Is Carnival Falling Behind?

[TPFKAH]

At the risk of sounding argumentative, I have to disagree about the missteps. The Costa Concordia was very specifically the work of a rogue employee, and the Triumph, well, I think it can rightfully be filed under "stuff happens". Not a whole lot that the companies could do about either, imo. They certainly got bad press over both incidents, which is understandable, but again, unless both companies had crystal balls, there wasn't a whole lot they could do, until they had to fall back on damage control.

 

Actually, the incidents themselves were one thing. How Carnival handled it is what they are STILL paying for. It even took them a long time to even admit their PR campaign just sucked. Going silent during a crisis never works.

[morganboys]

I think hell just froze over!;)

 

This has nothing to do with this topic but

CJ, what kind of camera do you shoot your pics with and how do you get them to look so sweet? You must have the best pics on this site.

[keith75]

Carnival was started by ted arison who sole mission in creating Carnival Cruise lines was to bring cruising to average american citizen. He wanted to bring families to cruising. Gone are the days of retired only and honeymoon only cruisers. Carnival has allways stressed pricing for the average american. It has worked for 40 plus years. IMHO it will continue to work regaurdless of what the wanna be econminest and wanna be expert cruise ship designers here on cruise critic says.

 

I agree! When I want to go to a resort, I go to a resort.

[jimbo5544]

At the risk of sounding argumentative, I have to disagree about the missteps. The Costa Concordia was very specifically the work of a rogue employee, and the Triumph, well, I think it can rightfully be filed under "stuff happens". Not a whole lot that the companies could do about either, imo. They certainly got bad press over both incidents, which is understandable, but again, unless both companies had crystal balls, there wasn't a whole lot they could do, until they had to fall back on damage control.

 

 

The poles just moved. Lol. Actually I was referring to mia steps from a earning perspective not fault.

 

 

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[jimbo5544]

Actually, the incidents themselves were one thing. How Carnival handled it is what they are STILL paying for. It even took them a long time to even admit their PR campaign just sucked. Going silent during a crisis never works.

 

They were there, how were they silent? Sorry I brought it up.

 

 

 

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[kybluecruiser]

I think hell just froze over!;)

 

 

LOLLOL

 

 

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[oldbluff]

Carnival had a couple tough years, there is no question. While cutbacks are there (and they are there for all cruise lines, make no mistake about that), I think a lot of the criticism and band wagon mentality. Having sailed Oasis on March I can honestly tell you that I thought the Carnival MDR food was a bit better. Carnival Steakhouses are much better than Chops. I really felt nickel and dimed on our Oasis cruise. That is not a better cruise experience in my book.

 

We sailed on the Fascination a couple of weeks ago and the MDR dinners were consistently better than our recent HAL cruises. We were pleasantly surprised. We also did the Chef's Table special dinner and it was a superb experience. I recommend it to any foodies. The wine served complemented it well.

[yogimax]

The Costa Concordia was very specifically the work of a rogue employee,

 

Who hired, trained, evaluated and continued to employ the "rogue" employee?

[Aquahound]

Who hired, trained, evaluated and continued to employ the "rogue" employee?

 

Without getting into the whole Carnival Corp side of it, Carnival Cruise Line did have a pretty bad run of ship collisions there for a while. Ironically, two of the three I can remember were into docked RCI ships (Cozumel and Puerto Vallerta). The third was into their own ship (Key West).

 

This is getting away from the topic of this thread, but as someone who investigates Marine Casualties, I'm glad they got their act together.

[Hendricks Clan]

They were there, how were they silent? Sorry I brought it up.

 

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app from my IPhone

 

Many people had a big problem seeing Micky Arison sitting court side at the American Airlines Arena awing over Mr. James a couple of night in a row while he had a ship bobbing around in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and sending an unprepared Gerry Cahill out doing damage control.

[EZ4]

Who hired, trained, evaluated and continued to employ the "rogue" employee?

 

LOL. In their defense, I'm not aware of him crashing a ship, until he did. In spectacular fashion.

