Up next in 10
7 Astonishing Things Cruise Lines Doing To Stay Afloat
582 views
Jan 28, 2025
I take a look at 7 astonishing and jaw-dropping changes, steps and things that the cruise lines are having to do to be able to stay afloat and sail ABOUT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS: If you want to get cruising right, Tips For Travellers makes it easy to plan and have the incredible cruise experiences you dream of every time. All my Tips For Travellers advice, tips and tricks tips draw on everything that I have learnt on the 77 cruises I have done to date. BUY MY CRUISE-THEMED T-SHIRTs ————————————————- Check out my T-Shirt range: http://bit.ly/TFTStore SUPPORT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS ————————————————————— Become a Channel Member and get perks: https://www.tipsfortravellers.com/Join Become a Patron on Patreon and get perks: https://www.patreon.com/tipsfortravellers Make a donation: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=V9STJGYSEMGLJ Buy my book “Cruise Traveler’s Handbook: USA Amazon https://amzn.to/2YVFmG4 and https://amzn.to/3tzIxBn UK Amazon https://amzn.to/3oXbzYc and https://amzn.to/3qawqIQ FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA ——————————————— TikTok: @garybembridge
View Video Transcript
0:00
can the cruise lines survive can they
0:02
keep going i was asked that just today
0:04
by my neighbor who knows
0:06
cruising is a big part of my life as i
0:08
explained to him
0:09
what they're doing i realized as his
0:12
expression of amazement
0:13
just grew and grew and grew that what
0:15
the cruise lines are doing to survive
0:18
and to resume selling is pretty jaw
0:20
dropping and frankly
0:22
it's rather extreme and it's also worth
0:25
talking about
0:26
so here we go let me get the first thing
0:28
out of the way
0:29
quite quickly which is of course they're
0:30
saving huge amounts of money and they're
0:32
raising massive amounts of money and
0:34
they've done three key things the first
0:36
of which
0:36
they've scrapped so many ships there's
0:39
around about 34 ships have either been
0:41
sold or scrapped to reduce the size of
0:44
their fleets the biggest
0:45
one of those is by the carnival
0:47
corporation and you've seen
0:49
carnival itself holland america piano
0:52
princess costa have all lost
0:55
numbers of ships they've had around 18
0:58
ships disappear altogether
0:59
but also royal caribbean has done it
1:01
majesty of the seas empress of the seas
1:03
independent lines have ditched loads and
1:05
loads of
1:07
ships as well everything from bahamas
1:08
grand celebration to marella
1:10
and of course we've also seen that some
1:12
cruise lines go under like pullman tour
1:15
so there has been a vast jettison of
1:17
ships second thing they did
1:19
which is i've sort of alluded to already
1:21
is they've actually ditched entire lines
1:23
so pullman tour royal caribbean that go
1:25
but they also sold azamara to sycamore
1:27
partners to basically
1:28
have less to focus on and then of course
1:31
they've raised
1:32
loads and loads of cash with debt and
1:34
issuing shares
1:35
and they put their ships into kind of a
1:37
cold layup or a
1:39
hot layup in order to save huge amounts
1:41
of money
1:42
so they've taken some rather extreme
1:45
measures
1:46
to control costs and find ways of having
1:48
money to keep them going
1:50
the second thing they've done is also
1:52
pretty extreme
1:53
they've struggled to find places to sell
1:55
from so if you've gone with the us
1:56
which has not really given any clear
1:58
guidance the us is really important half
2:00
of all cruises in the world
2:01
come out of the u.s and half of all
2:03
cruise ships that sell come out of the
2:04
u.s so what if
2:05
cruise lines done well they've gone and
2:07
hunted new home ports
2:09
basically looked for the path of least
2:11
resistance where there are governments
2:13
willing to partner with the cruise ships
2:15
and we've seen at least
2:16
14 brand new home ports for cruise ships
2:20
emerging there are seven new home ports
2:23
in the caribbean in the surrounding area
2:25
for example you've got antigua with
2:26
crystal symphony said martin with
2:28
celebrity millennium jamaica's got
2:30
norwegian joy
2:31
the dominican republic has norwegian gem
2:35
in barbados you've got seabourn odyssey
2:37
and in the bahamas you've got
2:39
crystal serenity and royal caribbean
2:40
adventures of the sea
2:42
in bermuda you've got viking orion but
2:45
we've also got the canary islands has
2:47
become
2:47
a homeport mostly focused on the german
2:49
lines with mind shift aida
2:51
and hapa gloid greece is going to have
2:53
celebrity apex norwegian jade
2:55
seabourn ovation and silversea moon in
2:58
cyprus
2:59
has become a homeport with aida and the
3:01
royal caribbean jewel of the seas
3:02
even israel is now a homeport with
3:04
odyssey of the seas
3:06
iceland has crystal endeavour and viking
3:08
sky
3:09
now home boating there so this is pretty
3:11
extreme instead of using
3:13
the cruising capitals of the world like
3:15
miami port canaveral or even many of the
3:17
big ones in europe which are closed like
3:19
barcelona the cruise ships and the
3:21
cruise lines have found a brand new
3:23
homeports
3:24
with all the complexity of setting that
3:26
up in tails and all of the logistics
3:28
the next bizarre and unusual move is
3:30
they now sail to nowhere
3:32
to start cruising so that started in
3:33
singapore initially where they did
