The right price………………………………………….………………………$639
December 19, 2010: 7-day Christmas cruise on the MSC Poesia
Departure: Fort Lauderdale round-trip to Western Caribbean
Ports: Key West, Ocho Rios, Grand Cayman, Cozumel
Bonuses: 3-category upgrade; 2nd cabin price $324 Contact: MSC
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In light of the fire on the Carnival Splendor this week,the knee-jerk reaction is that everybody should avoid cruising because this could happen to you. The answer to the knee-jerk reaction, obviously, is this: When a plane crashes — a far more traumatic and deadly event than what happened on the Splendor — do you quit flying?
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One of the waiters we met on the Navigator of the Seas turned down a chance to work on the mighty Allure of the Seas, which arrived in Fort Lauderdale this week. When he heard that Navigator was going to spend the next two years cruising in Europe, he said no to Allure because he lives near Africa and it’ll be easier to get home for breaks from the Navigator.
Typically, cruise-ship crew members sign 7-month contracts, with two-month breaks in between.
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It’s relatively easy to figure out a cruise ship’s (or perhaps a cruise line’s) demographic. Just look at the TV.
On Royal Caribbean, the channels include CNN International, not the regular CNN. Last Sunday afternoon, it was impossible to find an NFL score for the early games in progress, never mind a game live. On the ESPN channel was European soccer, and the closest thing to American football was the movie “The Blind Side.” The NFL games were later joined in progress.
On Carnival, the channels include the regular CNN and, on Sunday, NFL games are on more than one channel.
Both cruises were to the Western Caribbean.
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A license is required to drive pleasure boats, right? A brain is not. As we watch ships go in
and out of the tight channel that leads to cruise terminals where as many as 12 ships can be moored at once, the Coast Guard has a full-time job chasing the little boats out of the way.
You have to wonder what the small-boat captain is thinking when he (or she) is parked a few hundred yards in front of a 170,000-ton cruise ship that is moving — in the direction of the pleasure craft!
Nothing, perhaps?
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A young man named Chris made our day when we returned that smokey rental car to Budget. This was in Fort Lauderdale, where we hadn’t been in a long time, and Internet research told us that from the airport to where Navigator of the Seas was moored would cost either $20 or $30, depending on whether we took a bus or a cab. By the way, you can see the cruise-ship terminal from the airport.
Chris had another idea, and gave us directions to a cruise-ship terminal bus.
“A taxi is $30 and this bus is free,” he said. “Free is better. And when you put that five dollars in the slot machine on the ship, remember me, okay?”
We laughed. A few minutes later, we walked over and gave him a $5 bill.
“Remember that five-bucks-in-the-slot-machine thing? Now the responsibility is yours. And if you win, we’ll be back!”
The unexpected five bucks may have made his day, but what made ours was his laughter, his wit and his personality.
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Question of the week: Is part of the criteria for qualifying as a cruise passenger that you need a loud voice so that everybody else knows your business, or it is just our imagination?
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In case anybody thinks the cruise business is in trouble in tough economic times, read this from the Cruise Industry News:
The Canaveral (Fla.) Port Authority Board of Commissioners has approved a $42-million dollar bond project to build a brand new cruise terminal — number 6 — to be completed in 2012, according to Robert Giangrisostomi, senior deputy executive director of business development.
“This was done because of our confidence in the projected growth of the cruise industry, our geographic area, drive to access, our proven track record of cruise growth at Port Canaveral with our ships consistently averaging over 100 percent of capacity with some ships running at 150 per cent of capacity and our need for additional cruise terminal space for the future of this dynamic and growing industry,” Giangrisostomi told CIN.
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That’s it, we’re done.