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Will troubled seas mean end to full speed ahead for cruise industry?
Cruising has long had a safe reputation but a series of unusual events in recent weeks have led to worried bloggers, and headaches for travel agents who rely heavily on bookings to keep them in the black.
They include:
—The Clelia II, a small ship with 88 Americans on board, was hit by a massive storm between South America and Antarctica and had to return to Argentina. Passengers say it was a bumpy ride. So bumpy, in fact, that some said they thought the voyage would be fatal. “I never came to close to cashing it in,” one passenger told the Philadelphia Daily News.
—The Brilliance of the Seas, a 2,100-passenger ship, was enroute to Alexandria, Egypt when it encountered a storm. Passengers recalled the “horrifying” experience of water crashing through the ship’s 10th floor windows, sogging passenger quarters. Eyewitnesses said it was “total pandemonium.”
Are those scary incidents “enough to cause people to stay away from vacations at sea?” asks USA Today.
“Longtime industry watcher Mike Driscoll of Cruise Week says that, at the very least, it’s making it harder for travel agents to convince the 80 percent of Americans who never have been on a cruise to give one a try,” the newspaper adds.
The events might make it more difficult to sell to first-timers, Driscoll said. "People tend to pick up on the negatives, and this type of situation may prove to be a prohibiting factor for someone on the fence."
With the all-important winter "Wave" booking season about to begin, the perception of cruising in the public is of great importance to agents.
Travel commentator Chris Elliott says this is not a trend and blames the incidents on winter weather. But still he thinks it will affect bookings.
“A percentage of cruise passengers are wary of big waves. I’m one of them,” They’ll stay on land,” he wrote.
By David Wilkening
David
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