Sheehan vs. Del Rio

[Wannacruise81]

How have things changed since Sheehan was replaced by Del Rio for NCL? 

 

I see posts where people say things were better back in the times when Sheehan was CEO. What are some examples?

 

 

[Steff79]

Sheehan was likable, i like the undercover Boss episode with him. Escape is my favorite ship.

 

Del Rio stand for me: only talking about how much money he can make ( erveryone wants to make money so it is not necessary to say that ) and horrible deck space and the horrible race track/Laser tag.

 

 

Is Julie Valeriote still with NCL and in Charge for Entertaiment? or did she left NCL?

 

 

[dexddd]

It has been death by a thousand cuts since.

[BirdTravels]

6 hours ago, Steff79 said:

Is Julie Valeriote still with NCL and in Charge for Entertainment? or did she left NCL?

Pre--COVID, she was still with the company as a corporates executive for Entertainment. We saw her last on the inaugural voyage of the Encore out of Miami in November. 

 

De Rio has made outstanding strides in advancing the cruise line industry. While people complain about race tracks, that is exactly what is attracting the next generation cruiser and keeping the cruise line viable. Us old folks who have cruised for many decades will keep cruising (if there is a ship, and it is at sea, we'll be there). You have to capture that next generation of cruisers and get them hooked. Del Rio is catering to what the contemporary cruiser (vs old folks) want in a cruise experience. Great Job!

 

It is all about the money. If you have money, you can do the major dry docks every 5 years to keep the fleet new and fresh (and not aging like other cruise lines). You can launch a new ship every year. Invest in your future and you will be successful. 

Edited September 18, 2020 by BirdTravels

[david_sobe]

O'Sheehan is an interesting character.  Didn't he say that he never took a cruise until he became a cruise line CEO. He came at a crucial time for NCL.  NCL was bleeding money so while we can flame his hot dog carts and conservative new ships, it sort of worked.

FDR never had customer's best interests at hand.  There are just too many spontaneous utterances he has made at meetings that discard any consumer feedback.  He rolled back all of O'Sheehan's sparkle:  Fireworks, special perks, and sever other cut backs while raising prices just to raise prices.  Consumer opinions mean nothing to him.  He never saw a price hike that he didn't like while cutting customer perks at the same time.  IMHO if he could, he would take Tuesday out of a 7 night cruise 😉

Edited September 18, 2020 by david_sobe

[lovemycruisetoo]

“Us old folks who have cruised for many decades will keep cruising (if there is a ship, and it is at sea, we'll be there).”

 

Not all of us (old folks) will, so please do not speak for all of ‘Us’. We are both p+ who couldn’t care less for laser tag or a race track which is the the main reason we will not sail NCL.  Our last cruise on NCL, both laser tag and race track were always empty. Such a waste of ‘free deck space’. 
 

We, just us, (because I don’t speak for others) the older, and at one time loyal, cruisers with NCL enjoyed the time when Sheehan was in charge. He cared about us, the cruiser and not so much about how much money he could squeeze out of every guest which FDR is so proud to admit to. 
 

We (me and mine) are aware of the all the rah rah cheerleaders who jump at the chance to protect and defend NCL however we will not and have chosen to move on to other cruise lines. 
 

Oh, on another note, how many of these new generations can afford the overpriced prices?  At least us retirees who have planned to enjoy our retirement can. 
 

 

[Trimone]

I believe Del Rio, will move on to Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, he seems to care more about them than NCL.

Just an opinion 

[biker@sea]

After 30 NCL cruises in 12 years.

We cut way way back on NCL after frank said he wanted to get rid of the discount cruisers.

 

We don,t want to sail whilst unwanted.

Maybe we will return AFTER frank is gone.

[HowardK]

O Sheenan liked cruising and cruises and came up with some very creative ideas. Del Rio rolled a lot of them back out of fear of the $ it seems.

Example, the Epic started with the blues club, Blue Man group, 2  bowling alleys, legends in concert , Spice H20 with a retractable pool. 

I did like the fireworks and hot dog carts on the Breakawy.

You could get very good last minute deals etc..

