Mr. Grizb
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Posts posted by Mr. Grizb
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1 hour ago, SeaShark said:
I don't know if two ships really counts as an "absolutely massive percentage". That sounds more like overblown drama.
BTW...you lost the point when you presumed that Regent was a subsidiary of Norwegian. They are not. Norwegian has no subsidiaries.
Both lines are actually equal subsidiaries of NCLH.
However, the number of ships, and the number of visitors allowed in a port is determined solely by the port. Your ire is misdirected. You might as well try blaming the passengers themselves for choosing to go on those ships and therefore causing overcrowding in the port. (Is it really overcrowding, if the number of visitors is allowed by the port?)
Remind me what NCLH stands for again? As for the drama, apparently you’d have had to be there…
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24 minutes ago, kitkat343 said:
I experienced a very similar situation on my first visit to St. Lucia. There were two ships in port that day, both owned by NCL. Since St. Lucia doesn't have the infrastructure to handle a megaship plus another ship, there was massive gridlock in the city leaving the port and trying to return. The major tourist spots in St. Lucia were extremely overcrowded (it was hard to enjoy to mud baths near the drive in volcano because of the overcrowding, and we were quite lucky that our private tour happened to be at the waterfall at a time when there were few people there (and none of them changed into bathing suits and wanted to swim). But St Lucia is a destination in which some days there are no ships in port, and other days only one so NCL bears more responsibility in placing two ships there on one day.
I do genuinely believe that any vacancies on Santorini's schedule would immediately be snapped up by another cruise line because it truly is (just like Venice or St. Petersburg once were) the highlight of a cruise to that region. As annoying as it was to reach Oia, I wouldn't recommend that someone book a Greek cruise without it. I'd recommend they research private vendors or ferries to see if they could avoid the transportation nightmare but its a spot a lot of people really, really want to see so only the government will be able to reduce the number of ships. An easier solution has to be finding alternate ways of transporting people to Oia though.
You’re all probably right that other ships would come in. Unfortunately, as I outlined in my original post, I was not able to visit Santorini due to this problem, and I don’t regret my decision not to go up based on other’s experiences. If it is the port that is dictating the number of tourists, then the way they’re going about it makes it so hard to get up to the town that I would personally be fine skipping the port entirely. Sounds like an unwinnable situation, but I think I may still have a point given the absolutely massive percentage of cruisers that were coming off of Norwegian owned ships.
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29 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:
"How hard can it be to have only one large ship in a small port on a single day?"
How do you propose allocating that on spot for a large ship?
Consider that there are multiple cruise lines stopping there.
I may have been unclear in my original post, it is not possible for Norwegian to ensure that there is only one large ship at Santorini on a given day. I am suggesting that they should ensure that there is only one large ship owned by them in the port on a single day.
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23 minutes ago, mjkacmom said:
Do you think that if NCL didn’t fill those spots they would remain empty? The ports themselves allow it.
You are absolutely right that Norwegian could not single-handedly fix the problem. However, I believe they could avoid single-handedly creating it.
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Just wanted to share a thought here in case it helps someone down the line. I and my sister recently returned from a 10-day cruise on the Norwegian Viva. We loved the ship and the crew and the specialty dining really surprised me in a positive way. However, there was one thing that Norwegian did that was pretty harmful. Santorini is a town of 15,000 people, and it is heavily dependent on tourism for income. Norwegian docked two large ships in the harbor, with a third Regent ship (a Norwegian subsidiary brand) also in the harbor on the same day. So Norwegian was singularly putting about 9,000 tourists onshore (not including any crew-members who may have chosen to disembark) on a single day. Fortunately, my sister and I knew better than to try to go up to the town, but the pier itself was so overcrowded that there was nowhere to stand, (the port authorities had to delay disembarkation for some time due to this problem) and we heard reports from other cruisers that fights were breaking out among those waiting for the cable car (there are few ways to get to the city from the pier.) I cannot personally corroborate this, but we were informed by more than one fellow cruiser that a passenger who was fighting with another missed his target and struck the man’s toddler, so hopefully the police got involved, but in a crowd that dense it seems likely to me that nothing ended up happening. Obviously Norwegian can’t be responsible for the individual behavior of guests, but single-handedly discharging 9,000 tourists along with crew on a single day into a port with a population of 15,000 seems near criminally irresponsible - remember, other cruise lines are in port also. At the very least this is not consistent with the type of experience that Norwegian seems to suggest you’re going to have at ports of call! Should I have known to expect this? How hard can it be to have only one large ship in a small port on a single day? If you are stopping in Santorini with Norwegian, I recommend you consider booking a shore excursion so that you’ll get to see something without fighting for your life.
Other than that we had a great time, eat great people, and would consider cruising with Norwegian again!
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Port Overcrowding and Corporate Responsibility
in Norwegian Cruise Line
Posted
Yes, I did see that. Hopefully this helps to alleviate the problem.