Costs!! That is what it is all about. The last US-flagged line was AMCV. True, in their ships in US inland waters, such as the "Queens," there was no competition, and it made sense to have an all-American crew.

United States Lines, "Big-U, ""America," went under when, in addition to many other siginficant factors, crew costs (US Unionized) were significantly higher than the competition, namely Cunard, CGT, Italian Line, others.

Nantucket Clipper, I assume, still thrives. I believe they have a mix on some ships. American Cruise Line has one ship all US crewed.

But, in deepwater operations, when service and some operational staff are paid low, non-Union wages (generally without benefits), the Carnivals and similar lines have the economic upper hand.

This, in turn, is reflected in ticket prices. A sad fact, but that is the way it is.

At least that is the way I see it.

[ 03-21-2002: Message edited by: Cambodge ]

Costa, Cunard, HAL... three of the greatest named in the industry owe a lot to Carnival Corp.

Cruise Guy basicly sums it up perfectly.

Also, Carnival Cruises started with one second hand ship... and look where they are now! WELL DONE!!!

I also think it is doubtful that Seabourn would have been in the same financial possition if Carnival had not helped...

Well, thats all I have to say!

I would not like to see the either proposed merger, Carnival/P&O, or RCCL/P&O, happen. It would reduce the amount of competition in the cruise market. I recently returned from a cruise on RCCL, and they seem to think that owning the Voyager-class ships means they can skimp on all kinds of things. I have yet to cruise on a Carnival-owned line, but HAL, Cunard, Costa, Windstar, and Seabourn all might not exist if it were not for Carnival. And CCL worked its way up from the very bottom of the shipping food chain. Compare that with P&O who have been around since 1840 or so, and RCCL who were originally funded by three venerable Norwegian cargo-shipping firms. It seems to me Carnival's success can only be because of good business practices. Who knows where the cruise industry might be if Ted Arison didn't have the guts to take the plunge and build Tropicale, his first new ship. Everyone thought it was "too big," that there was no room for growth in the industry. He proved them wrong and started the building boom that is going on to this day. Carnival did it again with Destiny in 1996, when all the cruise lines thought anything over 70,000GRT was "too big." He went out and built a 100,000GRT ship and the entire industry has never looked back. Without that vision, the entire post-Panamax class of ships would be nonexistent. In my opinion, any further consolidation would basically begin to create a duopoly in the industry, which would drive prices up and service down. There is nothing RCCL/P&O could really do together that they couldn't do alone. And CCL's "World's Leading Cruise Lines" is really a great innovation. Previously, cruise line conglomerates did not market their brands as being connected. Carnival shows how customers might enjoy more than one "style" of cruising. Carmakers have been doing it for years ever since GM designed its line so that you could start out with a Chevy and move up to a Cadillac. Carnival is trying to do the same thing, and I think it is just about time. So Carnival may not be the white knight of the cruise industry, but I think it is unfair to "bash" them, or portray them as a "bad" company.

quote:

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Originally posted by DAMBROSI:
Malcolm or Joe, could
you please just pull this subject out of the forum?

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Dambrosi, Joe and I are very reluctant to delete posts.

As long as there are constructive counter arguments to a post, that's what cruise talk is all about. Even if the posts get a little heated, that's acceptable. (I happen to think the heated debates tend to be some of the best ones!)

On the very rare occasion that a post has been deleted, they have been seriously off-topic (i.e. religion and politics), have become far too personal (i.e. trading insults)or blatantly offensive (i.e. swearing or discriminatory statements).