Carnival scored some much needed public relations points during an interview with CBS News’ travel expert Peter Greenberg. Following several high-profile mishaps (the Costa Concordia disaster and the Carnival Triumph "poop cruise"), the cruise giant is reportedly spending more than half-a-billion dollars for improvements on its fleet of cruise ships.
Of particular interest during
I have always wondered how the cruise industry PR people do it.
They face non-stop bad cruise news. The Splendor fire. The Concordia deaths. The Allegra fire. The Triumph fire. Plus another 10 cruise ship fires, 50 norovirus outbreaks and more shipboard rapes than you can count in just 3 years.
Yet, the cruise
The U.S. and international media covered the saga of the stricken poop-filled Triumph cruise ship non-stop last week. CNN led the coverage with its "ceaseless, rigorous reporting" on what some newspapers are characterizing as essentially "inconvenienced cruise passengers without working toilets." CNN enjoyed a 74 percent increase from its recent prime time numbers according
The Costa Concordia in January disaster set off a seemingly endless avalanche of stories on cable news this year about ship fires, sinkings and other cruise disasters, as well as a steady stream of articles and videos about sexual assaults during cruises, drunken brawling passengers, and the disappearance of women at sea.
I’m just one of
A Carnival crew member went overboard around 1:00 a.m. yesterday from the Carnival Splendor cruise ship. According to crew members, the crew member jumped. Unfortunately, despite a prompt search, the crew member was lost.
The incident was not reported by Carnival’s corporate headquarters, nor was the incident reported by the press. Instead the first person
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The cruise industry has an image problem. Royal Caribbean is the main reason.
This year began with Royal Caribbean’s business-as-usual approach to ferrying passengers back and forth to its "private destination" in Labadee (actually sovereign Haitian land leased from Baby Doc Duvalier). While Haitians tried to dig out of the rubble and bury their dead following the devastating earthquake, Royal
Last week was another rough week for Royal Caribbean.
First there were repeated outbreaks of the nasty norovirus aboard the Jewel of the Seas which sickened hundreds of unsuspecting passengers. Then there was the embarrassment of a Royal Caribbean employee with a criminal record stealing private information from Royal Caribbean computers regarding Royal Caribbean customers so her career-criminal-of-a-husband could break into their
A handful of recent stories have shed light unwanted light on the image-conscious cruise industry. Cruise lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to paint pictures of care free vacations. But here are some stories published in the last few days which make you realize that the fun-filled family cruise may a bit different than
Obtaining accurate information from the cruise industry is difficult. Whenever passengers have a complaint, the cruise lines either ignore them or the cruise lines’ customer relations departments send them a nonsensical letter several weeks later dismissing their complaints or offering a 25% on a future cruise. This often infuriates the passengers who have no intention of ever sailing on a
Cruise lines which are in touch with their market understand the need to be versed with all aspects of Social Media 2.0. Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, and YouTube all present an inexpensive and highly effective way to get a company’s message out to the public. This is particularly important in times of crisis management, such when a fire breaks out or a bout of swine