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.
No one was hurt in an engine room fire on Carnival Triumph during a February cruise in the Gulf of Mexico, but the whole industry took at least an emotional hit as more than 4,000 people floated for days without power or working toilets -- while the TV world watched on CNN. It was hardly the image of a carefree cruising vacation.
You might have expected that leaders from Carnival Cruise Lines would toss off the Triumph power failure as an anomaly, a blip in the past year’s fine safety record at sea. But no, Carnival President Gerry Cahill began the annual cruise State of the Industry panel discussion with a long and sober rendition of the Triumph’s failures and his company’s unrelenting investigation to find out what happened and how to keep ships running -- preferably with toilets and AC -- if another such ship fire occurs.
More redundancy, again
At the least, damaged cruise ships should be able to move without waiting for an ignominious return to port, pulled by tug boats. Cruise ships are supposed to have redundancy, so if one operating system fails, another would take over.
Unfortunately, power and redundant systems on Carnival ships seem to be a major and continuing problem. They failed on Carnival Triumph, just as they had several years ago after a fire on Carnival Splendor. This week, Carnival Legend had some propulsion problems in the Gulf of Mexico and was limping home, while Carnival Dream suffered generator difficulties in St. Maarten, sending passengers home early and cancelling a future cruise.
Maybe it’s all coincidence. Or maybe the redundancy issue is a design flaw that needs to be fixed so that Carnival ships no longer seem to operate like those old Christmas tree strings of lights. You remember: When one light went out, they all went out.
Whatever is the problem, my understanding from a week in Miami is that fellow cruise executives are weary of hearing about Carnival redundancy issues and power failures, which no doubt have a negative financial impact on other cruise lines.
One seldom discussed fact about the cruising business is that many past passengers can’t remember which cruise line they last booked. They tend to put most cruise lines and ships in the same basic basket.
So, when one cruise line suffers a fever, they all shiver.
David Molyneaux writes regularly about cruising news, tips and trends. His cruise trends column appears monthly in U.S. newspapers and on other Internet sites. He is editor of TheTravelMavens.com
