More sailings from San Diego or Las Angeles needed to build brand presence

[CruiseCheapsk8]

Carnival, in addition, will have three ships full time in Galveston soon, if not there already.

 

Galveston is not a "horrible port".

Yes driving down Harborside Dr is "industrial" but that's misleading. Galveston is a destination, hundreds of thousands visit yearly.

 

For those people outside of Texas that can't drive to the port, it is not the preferred port to go to. Horrible may be a stretch, but it certainly isn't great. Now that Uber and Lyft can work there again, it will get better, but here are some issues: It's very industrial, as had been mentioned and certainly not the prettiest port. It does take a long time to get to, especially from IAH, which makes flights the morning of, or flights after the cruise, difficult. There are only a handful of taxi businesses in Galveston, and they are all booked the morning of your cruise if you stay on Galveston, so plan ahead. Rental car places are non-existent. The only one that I'm aware of is Enterprise and it was an absolute nightmare to try to get a one-way dropoff of a rental car from IAH to their Galveston location since they hate doing that, and then when you get there, there's no Enterprise shuttle to the cruise terminal, so the only way to get there is by taxi, and as stated above, that is difficult. If you take the shuttles form the ship, they are pretty expensive, and so are private transportation, usually. All-in-all, it's quite a hassle as compared to other ports, I think that is the point that a lot of people on here make when they reference Galveston.

 

 

So, if you're from Texas and cruise out of Galveston, that is awesome! I'm honestly jealous of you. For me, and many others, we try to avoid Galveston, for the above reasons and many more. The headache is not worth it to me, so I try to choose a different port (Miami, Port Everglades, etc.) instead.

 

Sorry for the brief detour, now back to the discussion on LA RCCL cruises, or the lack thereof..

Edited June 6, 2017 by GlobetrotterTravel
Additions

[SelectSys]

Yep. You have to pay out several millions to equip your ship. Then you pay an electricity delivery fee (to pay for the port infrastructure to have high voltage power lines and transformers, and disconnect switches), and then the average commercial electrical rate in California is $.1274/kwh (12 and 3/4 cents/kwh). To generate one kilowatt on the ship requires 138 grams of fuel/kwh, which at today's cost for low sulfur diesel is about $.04/kwh (4 cents, or 1/4 of the cost to buy the power).

 

And low sulfur diesel costs twice as much as the residual fuel they can burn with scrubbers. My feeling, based on past experiences with California's CARB is that they will not allow scrubbers to be used as an exemption to the low sulfur fuel requirements.

 

Glad to see you pointing out yet another way California is driving away business. One thing you didn't include in your commercial energy costs is a demand charge based on peak usage. These fees can be very high and reflect the costs of infrastructure that the utility makes on its side of the electric meter to have the capacity to deliver the electricity to the port. With California wanting 100% renewable energy by 2045 look for your local rates to go throw the roof and even more businesses will leave.

[wl2cruise]

Yep. You have to pay out several millions to equip your ship. Then you pay an electricity delivery fee (to pay for the port infrastructure to have high voltage power lines and transformers, and disconnect switches), and then the average commercial electrical rate in California is $.1274/kwh (12 and 3/4 cents/kwh). To generate one kilowatt on the ship requires 138 grams of fuel/kwh, which at today's cost for low sulfur diesel is about $.04/kwh (4 cents, or 1/4 of the cost to buy the power).

 

 

 

And low sulfur diesel costs twice as much as the residual fuel they can burn with scrubbers. My feeling, based on past experiences with California's CARB is that they will not allow scrubbers to be used as an exemption to the low sulfur fuel requirements.

 

 

 

CARB's law has a sunset rule it will eventually go away. Hopefully sooner that later.

 

 

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[MichaelCMTX]

Does anyone remember a year or two back when RCL did a few Pacific Coast runs with the Jewel? I think this was before they started using Explorer in AK. I really wanted to get in on that but GS sold out QUICK on those. To me that indicated at least some demand. It seemed a bit interesting that the Jewel was selected for this...

 

I think one of the things that keeps them away from California is the cost of doing business from there. Just the addition cost of the fuel ( they can only use low sulfur Diesel which is more than double the cost of bunker fuel) would probably be equal to going out of Texas with an empty ship.

 

...as the Radiance Glass ships run gas turbines, which usually aren't as picky on their fuel choices. Hmmm.

 

Now maybe the action wasn't as big on lesser cabins, or maybe it was the novelty factor and doing this route for months on end wouldn't sell as well, but I think there's a place for this. I even have suggested RCL do an extra "Back n forth" from Vancouver to Alaska once at the end of the season since that's such a desirable but infrequent route.

 

Galveston is not a "horrible port".

Yes driving down Harborside Dr is "industrial" but that's misleading. Galveston is a destination, hundreds of thousands visit yearly.

 

I have to agree with this. Galveston isn't horrible, but the usual route for getting there sure doesn't show off Galveston's best side. The way I see it, a weakness shared by Galveston AND a West Coast port (and NoLa as well) is "how many different itineraries can you offer"? Galveston is basically Cozumel/Cayman/Jamaica or Cozumel/Costa Maya/Roatan/Belize (I think they dropped Belize but you get the idea). This is why despite the incredible convenience, if we only really get one cruise a year, we kind-of want to go someplace else if we can. Another weakness is if you're not driving there, at all three the run from the airport isn't simple. LAX to Long Beach isn't a great distance, but it isn't a great neighborhood either; and for the other airports, unless you're flying into Long Beach you're easily looking at Galveston or NoLA airport-to-cruiseport distances.