SHOULD Cruising return in its current form?

[TiggerBouncy]

On another thread, someone raised this question. It was not the purpose of the thread, but I think it's an interesting topic. So I am starting a thread on it.
(Reference: https://www.disboards.com/threads/norwegian-cruise-lines-ceo-enough-is-enough.3812862/page-4)

It is worth considering if the cruise industry as it existed SHOULD come back. <snip>

But this kind of blanket shutdown, especially as people darkly say it could kill the industry, merits such a question. Cruising is about the worst vacation you can take environmentally. DCL is among the least worst, but least worst still is a huge drag.

Obviously myself (and most of us) enjoy cruising. I do not expect DCL, Carnival, RCL, NCL, etc to dump all their ships as part of the pandemic and reinvent the industry. So, I think cruising WILL return regardless. Nothing is going to change that. But put that aside for the moment.

If you were starting from ground zero - from scratch - with a chance to re-invent the industry from ground up - what would you do differently? Think out of the box - dump 120 YEARS of history and start over knowing what we know now about science, the environment, etc. Is there a better way to have a similar experience then big ships burning some kind of fuel with a significant carbon impact (even the most recent efficient ships still have a pretty big carbon impact in their manufacture and operation)?

I tend to think that no matter what we can come up with, nothing would replace the concept of cruising. That even in a different world, it would evolve into it's current implementation. In the words of Thanos, "I am... inevitable".

But give me your thoughts. Am I wrong? Could a world without cruising exist? Short of laws banning cruising, even if we didn't have it before now, wouldn't someone invest the concept? Even if laws were enacted, wouldn't there still be a desire and need (and thus an industry) for such a vacation? In short, is there even an alternative?

Or I guess another way to phrase this is what is it about cruising that makes it so attractive and is there anything else that could serve such a need? I have my thoughts which I will chime in, but I want to hear yours too.

As a reminder, please stay civil. This is not a thread for personal attacks.

 

[John VN]

On another thread, someone raised this question. It was not the purpose of the thread, but I think it's an interesting topic. So I am starting a thread on it.
(Reference: https://www.disboards.com/threads/norwegian-cruise-lines-ceo-enough-is-enough.3812862/page-4)



Obviously myself (and most of us) enjoy cruising. I do not expect DCL, Carnival, RCL, NCL, etc to dump all their ships as part of the pandemic and reinvent the industry. So, I think cruising WILL return regardless. Nothing is going to change that. But put that aside for the moment.

If you were starting from ground zero - from scratch - with a chance to re-invent the industry from ground up - what would you do differently? Think out of the box - dump 120 YEARS of history and start over knowing what we know now about science, the environment, etc. Is there a better way to have a similar experience then big ships burning some kind of fuel with a significant carbon impact (even the most recent efficient ships still have a pretty big carbon impact in their manufacture and operation)?

I tend to think that no matter what we can come up with, nothing would replace the concept of cruising. That even in a different world, it would evolve into it's current implementation. In the words of Thanos, "I am... inevitable".

But give me your thoughts. Am I wrong? Could a world without cruising exist? Short of laws banning cruising, even if we didn't have it before now, wouldn't someone invest the concept? Even if laws were enacted, wouldn't there still be a desire and need (and thus an industry) for such a vacation? In short, is there even an alternative?

Or I guess another way to phrase this is what is it about cruising that makes it so attractive and is there anything else that could serve such a need? I have my thoughts which I will chime in, but I want to hear yours too.

As a reminder, please stay civil. This is not a thread for personal attacks.

MSC has begun cruising again (Grandiosa) and has a healthier environment a priority.

https://www.msccruisesusa.com/about/sustainability

 

[TiggerBouncy]

MSC has begun cruising again (Grandiosa) and has a healthier environment a priority.

https://www.msccruisesusa.com/about/sustainability

Carnival has too (well Costa has). As I said, cruising will come back. I don't think that's even a question. Atop of that, all the cruise lines will tout their latest and greatest environmental policy. I can list 100 pages of what DCL has done to offset their carbon footprint.

But all that leads again to what I was trying to say - is cruising inevitable?

 

[tvguy]

The Cruising industry will be back. I've been cruising for 40 years and it has changed vastly from my first cruise. My last cruise was in October on Celebrity and you couldn't get into a dining room, on or off the ship without a staff member offering you hand sanitizer. Googling hand sanitizer, it wasn't even readily available to consumers until 1988. That was a big change from my first cruise in 1980.

I think the self service buffet is history. Not the buffet part, just the self service part.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

The buffet isn't really an environmental factor.

I think mid-size ships and smaller can do better with footprints than the mega ships. Especially when you look at places like Alaska or Venice.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/...wn-venice-historic-centre-unesco-overtourism/
Another big factor - and it is a factor in cruising restarting as well - is that lines register their ships for convenience, but are not paying full costs of their passage in the places they actually port. The long term damage is more expensive than the short term economic gains.

