Articles tagged “carnival”

The devil will indeed be in the details about the cruise lines' decision to begin publishing allegations about onboard crimes on their websites. This would be a big improvement in transparency for passengers, although the decision occurred with the prospect that Congress might have forced the cruise lines to do it anyway.

The Senate committee convened to talk about more consumer protections. Case in point: Carnival was telling everyone about the wonders of the repaired Carnival Triumph in June, and wasn't transparent about letting passengers know that the ship had just failed an inspection because of fire detection and lifeboat drill problems, among others.

Suppliers, namely airlines, hotels, a cruise line and a car rental company, clearly dominate the top 15. Priceline and Amadeus are the only middlemen represented.

Carnival Corp. is a cruise company in crisis months after the Carnival Triumph episode caught the world's attention. The cruise industry was pressured to adopt a passenger bill of rights, Carnival is retrofitting its entire fleet, and now its longtime CEO has given up that role. Definitely not business as usual.

The Carnival Triumph hangover has lasted longer than the cruise industry initially envisioned. Carnival's confident that lower fares will fill the ships, if not the cruise line's coffers.

Carnival will find a way to get out of its rut, but it will take longer to do so if it doesn't acknowledge that it's low fares directly relate to its less-than-stellar safety issues.

The good news is that the Triumph didn't hit anything on the way out of port. But it's a long way to the Bahamas.

Carnival Corp., which is engaged in damage control with Congress and the public, is making common-sense improvements that it should have made long ago. That being said, it appears as though these improvements could go a long way toward avoiding an encore of Carnival Triumph-like fiascos.

Carnival caved to intense pressure from Washington and its decision to reimburse the government for the Carnival Triumph and Carnival Splendor rescues could serve as a precedent. Carnival and other cruise lines could be getting bills in the mail from the U.S. Treasury for future incidents.

When you can't go a whole month without your cruise company having a major maintenance issue, price isn't your problem. Underpaid workers, cutting corners, and underinvestment are.