Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

Cruise industry's recent troubles bring bargain rates for a while

The cruise industry image is floundering again, with more bad news and big pictures about ships losing power (and the subsequent much-feared inability to flush toilets).

If history is any guide, cruise lines will fight back by throwing money at the image problem, lowering their prices until customers start buying again.

So if you are thinking about booking a cruise, this may be the time to find a bargain. (This article appeared earlier this week in The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio.)

Shorter cruises for luxury lines show off ships around the world

Cruise lines from mass-market to luxury increasingly are designing shorter voyages, both to introduce their ships to vacationers who have not been to sea and to provide getaways for busy world travelers who may have only a few leisure days to spare.

 

Tea time in Palm Court on Crystal Serenity (Picture from Crystal Cruises)

This year, in addition to traditional cruises of two-to-five nights out of Florida and the U.S. East, West and Gulf coasts -- including Norwegian Cruise Line trips to nowhere of one and two nights out of New York -- you’ll find well-known brands with short cruises from ports around the world.

Ships are sailing with short itineraries from Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town and Durban, Barcelona, Lisbon, Stockholm, Copenhagen, London, Rome, Hamburg, and Monte Carlo.

Redundancies and power issues in the cruise ship world

Cruise line executives and industry leaders meet annually in March at Cruise Shipping Miami. This week, for the second year in a row, their conference and trade show, designed to talk about past profits and show off innovative products, was marred by a recent international black eye.

In January 2012, the Costa Concordia rollover at sea, off the coast of Italy, killed 32 people, and two months later, when the cruise industry finally got around to talking about the disaster, the pall in the Miami convention hall was a mood stealer.

This year, the industry’s wound was more image than damage.