[Hendricks Clan]

Carnival was started by ted arison who sole mission in creating Carnival Cruise lines was to bring cruising to average american citizen. He wanted to bring families to cruising. Gone are the days of retired only and honeymoon only cruisers. Carnival has allways stressed pricing for the average american. It has worked for 40 plus years. IMHO it will continue to work regaurdless of what the wanna be econminest and wanna be expert cruise ship designers here on cruise critic says.

 

The same can be said for NCL. Ted Arison founded NCL before he started CCL. NCL basically followed what you mentioned, and how did that work out for them? Not well they ended up nearly bankrupted, had the lowest customer service scores in the industry, and had the highest crew turn over rates.

 

They woke up, changed leadership, brought out some new and exciting ships, innovations, and features and what has that done? They are one of the most profitable cruise lines, have the newest/youngest fleet of ships in the industry, great customer service, provide great loyalty to their passengers, and have one of the lowest crew turnover rates among its peers.

 

Now will CCL ever get to as bad of shape as NCL was at it lowest point? I have no idea, but the fact of the matter is CCL has changed strategy and there not going to be able survive based on price points alone. Vista better blow it out of the park, or they are going to be hammered by industry professionals for taking so long and adding nothing innovative to a ship that has been in the works for over 4 years.

[kybluecruiser]

Many people had a big problem seeing Micky Arison sitting court side at the American Airlines Arena awing over Mr. James a couple of night in a row while he had a ship bobbing around in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico and sending an unprepared Gerry Cahill out doing damage control.

Gerry Cahill is the CEO of carnival cruise lines! Just like when. Granduer of the seas caught fire Adam Goldstien not richard Fain was in charge.

[kybluecruiser]

The same can be said for NCL. Ted Arison founded NCL before he started CCL. NCL basically followed what you mentioned, and how did that work out for them? Not well they ended up nearly bankrupted, had the lowest customer service scores in the industry, and had the highest crew turn over rates.

 

They woke up, changed leadership, brought out some new and exciting ships, innovations, and features and what has that done? They are one of the most profitable cruise lines, have the newest/youngest fleet of ships in the industry, great customer service, provide great loyalty to their passengers, and have one of the lowest crew turnover rates among its peers.

 

Now will CCL ever get to as bad of shape as NCL was at it lowest point? I have no idea, but the fact of the matter is CCL has changed strategy and there not going to be able survive based on price points alone. Vista better blow it out of the park, or they are going to be hammered by industry professionals for taking so long and adding nothing innovative to a ship that has been in the works for over 4 years.

Where did you get your degree in economics from?

[yogimax]

LOL. In their defense, I'm not aware of him crashing a ship, until he did. In spectacular fashion.

 

So, do you realize what you are saying? It's o.k. to have a captain, in charge of thousands of lives, who Carnival employs, simply because he has never crashed a ship before?:rolleyes:

[Hendricks Clan]

Gerry Cahill is the CEO of carnival cruise lines! Just like when. Granduer of the seas caught fire Adam Goldstien not richard Fain was in charge.

 

Agreed but how did the media and the average American see it? I'll tell you they saw the then at the time Chairman and CEO of the company that carries the Carnival name sitting in luxury at a Miami Heat game. This is just one article of serval (CNN, FOX, MSNBC all carried similar stories) that comes up when you google the Triumph accident about Arison being at the Heat game http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/15/news/carnival-cruise-micky-arison/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2277914/Carnival-Triumph-CEO-Micky-Arison-takes-basketball-game-thousands-suffer.html ...you and I both know everything has a "perception" about it and once these stories came out CCL said/did nothing about it, until it blew up so much that Micky had to give a statement...albeit on Twitter.

[jimbo5544]

Who hired, trained, evaluated and continued to employ the "rogue" employee?[/quote

RCCL?

[Hendricks Clan]

Where did you get your degree in economics from?

 

I have a Master in Business Economics from the University of Tulsa to be exact.

[cjknox]

sending an unprepared Gerry Cahill out doing damage control.

