts that Baltic and Scandinavian ports will be among the first to turn on the lights. “In general, the Northern part of our region seems to have the Covid-19 situation a bit more under control,” he says, adding that sailings may not reach a critical mass until 2021.
Norwegian line Hurtigruten hopes to be the exception; it seeks to open tourism in its home country by mid-June and in the Arctic before the end of summer. “Step by step, the pandemic is being brought under control,” said CEO Daniel Skjeldam in a prepared statement. “Gradually restarting operations within Norwegian waters are natural first steps towards a normalization for us.”
The same is true for German line A-Rosa, which is looking to re-launch Rhine and Danube itineraries in June. Boutique line CroisiEurope may also fire up its 22-passenger barges in mid-July, focusing first in France, its home country. Says Michael DaCosta, the company’s general manager for North America: “As the year goes on, we will be able to open up more ships. But that depends on border restrictions, local guidelines, and -- of course -- customer demand.”
© 2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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