FOR OUR NEW SUBSCRIBERS

Welcome to another issue of Cruise-n-Views Newsletter. If you are new to our newsletter, welcome. We are glad to have you as a subscriber and hope you enjoy the information this weekly newsletter provides you to stay up-to-date on all the exciting happenings in the cruise industry. We also hope you take part in this newsletter, by submitting questions you want answered, providing feedback to help us improve the newsletter to make it even more enjoyable, and even participating in occasional surveys and then reading the results of our readers once posted. The more participation from the readers, the better the newsletter will be. 

Editor: Daniel A. Hoffman, MCC  

This newsletter contains current news and information on the "Cruise" industry. It will also contain the "Views" of the editor on different issues within the industry. The editor owns and operates a cruise oriented travel agency located in Pennsylvania. This newsletter's main purpose IS NOT AND WILL NOT BE for the purpose of selling cruises. It will at times contain ads from different sources. All ads will be cruise or travel related. It will list cruise specials from time to time in the ad section, but as stated, this is not the primary purpose of this newsletter.

Island Princess- -Christmas Atrium

In This Issue

#1 Port Everglades
"World Record"

#2 Increase In Scheduled
Shorter Voyages

PLUS
-Predict The Date Winners-
-Q & A-
-Queen Mary 2 Delivered-

You can email us at the following:

Feedback@Cruise-n-Views.com
for input about the newsletter

Editor@Cruise-n-Views.com
for submitting questions to have answered

Reply@Cruise-n-Views.com
for general replies or responses to articles in the newsletter

#1 PORT EVERGLADES
"WORLD RECORD"

Port Everglades is the port name for Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and has been literally exploding from increases in cruise oriented traffic. It is one of, if not the, fastest growing cruise port in the world.

Several major cruise lines make sure they bring the newest and biggest ships to this port to be showcased. Between this fall and the winter, seven new vessels are making inaugural voyages to Port Everglades. This includes the largest passenger cruise ship ever built, Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2.

Other brand new ships debuting in Port Everglades during this time period include; Island Princess, Crystal Serenity, Costa Mediterranea, HAL's Oosterdam, MSC Italian Cruises' Lirica, and Caribbean Princess.

Port Everglades cruise traffic has been increasing at an annual rate of 12.7% for the past few years. Cruise lines like the port because it is easy to do business with and offers a high level of customer service. Passengers like it because it is located right next to the airport, is clean, offers a sense of good security, and is efficient with a wide selection of hotels nearby. The hotels nearby cover everything from the high end to the economy level.

The port has had a long standing plan of growth and capital improvements in place for many years. A large part of its success is its flexibility. While many of the terminals, and buildings being converted into passenger terminals, were originally built and used as cargo warehouses, they were built to standards that allow quick and easy conversion into modern and up to the minute passenger terminal facilities.

They have made changes to Terminal 21 in order to be able to easily handle QM2 when it docks here in January. However, looking ahead, they are already prepared to make simple changes to Terminal 18 which will allow the recently ordered Ultra Voyager from Royal Caribbean to dock here with no problem. This Ultra Voyager will be even larger than the QM2 and will be a tight fit even in New York's port. Port Everglades is boasting, "No problems here, we can handle it!"

One of the problems several ports are facing as North America continues adding home ports, is handling the increasing amount of drive-in passengers. This has been a topic and a major complaint with the Port of New York City. Once again, "No problem here!" screams Port Everglades. In fact, Port Everglades averages between 30% and 50% of all passengers that are drive ins. The port already has 4,500 parking spots readily available within the port itself, 500 more coming early in 2004, another 1,700 ready to go as the need arises, not to mention numerous private parking facilities around the terminal area.

Port Everglades is expected to handle over 4 million passengers in fiscal 2004, which began in October. On December 21st, the port set what is believed to be a world record. There were a total of 17 passenger ships scheduled to be in the port and just over 50,000 passengers passing through the port on that day! No port in the world has handled that volume of traffic in one day. Strategies were in place to make maximum use of all port facilities and it was timed like a fine ballet.

Of the 17 ships, 15 were actually coming and going. The other 2 were in wetdock for scheduled work. Even these ships in wetdock were shuffled to handle the arriving and departing ships. The port handled over 1 million tons of cruise vessels, which would stretch 2.5 miles long if docked from stem to stern! There were 25,000 passengers disembarking within a 2.5 hour time window and then the same number of new passengers arriving. This is equal to the volume at O'Hare International Airport, the 2nd busiest airport in the country.

On top of all of this, the Travel Trade's 20th annual Leisure Travel Conference and Winter Cruise-A-Thon was held at the port on December 4-7. This conference had over 1,000 travel agents and over 400 vendors and speakers in attendance. Most of these agents also inspected between 3 and 5 ships during this 4 day period.

Port Everglades did not show up in last week's recap of the top four cruise ports for volume, but expect to see them in the top four very soon!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

#2 INCREASE IN SCHEDULED
SHORTER VOYAGES

Cruise Lines are very good at offering what passengers want. It appears they want the option of shorter cruises.

Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) reported that 2.6 million people set sail on cruises of five days or less in the past year. This was a 7.5% increase over the previous year.

The cruise lines are responding by offering an even higher number of short cruise offerings. Royal Caribbean has four ships handling short cruises on a year round basis with several others offering seasonal short cruises. Carnival Cruise Lines has nine out of nineteen ships doing short cruises. Carnival is offering 1,200 total departures for the coming year and 60% of these are five days or less in duration! Norwegian, Holland, Princess, Disney, and several other also offer a wide range of shorter cruises to satisfy the demand.

Why the demand? Several reasons arise for this demand. One main reason is to give first time cruisers a wide selection to choose from. Many people who have never cruised are very hesitant about taking a seven day or longer cruise for their first cruise experience. A three, four, or five day cruise is very easy for them to accept and as the cruise lines know, a very large percentage of them WILL return for more traditional longer cruises after that first experience.

Another reason is simple stress relief and economics. Many Americans realize they can take two, three, or even four short cruises in a year very economically and enjoy multiple stress relief breaks throughout the year.

Whatever the bottom line reason, the demand is there and therefore the cruise lines will be there to meet the demand!

Cruise-n-Views Newsletter ©  2003 Dynamic Dream Cruises, Inc.

Please feel free to forward this newsletter along to your friends who might be interested in receiving it. However, we ask that you keep it intact and forward it in its entirety.         

PRIVACY NOTICE: Please note that we will never sell, rent, or exchange your email address or any other personal information you may provide to us with any vendors or marketing firms.        

   UNSUBSCRIBE INFO: This newsletter is distributed by opt-in subscription only. If you wish to have your name removed from our mailing list simply send an email to: Newsletter@Cruise-n-Views.com and place the word "Remove" on the subject line. Or you may click on this direct link:
mailto:Newsletter@Cruise-n-Views.com?subject=Remove                     

 ARTICLE SUBMISSION INFO: If you would like to submit an article for consideration, please email your article and information to: Articles@Cruise-n-Views.com          

ADVERTISING INFO: If you are interested in submitting an advertisement to be included in an upcoming issue of this newsletter, please request advertising specifications from:
Advertising@Cruise-n-Views.com