 

Please do elaborate, because from what I saw Cahill did a helluva job.:confused:

[jimbo5544]

Agreed but how did the media and the average American see it? I'll tell you they saw the then at the time Chairman and CEO of the company that carries the Carnival name sitting in luxury at a Miami Heat game. This is just one article of serval (CNN, FOX, MSNBC all carried similar stories) that comes up when you google the Triumph accident about Arison being at the Heat game http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/15/news/carnival-cruise-micky-arison/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2277914/Carnival-Triumph-CEO-Micky-Arison-takes-basketball-game-thousands-suffer.html ...you and I both know everything has a "perception" about it and once these stories came out CCL said/did nothing about it, until it blew up so much that Micky had to give a statement...albeit on Twitter.

Micky is not the president of Carnival cruise lines (which you know) Cahill who is, was there greeting people as they came off the ship. How was Cahill unprepared? Where do you get this dribble? Are you on the management team at Carnival and know this?

Edited May 20, 2014 by jimbo5544

[EZ4]

So, do you realize what you are saying? It's o.k. to have a captain, in charge of thousands of lives, who Carnival employs, simply because he has never crashed a ship before?:rolleyes:

 

Oh geez. I stand up for Carnival Corp on ONE point and I'm facing the great inquisition. Dude, how does a company know that one of their captains is going to crash a ship, until they do? I'm sure that ****teno was hired on the merits of his qualifications, whatever they may be. And really? You can't spell an Italian name without it being censored? LOL

Edited May 20, 2014 by EZ4

[Hendricks Clan]

Micky is not the president of Carnival cruise lines (which you know) Cahill who is, was there greeting people as they came off the ship.

 

Agreed but Im pointing out the perception CCL was given by the media about Micky and how the ordinary American saw it. We all know Gerry Cahill is the CEO of Carnival, but CCL unfairly allowed the media to publish stories about Micky at the Heat game, which at the time was the CEO of Carnival Corp which owned Carnival, so the average American saw "Carnival CEO at Heat Game," and CCL was slow to respond to the claims and their PR in general over the Triumph disaster left a lot to be desired.

[jimbo5544]

Agreed but Im pointing out the perception CCL was given by the media about Micky and how the ordinary American saw it. We all know Gerry Cahill is the CEO of Carnival, but CCL unfairly allowed the media to publish stories about Micky at the Heat game, which at the time was the CEO of Carnival Corp which owned Carnival, so the average American saw "Carnival CEO at Heat Game," and CCL was slow to respond to the claims and their PR in general over the Triumph disaster left a lot to be desired.

Wow, it must all be the color glasses we wear. I happen to think they did a pretty good job with both the Triumph and the Splendor. News outlets look for photo ops like Micky at a Heat game (the team which he owns BTW). Most (except some of the experts here) felt that Carnival with their customers with compassion and an honest attempt to do the right thing.

[cjknox]

The same can be said for NCL. Ted Arison founded NCL before he started CCL. NCL basically followed what you mentioned, and how did that work out for them? Not well they ended up nearly bankrupted, had the lowest customer service scores in the industry, and had the highest crew turn over rates.

 

They woke up, changed leadership, brought out some new and exciting ships, innovations, and features and what has that done? They are one of the most profitable cruise lines, have the newest/youngest fleet of ships in the industry, great customer service, provide great loyalty to their passengers, and have one of the lowest crew turnover rates among its peers.

 

Ted Arison co-founded Norwegian, then he went on to create Carnival soon thereafter so comparing NCL to CCL is like comparing apples to oranges. There are so many variables involved that led to NCL's demise which cannot be attributed to Carnival in any way whatsoever; in other words they are not one in the same as you insinuate.

[jimbo5544]

Oh geez. I stand up for Carnival Corp on ONE point and I'm facing the great inquisition. Dude, how does a company know that one of their captains is going to crash a ship, until they do? I'm sure that ****teno was hired on the merits of his qualifications, whatever they may be. And really? You can't spell an Italian name without it being censored? LOL

We will gladly take you over here on the dark side;)