Del Rio once said "Once out customers are on board they spend money like there is no tomorrow".

Things like lox got cut from the buffett, too much pay for stay space etc..

Fake bowling alleys on newer ships . Less staff for cleaning etc.

It makes me miss the mid 90's when it was like nicer food in main dining room and more space on the water etc..

 

 

 

 

[AstoriaPreppy]

I do have to give Del Rio credit for his insistence that Gem get heavily redecorated during the last refurb, and that NCL focus more on design and finishes across the brand. Living in NYC, the Gem is essentially our hometown ship for longer voyages.

Our first NCL cruise was in 2013 on the Gem, and we found the ship comically bad in terms interior design: a vaguely asian bordello theme in Bliss, clashing neon colors everywhere, and unusable furniture in the Spinnaker. It's made the Joe Farcus Carnival ships look like masterworks in comparison. 

From reports I've seen, Del Rio agreed, and major changes were made to make the ship more sophisticated for the tristate area market. While certainly not a Celebrity-style ship, it's probably a much easier sell now. We certainly appreciated it during our last trip on the Gem in 2018.

 

[bluesea777]

Itineraries were becoming stale under Sheehan - same old milk runs.

 

Now we're getting the whole nine yards of new itineraries under FDR, and we have embarked on several fantastic cruises and have booked 2 more.

 

Antarctica, Greenland, Dubai, India, Vietnam, one-way cruises, etc.

 

Edited September 19, 2020 by bluesea777

[ohioNCLcruiser]

55 minutes ago, bluesea777 said:

Itineraries were becoming stale under Sheehan - same old milk runs.

 

Now we're getting the whole nine yards of new itineraries under FDR, and we have embarked on several fantastic cruises and have booked 2 more.

 

Antarctica, Greenland, Dubai, India, Vietnam, one-way cruises, etc.

 

 

100000% this. NCL's stale itineraries were getting to be extremely boring. Putting brand new ships on regular runs with a stop in Orlando, Nassau and GSC. One thing that Rio has done well is somewhat caught up compared to the other competitors with having fresh, exciting new itins in newer markets. We have done NCL out of Singapore and Tokyo which would have never been possible before FDR.

[BoundForSea]

So In addition to the insights here (DavidSobe as usual great piece here) couple other things to understand in that transition. First, Kevin had a VERY bad HR investigation and issue before his departure. He did I think, great things for NCL such as the original design for Breakaway back in ‘12. He was in tune with customer satisfaction, innovation, and really gave the customer alot of value for the money. A former Exec VP told me once that he was not a great team leader for the employee group. When he was forced to leave the company for his HR issues, along came Del Rio. FDR has an entire different take on NCLH. He is a businessman, 1000%. Wall Street Profits fkr shareholders is 99% of his goal and the other 1% is customer satisfaction, because it leads back to the other 99%. He is a better team leader to the employee group, however not great and anything to use as the gold standard. His son gave him the idea of racetrack at sea and bam. He took it back to the leadership team and they loved it and here we are, it brings in LOTS of revenue from the next generation of cruiser. FDR had the ability like many aurljne CEOs of the past to raise prices, cut costs aggressively over time and ride that fine line to the point of diminished returns. The Board loves him, the shareholders were happy, however we the cruiser over time have witnessed less value for the dollar, or same value for more dollars essentially. They have a quality product, a safe product, and their market is those like me, that will pay more than CCL, because the condition of the vessel and overall quality of the product is worth the money. 

 

Sheehan is involved with the Bahamas two ship operation out of West Palm, for those who didnt know that. They just got caught and fined for not paying their employees. 

 

For now, lets just hope for a return to cruising!! Be safe out there!

 

 

[njhorseman]

5 hours ago, Trimone said:

I believe Del Rio, will move on to Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises, he seems to care more about them than NCL.