 

[wombat_5606]

Some of the new ships are being built now that will use LNG. I've read it is the cleanest burning fossil fuel, so some of the environmental complaints will hopefully abate.

I would love it if the cruise lines would quite building behemoths. They are not nice for the ports they arrive in and I, personally, don't care for the type of vacation they provide. It also limits you to only porting in places large enough to handle them.

 

[Ila Sikorski]

I agree with the above, I don't think we need bigger all of the time. I never feel claustrophobic on a smaller ship (I'm sure some people do though!) And I still find enough to do. Now, I would be selfishly sad if cruising were to disappear. I love that on one vacation you can experience so many different things and so many different places at a fraction of the cost and time it would take to travel "traditionally," i.e. Trains, cars, planes, etc hopping from place to place which.. realistically, would add up overtime to also be very environmentally damaging.

 

[daedelus]

I suppose a lot of things will have to change. Think about your last DCL cruise. Just off the top of my head, things that will have to change are:

• Buffets (already mentioned, but on Wonder in March they stopped letting us self-serve. Once you got used to it, the wait was actually LESS!)
• Character Meet-N-Greets - can't sanitize those costumes between each guest! Not sure how they'll handle those
• Pin Trading - Informal trading between guests isn't going to change, but the officer pin trading was nixed in March
• Deck Parties - Cramming hundreds of people on the deck at the same time probably not going to continue
• Showtime - Will they limit capacity in the WDT? Will they add a 3rd rotation? No idea
• Excursions - Cramming 150 people into a tender boat or bus isn't going to be doable until there's a vaccine
• Elevators - Those things are tiny already - imagine if you had to wait for one for just your party?
• Spa / Gym - LOTS more cleaning between usage. Rainforest Room - who knows?
• Lobby activities - What about the Officer's Ball, meet and greet nights, Formal Night receptions? Probably not.

Geez - just looking at that list saddens me. But - DCL has a good history of making the best of less than optimal situations, so hopefully they're able to come up with a plan that's a healthy (literally) balance. Maybe they should invest in the vaccine research!

 

[_auroraborealis_]

COVID precautions are almost all not environmental in nature.

 

[John VN]

I agree with the above, I don't think we need bigger all of the time. I never feel claustrophobic on a smaller ship (I'm sure some people do though!) And I still find enough to do. Now, I would be selfishly sad if cruising were to disappear. I love that on one vacation you can experience so many different things and so many different places at a fraction of the cost and time it would take to travel "traditionally," i.e. Trains, cars, planes, etc hopping from place to place which.. realistically, would add up overtime to also be very environmentally damaging.

r.e. bold -- DW and I felt claustrophobic at DL. It was simply too confining compared to WDW. Big ships we like and as is said --- "Whatever Floats Your Boat"

 

[Ila Sikorski]

r.e. bold -- DW and I felt claustrophobic at DL. It was simply too confining compared to WDW. Big ships we like and as is said --- "Whatever Floats Your Boat"

Oh yeah, honestly, I can agree with that. When we went to Disneyland for the first time we felt very uncomfortable with the bottlenecking of the park compared to WDW.

 

[mcd2745]

I suppose a lot of things will have to change. Think about your last DCL cruise. Just off the top of my head, things that will have to change are:

• Buffets (already mentioned, but on Wonder in March they stopped letting us self-serve. Once you got used to it, the wait was actually LESS!)
• Character Meet-N-Greets - can't sanitize those costumes between each guest! Not sure how they'll handle those
• Pin Trading - Informal trading between guests isn't going to change, but the officer pin trading was nixed in March
• Deck Parties - Cramming hundreds of people on the deck at the same time probably not going to continue
• Showtime - Will they limit capacity in the WDT? Will they add a 3rd rotation? No idea
• Excursions - Cramming 150 people into a tender boat or bus isn't going to be doable until there's a vaccine
• Elevators - Those things are tiny already - imagine if you had to wait for one for just your party?
• Spa / Gym - LOTS more cleaning between usage. Rainforest Room - who knows?
• Lobby activities - What about the Officer's Ball, meet and greet nights, Formal Night receptions? Probably not.

Geez - just looking at that list saddens me. But - DCL has a good history of making the best of less than optimal situations, so hopefully they're able to come up with a plan that's a healthy (literally) balance. Maybe they should invest in the vaccine research!

As for the items in bold, I feel that's always been an issue with DCL. Rather than schedule events and activities with an emphasis on trying to spread people out throughout the ship, they seem to schedule things in a way that tend to put everyone in the same place at the same time. Personally, I'll be glad should this mean the end of Pirate Night.

I would love if they added a 3rd performance of the shows - if it were a late-night option. However, I'm sure it would end up being a matinee if they did add a 3rd show.

