One of the things they do a lot of in the cruise business is putting a toe in the water, and if anybody is entitled to do so it’s people who make their living on the sea. In case you don’t catch the drift (more nautical terminology), cruise lines do a lot of experimenting. It’s not like when we try this brand of pasta or that, because cruise-line experiments are million-dollar tests.
For example, lately there’s been a shift of ships (don’t say that too quickly) from North America to Europe, because that’s where the next wave (ahem) of customers is anticipated. Cruise lines never know if the wave’s too small to surf on or a tsunami, so they….well, dip in the toe.
All this surfaces across our desk today because of Oceania — you couldn’t carry off this sea of similes with a better name than that, could you? This relatively small, relatively exclusive cruise line is floating the idea of getting into the 7-day (or 7-night) business. Until now, all Oceania cruises have been 10 days or longer, appealing to passengers who have been around for 55 years or longer.
They’re not just floating the concept, according to USA Today’s Gene Sloan, they’re going ahead with an experiment of three 7-day cruises in 2012, all in Europe. The fact that this isn’t happening until next year tells you something about how costly these things are.
So it’s three toes in the water, and nobody knows from the deck of which ship, although Oceania’s new 1,200-passenger Marina is a good place to start. The Marina is Oceania’s first “big” ship…the other three in the fleet are 684 passengers. Currently headed for the Panama Canal as part of its North American debut, the Marina will be heading back across the pond next month.
Never to return?
Never say never. There’s too much toe-dipping to be done.