Just an opinion 

That would be moving back, not on. He was the CEO of Prestige Cruise Holdings, the parent of Oceania and Regent Seven Seas. He's now the CEO of NCLH, the parent of NCL, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas, so he has far more responsibility...and NCL is the financial engine that drives NCLH because it has far more revenue than the other two combined. Because NCL is the 800 pound gorilla of the  NCLH profit and loss statement the changes to NCL operations have been far more obvious and substantial  than changes made at the other two lines. Oceania and RSS are just a couple of noisy chimps in comparison to the gorilla. FDR would not earn nearly what he does it he were just CEO of Oceania and RSS so I doubt he would want to take a step back to that role.

[sfaaa]

3 hours ago, BoundForSea said:

Sheehan is involved with the Bahamas two ship operation out of West Palm, for those who didnt know that. They just got caught and fined for not paying their employees. 

 

You can see one of their ships on Palm Beach webcam. Looks like a tired beat up rust bucket. 

[Trimone]

11 hours ago, njhorseman said:

That would be moving back, not on. He was the CEO of Prestige Cruise Holdings, the parent of Oceania and Regent Seven Seas. He's now the CEO of NCLH, the parent of NCL, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas, so he has far more responsibility...and NCL is the financial engine that drives NCLH because it has far more revenue than the other two combined. Because NCL is the 800 pound gorilla of the  NCLH profit and loss statement the changes to NCL operations have been far more obvious and substantial  than changes made at the other two lines. Oceania and RSS are just a couple of noisy chimps in comparison to the gorilla. FDR would not earn nearly what he does it he were just CEO of Oceania and RSS so I doubt he would want to take a step back to that role.

But what if NCL was 

 

11 hours ago, njhorseman said:

That would be moving back, not on. He was the CEO of Prestige Cruise Holdings, the parent of Oceania and Regent Seven Seas. He's now the CEO of NCLH, the parent of NCL, Oceania and Regent Seven Seas, so he has far more responsibility...and NCL is the financial engine that drives NCLH because it has far more revenue than the other two combined. Because NCL is the 800 pound gorilla of the  NCLH profit and loss statement the changes to NCL operations have been far more obvious and substantial  than changes made at the other two lines. Oceania and RSS are just a couple of noisy chimps in comparison to the gorilla. FDR would not earn nearly what he does it he were just CEO of Oceania and RSS so I doubt he would want to take a step back to that role.

But what if NCL was in chapter whatever, and it was taken over, nice easy job...

[www3traveler]

According to the latest press releases from Bahamas Paradise Cruise over the last year or so, there is no mention of either Kevin Sheehan or his son.  I saw a report at least 18 months or so, saying that Kevin Sheehan was being sued by Bahamas for failure to disclose that he (Kevin) could not be involved with another cruise company until January of 2020 (5 years from when he left Norwegian) and moved to Ireland.  

 

Mr. Del Rio was put in a very unfortunate position going into the January 2015 NCLH quarterly board meeting and Kevin's departure during that meeting.   Very true that Kevin had become involved in a very serious HR issue (private internal matter not be be made public, I hope.

[Sam The Cat]

Sheehan was great, him and his family was on a cruise that my sister and her husband took our mother  on and I got the call that if I was not doing anything come along since it was our mother's birthday.  I went, I had to bribe a friend to come among and her and I had a great time.  .

Sheehan came to our Meet and Greet and you could not miss my mother, my sister made sweatshirts for all of stating that we were with the Birthday Girl and my mother''s shirt said yes she was the birthday girl no get her a cup of coffee.  Even though Sheehan stayed in the best suite on the ship you would see him act like a regular guy walking the halls who may stop and say Hi to you and ask if everything was ok.   

[shof515]

15 hours ago, sfaaa said:

You can see one of their ships on Palm Beach webcam. Looks like a tired beat up rust bucket. 

most of their fleet is old carnival cruise line retired ships

[farmersfight]

12 minutes ago, shof515 said:

most of their fleet is old carnival cruise line retired ships

 

At least they met a better fate (so far) than a couple/few/maybe more of Carnival's fantasy-class ships.

[njhorseman]

7 hours ago, Trimone said:

 

 

But what if NCL was in chapter whatever, and it was taken over, nice easy job...

FDR is 65 . I suspect he would retire rather than taking a lesser position.

[deliver42]

Carnival's old ships should have been retired years ago.