I think the cruise industry as a whole can come up plans to adequately alleviate most (reasonable) concerns for pretty much everything - with the exception of the elevators. That's by far the most difficult problem to solve.

 

[disneygeek401]

I suppose a lot of things will have to change. Think about your last DCL cruise. Just off the top of my head, things that will have to change are:

• Buffets (already mentioned, but on Wonder in March they stopped letting us self-serve. Once you got used to it, the wait was actually LESS!)
• Character Meet-N-Greets - can't sanitize those costumes between each guest! Not sure how they'll handle those
• Pin Trading - Informal trading between guests isn't going to change, but the officer pin trading was nixed in March
• Deck Parties - Cramming hundreds of people on the deck at the same time probably not going to continue
• Showtime - Will they limit capacity in the WDT? Will they add a 3rd rotation? No idea
• Excursions - Cramming 150 people into a tender boat or bus isn't going to be doable until there's a vaccine
• Elevators - Those things are tiny already - imagine if you had to wait for one for just your party?
• Spa / Gym - LOTS more cleaning between usage. Rainforest Room - who knows?
• Lobby activities - What about the Officer's Ball, meet and greet nights, Formal Night receptions? Probably not.

Geez - just looking at that list saddens me. But - DCL has a good history of making the best of less than optimal situations, so hopefully they're able to come up with a plan that's a healthy (literally) balance. Maybe they should invest in the vaccine research!

I am VERY hopeful that anything that they do is just short-term and they are able to ease said policies once a vaccine is available, people actually get it, and then they can require it (at least I hope that is what they would do, to me that is the best way to mitigate from COVID once available)

I agree about buffets, they may be gone forever permanently (but then again this is more of a respiratory virus, and I have seen places with things like self-serve soda machines still open, so who knows)

They found a creative way to do pin trading at WDW, maybe they would do that in the short term on Cruise Line?

Deck Parties, Lobby parties, etc. may not be a thing at the initial restart, but maybe they would require you to reserve tickets to go?

Shows I am sure they would limit capcity and add showtimes.

Elevators probably one party per elevator.

Excursions that is another story, once they can restart they need to find ports to dock at first.

And keep in mind, this company has lost a LOT of money. Even if they could limit capacity at deck parties and stuff like that (fireworks too) they may want to put them on a temporary pause just because things like fireworks can get expensive. It's just like the parks. They could *probably* do Epcot Forever or Fantasmic! right now, but the parks are not open late, and even if they were open late I am not sure they would do them. They can easily spread people out in the amiptheatre or around WS at EP, but operating costs are an issue for a company that lost so much money during the temporary closure of WDW.

I think that the experience will be heavily modified to start, but here's hoping that the restrictions are not in place for a super long time period. I am hoping all this COVID stuff calms down and a vaccine is available to the general public as soon as possible, because I have a WDW trip in mid July 2021 and a DCL caribbean cruise in Late december 2021 that I would really like to go on with no or minimal disruption.

 

[MomOTwins]

I feel like OP's question was really more about what we would WANT to change about cruising that what will likely happen with Covid-19. I guess my big wants would be:

(1) Bigger pools. Obviously. Maybe a lazy river going around the pool deck--how fun would that be??

(2) Fewer shops. I pretty much always have to avoid the midship elevators on the pool deck so my kids aren't dragging me into look at pirate toys and mickey goggles. The tiffany store on the fantasy is so weird and un-Disneyish--never understood why it was there. And who really wants buy a $10,000 crystal mickey statuette?

(3) Port excursions that are actually run by Disney. We would for sure pay a premium for a single ABD-style excursions where there is a really to-notch tour guide that makes it fun for the kids (I know they do the packages in Alaska that add excursions at every port, but that all-day/every-day adventure touring style is too much for us with little kids--a single excursion like that would be perfect though). We kind of swore off the third-party guided excursions you can book through DCL after a really bad experience in Cozumel, but would feel better if knew it was a Disney CM/ABD-style guide running things.

(4) Kid-friendly upcharge restaurant. I love the MDRs, but REALLY love Palo and would love it if there were an opportunity to bring kids in with us to a similar experience but not adult only, since ours don't always want to be in the kids club. One think we always liked about Disney World was having an opportunity to eat a fancy meal at a signature restaurant that is kid-friendly.

(5) Inside staterooms for 5. Would make it much more affordable to do some of the pricier itineraries.

 

[Intr3pid]

Cruising has something that no other form of travel can offer.

It allows you to travel globally without land border controls, overnight while your are sleeping, and smoothly without having to pack/unpack. It allows you to travel the world with creature comforts and access to pretty much everything you can find at land.

Large ships also have things you can't do in anything smaller. Sure, you can buy your own yacht - but can you have a Broadway-quality troupe entertain you on a grand stage every night? Can you have 20 different eating venues on your boat? What about 5 different pools? And the rough waters you have to cross in the open seas?