3:35
cruises to nowhere this is also
3:37
happening in the united kingdom where we
3:39
have 13 lions at least
3:40
selling kind of cruises to nowhere which
3:42
includes celebrity cunard
3:44
disney fred olson hurtigratin marella
3:47
msc cruisers piano cruises princess
3:49
cruises royal caribbean saga
3:51
viking and even virgin voyages
3:55
cruise lines have had to not only find
3:56
home ports but have also
3:58
now turned to taking passengers nowhere
4:01
as a way of starting selling as a way
4:03
of keeping afloat cruise lines also used
4:06
to pride themselves on having
4:08
multiple nationalities and creating a
4:10
whole environment with loads of people
4:11
from all around the world mixing but now
4:13
they're limiting
4:14
who can sell already they start with
4:16
lower capacity 50 60
4:18
they're also limiting many of these
4:19
cruises to residents of only certain
4:21
places so for example
4:22
israelis on the israel cruise uk
4:24
residents on uk
4:25
singapore and singapore even msc and
4:28
costa when they were selling it was only
4:29
italians initially and then went to the
4:31
eu
4:32
also they have required vaccines for
4:34
example on many of these cruises
4:36
so cutting off a big chunk of their
4:38
market in many cases
4:39
because families couldn't travel on some
4:41
of these cruises so
4:42
actually restricting not only the
4:43
nationality but the type of people
4:46
and the numbers of people who can go on
4:48
their cruises which is a pretty extreme
4:50
thing to do
4:51
as well the cruise lines have also
4:53
completely changed the way they approach
4:55
to letting people
4:56
board they are now performing medical
4:58
tests and screenings so before you go on
5:00
a cruise
5:00
you will have to have some kind of test
5:02
some of them are done even before coming
5:04
to the port
5:04
certainly before boarding is the case
5:06
and often you're tested before you get
5:08
off a cruise because that's a
5:10
requirement in certain countries like it
5:11
was in italy
5:12
for example or a lot of the cruisers in
5:14
the caribbean having to do that because
5:16
passengers have to have a pcr test or a
5:18
covert test before they can head back
5:20
into the united states
5:21
so medical screening medical testing and
5:23
testing on board the ships and lab
5:25
capacity
5:26
is another big change that's happened
5:28
and cruise lines are having to do
5:30
unlike many many other forms of
5:32
transport whether that be
5:34
tour buses trains or airplanes do not
5:37
have that same
5:38
change that they've made the other
5:40
astounding thing that cruise lines
5:42
are doing is creating bubbles onboard
5:44
their ship
5:45
which is also pretty different to other
5:47
ways that you travel
5:48
the idea being that you create this
5:50
environment where you protect
5:52
everybody and you stay within the bubble
5:53
so for example on many cruises as
5:56
cruise lines start sailing again is you
5:58
can't self-explore in the port you have
6:00
to go
6:01
on a cruise line only excursion of
6:03
course exploring ports by yourself
6:04
is a big attraction so actually one of
6:06
the big things that are appealing
6:08
to their travelers the people who go on
6:10
cruises they're taking away
6:12
as a way of starting selling again of
6:14
course over time
6:15
the expectations of this will drop and
6:17
in some of the cruises it's not entirely
6:19
required based on the requirements of
6:20
the countries
6:21
but it's a pretty extreme and pretty
6:23
astounding change
6:24
you're saying you can't go out and
6:26
explore you have to stay within our
6:28
bubble on a cruise line only excursion
6:30
not only are stopping people doing what
6:32
they may want to do important they're
6:34
also
6:35
stopping people doing what they want to
6:36
do on board the ship so this is pretty
6:38
astounding when you're bringing people
6:39
on a vacation and you're having to
6:41
restrict what they do again this is of
6:43
course for safety and health reasons
6:45
but a couple of things that you're
6:46
finding is for example mark squaring is
6:48
still part of the protocols which again
6:50
over time they're hoping will drop
6:52
particularly as they have more
6:53
vaccinated passengers on board but you
6:55
do have to
6:56
follow social distancing rules so in
6:58
many of the cruises you have to book to
6:59
go to the theater
7:00
or you have to book a certain time to go
7:03
for dinner
7:04
in some places you have to book a spot
7:06
around the swimming pool at
7:07
certain times you also can't dine with
7:10
other people
7:11
that are not within your household
7:13
bubble or linked bookings
7:15
you also can't do things like self serve
7:17
at a buffet it's all
7:18
served by the crew so kind of limiting
7:21
what people are doing and that's a
7:22
pretty astounding thing again
7:23
because many of those things are the
7:25
reason people go on cruises
7:27
talking about and explaining the sort of
7:29
things that cruise lines are doing to
7:31
stay afloat
7:32
to keep going and to find ways of
7:34
selling
7:35
is pretty jaw-dropping and is pretty
7:37
extreme
7:38
and is pretty astounding what do you
7:40
think love to know if you want to know
7:41
more about the sort of protocols
7:43
and things that are happening on cruise
7:44
ships as they resume i've put this
7:47
playlist together with two videos that i
7:49
think you will find really helpful
7:51
so take a look at those right now
#Cruises & Charters
#Transportation