Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

southkogs

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Another SHIP caught fire. This time Royal Caribbean.

So, is it just that the news is more accessible or are there an increase in problems? The ships have become more complex too. I don't know if that might be a factor?
 

JimS123

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Re: Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

Who knows! All I know is that the quality of our vacations has increased by leaps and bounds since we decided to try our first cruise. We just got back from one 4 weeks ago and have next year's booked already.

You can worry about crossing the street or having an airplane land on your house. Life's too short to worry.
 

southkogs

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Re: Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

Sometimes "instant news" works against things that are actually fairly normal. Not that there's anything "normal" about a ship fire, but I meant frequency of problems on passenger ships.
 

JoLin

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Re: Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

Sometimes "instant news" works against things that are actually fairly normal.

Agree. 'Social Networking' has provided new avenues for the instantaneous dissemination of misinformation and distorted truth. I had a Facebook account for six months a couple years ago and never saw anything positive about it.
 

generator12

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Re: Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

On the other hand, persistent mechanical failures usually indicate inadequacies in:

1. Funding
2. Maintenance
3. Employee training
4. Management commitment

Take your choice from the list, but I'm betting that at least one of them is a causal factor in every one of the mishaps we hear about. Makes no difference to me if they "have always happened but we didn't hear about it". Personally, I'll stay away.
 

southkogs

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Re: Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

On the other hand, persistent mechanical failures usually indicate inadequacies in:

1. Funding
2. Maintenance
3. Employee training
4. Management commitment

Take your choice from the list, but I'm betting that at least one of them is a causal factor in every one of the mishaps we hear about. Makes no difference to me if they "have always happened but we didn't hear about it". Personally, I'll stay away.
I see your point, but I'm inclined to believe that's more of a perception than a hard and fast reality. Carnival had a bunch of trouble this year, and it was mostly on newer boats (I think). But I can't recall them having trouble like this in past years. So, by your argument the worst it would be is an off year for them for funds/maintenance/training/management. Maybe, a culmination of a bunch of years but it's really only been a couple of ships. See what I mean?

At the same time there are a bunch of smaller carriers/lines that we likely NEVER hear about that have no problems at all. The Delta Queen has been runnin' the Mississippi with passengers for a long time with little to no problems; the General Jackson runs the Cumberland here in Nashville (and I've never heard anything bad about 'em) and they're a single ship operation as an attraction for Gaylord.

Commercial shipping and passenger/excursion boats are interesting to me. Haven't quite unpacked the business model yet. :crazy:
 

Dave0549jv

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Re: Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

Let's do the math. If one of these ships may be considered a "floating city," (people love using that one) and you consider the fact that Royal Caribbean has 21 ships, with let's say an average of 4k people aboard.... That's a city of 84,000. City of 84,000 that moves, and who's entire population changes every 5 days. I'm no mayor, but If i were a bettin' man, I'd put everything on there being a fire or two every once in a while in a city that big.

I blame 24 hour news networks. They're just like any other channel. They need the ratings to make money. Fear sells, plain and simple. Don't let this be a factor if you're considering going on a cruise. They're excellent vacations, and it's just as likely that your plane will crash on the way to Disney.
 

RogersJetboat454

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Re: Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

Who knows! All I know is that the quality of our vacations has increased by leaps and bounds since we decided to try our first cruise. We just got back from one 4 weeks ago and have next year's booked already.

You can worry about crossing the street or having an airplane land on your house. Life's too short to worry.

Oh yeah Jim, how was that cruise? Did you get to go to the beach in Antigua? I hear that's quite a place... :D;)

As Dave pointed out, if you figure the amount of active ships from any given company, times the amount of uneventful cruises each one pulls off yearly, odds are fairly low that something eventful (other than a good time) is going to happen.
 

southkogs

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Re: Cruise lines are just havin' trouble

Definitely not worried about being on a cruise. I'd leave with Carnival tomorrow without reservation. Heck, might take advantage of what I'm sure will be reduced fares for a while. Right now I'm more interested in the current "tenor" of news on the cruise companies. Like I said earlier - unwrapping the business model.
 
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