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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 South Central Pennsylvania. This newsletter will serve several purposes, including but not limited to, keeping you up to date on current events in the industry, offering views and opinions of the newsletter staff as well as views submitted by readers, providing information about cruise offerings and specials as well as cruise related products.

In This Issue

#1 State of Maine and
Environmental Issues

#2 New York City Strikes Again

PLUS
-Cruise Specials-
-Caribbean Princess Named-
- Carnival Goes Digital-

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Last week's issue reported about a greedy Alaska Representative, this week's issue has news about the State of Maine.

The state's Department of Environmental Protection is looking into an environmental solution and is working closely with the state's Natural Resources Committee in order to further protect the delicate coastal water quality. However, they have made it clear, that they need to come to some agreements and understandings that will indeed protect the environment but at the same time make sure they retain the $13 Million in annual revenues that is provided by the cruise industry each year by bringing over 100,000 cruise ship guests to the state.

The cruise industry is more than willing to work with the state DEP to iron out agreements to protect the environment. Most modern cruise ships are equipped with state of the art environmental systems, and under strict international agreements, do not discharge any wastewater within several miles of any shoreline.

A fact that the cruise industry repeats over and over again, but does not seem to register with some state government officials is that they also want to protect the environment. If the coastal waters become environmentally damaged and lose their beautiful appearance and general appeal, the cruise lines will also lose customer base, as fewer passengers will choose that cruise. So bottom line, the cruise lines have as much interest in protecting the environment as the states do!

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NEW YORK CITY
STRIKES AGAIN!!

We reported in the February 3, 2004 newsletter about New York City providing too little too late in the way of pier improvements for the cruise ships visiting the city.

It seems, New York City is continuing to short change the cruise industry. We reported about Royal Caribbean Cruise Line making arrangements to build a brand new cruise terminal in New Jersey (additional information on that story follows). As reported in that story, Carnival Cruise Lines have been talking to the city about building a cruise terminal in Brooklyn to handle several of their ships. They want to bring one or two additional ships to the region, but due to the current lack of space as well as the condition of the space available, they can not do so.

Well, New York City has now announced that they have had to put the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal talks on the shelf for awhile and will not proceed at this time! Amazing, from a city that just screwed around and lost over 100,000 passengers a year to neighboring New Jersey, they are now risking another 100,000+ passengers a year!

A Carnival spokesperson has stated, "We love New York City. I don't even need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just need to see the tunnel to move ahead. If I cannot put a ship there though, I will have to put it somewhere else!". Hello, New York, anybody listening? How many hundreds of thousands of passengers do you have to lose before you wake up and get off your butts?

Placing a ship in a new home port area is a very complex process that requires a long lead time. As an example, the day Micky Arison of Carnival Corp. had the idea of building the worlds largest cruise ship, the Queen Mary 2, the strategic planning division of Carnival started working on where to put the ship.

The decision was made to place the ship in New York and temporarily use the Manhattan Terminal until such time as their Brooklyn Terminal plan could be completed. The Manhattan pier is too small for the Queen Mary 2 on a permanent basis, as the huge ship will extend into the navigational channel. It will also be hard to dock under certain conditions due to the size of the pier.

New York is saying, well we have announced over $50 Million in upgrades to the terminal area. However, as reported here, those upgrades do nothing to solve the main problems and complaints of the cruise lines and the cruise passengers. The city says they are upgrading the terminals including the passenger areas and upgrading the escalators. Even Carnival has stated, "Royal Caribbean didn't leave because of an escalator! It is the traffic and access issues for the facilities as they are."

Carnival says they are booking huge blocks of upscale hotel rooms, especially on the Hudson River facing side, as the passengers booking the transatlantic voyages and even the 4 and 5 day shorter cruises out of the area are staying several days to "see the city".

On April 25th, both the Queen Elizabeth 2 and the Queen Mary 2 are scheduled to depart the city and sail across the Atlantic in tandem. This event has generated a ton of publicity for the city and almost all upscale hotel rooms facing the waterfront are completely booked.

It is simply incredible that the city of New York would risk losing this type of publicity and exposure, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars the passengers dump into the local city coffers with every visit. They have already lost a huge amount of business from RCL in their move across the Hudson, and now, they are risking losing another huge and growing chunk of business by shelving the proposed Carnival terminal.

It seems that the states of Maine and New Jersey wins the awards for common sense. Maine says, let's work together to protect the environment; New Jersey says, they don't want to help you, come over here, we love you.

Alaska just gets greedy and says give us more money, and New York says, sorry, too busy to discuss it now, we have to put it on the shelf for the time being! Common sense and intelligence versus greed and plain stupidity!

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NEW CRUISE TERMINAL NAMED

As reported earlier, Royal Caribbean has announced the agreement to construct and operate a large cruise ship passenger terminal in Bayonne, New Jersey.

They have now announced the name for the terminal, Cape Liberty Cruise Port.

Starting in May of this year, Cape Liberty Cruise Port will serve as a seasonal homeport for the extra large 3,114 passenger Voyager of the Seas which will make her debut in New York City Metro Area this spring. The Nordic Empress will also use this terminal as her homeport.

RCL is very happy with the selected name as the passengers will begin and end the cruises with a marvelous view of the Statue of Liberty and the skyline of lower Manhattan. All the views, none of the traffic hassles of New York City!

RCL will operate out of existing modified structures for the immediate future with long term plans to construct a completely new terminal and all supporting facilities. This action is necessitated by the actions, or should we say, the lack of actions by the New York City cruise terminals.

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More Photos From
Onboard Ship Inspection
Holland America Line
Oosterdam
(Brand New Ship)

After dinner, enjoy the private club area or your private veranda

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Caribbean Princess
Gets Named
&
"Vicki" Gets Married

Princess Cruise Lines will have the "official" naming ceremony for the Caribbean Princess in Ft. Lauderdale on April 2, 2004. As reported earlier, Jill Whelan, actress and former "Love Boat" star, (she played Vicki, the Captain's Daughter on the show) will be the Godmother for the ship and conduct the naming ceremony.

Jill will also be getting married the same day aboard the ship. The wedding ceremony will be broadcast over the ship's web cam for all guests to view. Several alumnus from the "Love Boat" will be onboard for the wedding including her TV father, Gavin MacLeod as well as Ted Lange who played Isaac.

Jill and her new husband, Michael Chaykowsky, will then sail away on their honeymoon cruise aboard the Caribbean Princess and will occupy an oceanview suite with private balcony.

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Carnival Goes Digital
&
Facial Recognition Comes Aboard

Carnival Cruise Lines has rolled out an all new all digital photo platform developed specifically for Carnival by KonicaMinolta Photo Imaging USA Inc.

The process will use Olympus digital cameras and will greatly enhance the overall photo experience onboard. Obviously the new technology will use no film and greatly reduces the use of photo finishing chemicals.

They are also rolling out a new beta test of the new photo retrieval kiosk featuring "facial recognition technology". You, the passenger, will simply walk up to one of the photo retrieval kiosk and look into the screen. The computer will compare the image of your face, using high tech facial recognition technology, with all photos in the system with a matching image and then display all the photos you are in on the screen for you to view, select, or discard. The technology is supposed to be advanced enough to pick your image out of any photos taken, even group photos and displays them for you if you are in that photo! If you select a photo, it is then printed on photo paper with borders and backgrounds of your choosing.

The multimillion dollar digital conversion is already in place on six of the vessels in the fleet and will be fleet wide by the end of the year. The beta test of the photo retrieval system will begin this spring aboard the new Carnival Miracle.

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