Most long-term cruisers have seen changes happen over time, but they are incremental. Sure, 'pin trading', 'hand sanitizers', 'self-serve foods', and such may change, but those are not the reasons why people cruise. What they cruise for is cruising's huge value proposition that will never change as long as leisure travel exists.

 

[Mitura]

Recently I haven't been reading this site since I've been so bummed about not cruising (they finally cancelled my Nov 28th cruise today). But this thread got me thinking.

I really love DCL (especially Dream and Fantasy). These ships hit the sweet spot for us. Its hard to think what I would want to change (though I did). We have been dissapointed each time a new item is rumored to be changed (no deck parties, no self-serve buffet), but we understand.

So what we would want? What a cool thread.

I like the "Lazy River" idea. We love the Aquaduck, but hate the lines. So we always ride between 5-7. +1 for lazy river.
We love the old fireworks show, not the new one, but we would hate to see it go. Keep the fireworks.
Port excursions - we rarely do the current Disney ones, they are too pricey and too short. We figure it out on our own.
Shops, we'd like more! We feel that we've gotten it all already with the current shops, so we don't buy anything new, but maybe a bigger variety would be great.
One big improvement could be on CC. We love CC. Maybe overnight at CC so we could spend more time there (sleep on the ship but get on the island at 7am? Stay until 9pm? ) Imagine a nice dinner on the sand? I'm not saying a Palo-type of dinner but a nice fancy seaside restaurant type of dinner?
Maybe fireworks at CC? I feel that there is more that can be done on CC. Maybe this will be incorporated in the new Disney island?
I like the idea of a 3 rd showing after late dinner. That's a good idea.
Maybe for dinner at Cabanas keep a buffet and not have it be an extension of what is currently offered in the dinning rooms. I like dinner at Cabanas since it is at our own time, but I feel that if it was more buffet it would be better.

I've rambled too much! Thanks for giving me something positive to think about and talk with the family tonight at dinner!

 

[ChicosWife]

Personally, I'll be glad should this means the end of Pirate Night.

What? Pirate night is great!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ila Sikorski]

What? Pirate night is great!!!!!!!!!

I agree, this one made me gasp. We LOVE Pirate Night, we wish there was even more going on for it early evening / through the night.

 

[mcd2745]

What? Pirate night is great!!!!!!!!!

I agree, this one made me gasp. We LOVE Pirate Night, we wish there was even more going on for it early evening / through the night.

I think it has run it's course. Time for something new. Plus the dinner menu is easily the worst menu of any night.

 

[DisneYE]

Recently I haven't been reading this site since I've been so bummed about not cruising (they finally cancelled my Nov 28th cruise today). But this thread got me thinking.

I really love DCL (especially Dream and Fantasy). These ships hit the sweet spot for us. Its hard to think what I would want to change (though I did). We have been dissapointed each time a new item is rumored to be changed (no deck parties, no self-serve buffet), but we understand.

So what we would want? What a cool thread.

I like the "Lazy River" idea. We love the Aquaduck, but hate the lines. So we always ride between 5-7. +1 for lazy river.
We love the old fireworks show, not the new one, but we would hate to see it go. Keep the fireworks.
Port excursions - we rarely do the current Disney ones, they are too pricey and too short. We figure it out on our own.
Shops, we'd like more! We feel that we've gotten it all already with the current shops, so we don't buy anything new, but maybe a bigger variety would be great.
One big improvement could be on CC. We love CC. Maybe overnight at CC so we could spend more time there (sleep on the ship but get on the island at 7am? Stay until 9pm? ) Imagine a nice dinner on the sand? I'm not saying a Palo-type of dinner but a nice fancy seaside restaurant type of dinner?
Maybe fireworks at CC? I feel that there is more that can be done on CC. Maybe this will be incorporated in the new Disney island?
I like the idea of a 3 rd showing after late dinner. That's a good idea.
Maybe for dinner at Cabanas keep a buffet and not have it be an extension of what is currently offered in the dinning rooms. I like dinner at Cabanas since it is at our own time, but I feel that if it was more buffet it would be better.

I've rambled too much! Thanks for giving me something positive to think about and talk with the family tonight at dinner!

yah, great thread - and this a very nice contribution.
I LOVE your idea about CC, it makes total sense during these times.
Keep the ship docked on CC for a couple of nights even. Being able to get off the ship at sunrise for a walk on the beach is my idea of paradise. I do that every time we go to a Mexican resort or any place by the ocean. I love early morning walks on the beach.
Your idea of having a restaurant setting at CC is also great.. How cool would it be to have a Palo-like experience on the beach.
Expanding activities at CC while they figure out how to do things before going back to normal is the way DCL should re-start their sailings, imo.