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NCL Gearing up for the Future
Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) is on the move with additional newbuildings to be announced shortly. Meanwhile, NCL has announced names for its two ships being built at Meyer Werft – he Norwegian Jewel will be delivered in 2005, followed by the Pride of Hawaii in 2006. A new delivery date has also been set for the Pride of America: June 6. 2005. By 2006, NCL will have four ships in Hawaii – three under the NCL America banner and one NCL ship, carrying nearly 500,000 passengers, and representing approximately one third of NCL’s business. NCL is also beefing up is year-round program out of New York, adding the Norwegian Spirit alongside the Dawn in fall 2005. The Jewel will start sailing from Miami in late summer 2005 before spending the 2006 summer season in Alaska.

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Originally posted by Gundam X Divider:
It seems that Star/NCL is not very interested in 100,000-ton ships. Can that be more sisters of the Star/Dawn Class?

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And about NCL new builds, I personally would love to see Star's Superstar Sagittarous II be built for the NCL group.

I read somewhere Iforgot where) that she was going to have like 2000 crew members on her (the Superstar Sagittarous II that is). Is this true?
If it is, WOW!

While I agree, that I wish NCL would begin building some 100,000+ ton ships I don't think this is likely. The reason is that NCl plans to remove their older ships which currently number 5 (Sea, Wind, Dream, Majesty, and Crown). Without these ships in the fleet the current number of NCL ships at 70,000+ tons would only be 5 (Sun, Star, Dawn, Spirit, Jewel) and NCL America would have 3 (Hawaii, Aloha, America). Therefore, it doesn't seem to promising that NCL would limit themselves to deployment flexibility which occurs with 100,000+ ton ships.

However, I feel that if NCl doesn't start adding 100,000+ ton ships they will have the same problem they did in the 90s which was operating smaller ships when the rest of the industrty was operating 70,000 ton ships which meant they had to offer cheaper prices to remain competitive. This is one of the reasons they nearly went bankrupt. I feel the same thing will happen in the not to distant future since the 90,000 ton ships can't command the premiums that the 100,000+ ton ships can not to mention the economy of scales are better on these larger ships as well.

I wish the best for NCl and my dream would be a ship that was at least 100,000+ ton but preferrable even larger to compete with RCCL's Voyager class, this way NCl could get the respect they deserve since few feel their ships are truly that innovative.

Sincerely,

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Originally posted by Joe1690:
However, I feel that if NCl doesn't start adding 100,000+ ton ships they will have the same problem they did in the 90s which was operating smaller ships when the rest of the industrty was operating 70,000 ton ships which meant they had to offer cheaper prices to remain competitive. This is one of the reasons they nearly went bankrupt. I feel the same thing will happen in the not to distant future since the 90,000 ton ships can't command the premiums that the 100,000+ ton ships can not to mention the economy of scales are better on these larger ships as well.

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While I would like to agree that the megaships are getting to large and I personally have only sailed on two the destiny and Grand Princess, I find the Grand Princess to be the ideal ship. Lately though, I have been sailing on Panamax and smaller ships and have had a great cruise on all of them. While, I personally don't think ships should get much bigger than 150,000 tons, unfortunately, all one has to do is look at RCCL's Voyager class of ships and the premium they command per sailing usuaully several hundred dollars per person and to me this speaks volumes as to the consumer's desire to have really large ships. I feel like larger cruise ships are like computer processors, the faster the processor the better the consumer thinks it is even though that is not true usually.

Also, I wanted to thank you for welcoming me.

Sincerely,

1. US crews are far, far more expensive
2. US flagged ships cannot operate casinos- reducing their onboard revenue.
3. More lines are sailing Hawaii, even though NCL is the only one with a 7 day Hawaii only itinerary, it still means added compitition.
4. Now their US crew is having problems (big surprise)
5. NCL America's bad press has gotten the product off to a very poor start among the public.

Here is the heart of the matter. In order for NCL America to be profitable NCL must convince cruisers to pay MORE for their Hawaii product than for another cruise. NCL was hoping people would pay more simply because it is Hawaii, and they had no competition. But why pay more for Hawaii when the service is poor, and product weak. A smart cruiser will sail another line to Hawaii, sail a different itinerary altogether, or simply stay at a land based resort in Hawaii.

In the days when Constitution and Independence sailed Hawaiian waters, (under various managements):
!. Were they US flagged? I believe yes.
2. Were they US crewed? -do-
3. Were there problems with Item 2 above? I dunno. My brother and his wife sailed, some fifteen years ago and reported a very pleasant cruise.
4. In short, why could reasonably competent crews be acquired and maintained 10-20 years ago, but not now?

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Cambodge wrote:
...In short, why could reasonably competent crews be acquired and maintained 10-20 years ago, but not now?

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Could it be attitude? Wages? Any other reason(s)?

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Originally posted by Cambodge:
Will those who have been around awhile in information gathering on this subject fill my RAM here?

In the days when Constitution and Independence sailed Hawaiian waters, (under various managements):
!. Were they US flagged? I believe yes.
2. Were they US crewed? -do-
3. Were there problems with Item 2 above? I dunno. My brother and his wife sailed, some fifteen years ago and reported a very pleasant cruise.
4. In short, why could reasonably competent crews be acquired and maintained 10-20 years ago, but not now?

It is a puzzlement.

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Originally posted by Cambodge:
Will those who have been around awhile in information gathering on this subject fill my RAM here?

In the days when Constitution and Independence sailed Hawaiian waters, (under various managements):
!. Were they US flagged? I believe yes.
2. Were they US crewed? -do-
3. Were there problems with Item 2 above? I dunno. My brother and his wife sailed, some fifteen years ago and reported a very pleasant cruise.
4. In short, why could reasonably competent crews be acquired and maintained 10-20 years ago, but not now?

It is a puzzlement.

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Cambodge,

when AHC ran the Connie and Indie, they had a fairly long time to settle into service and work the kinks out. In all the years they were in service together, never did I hear anyone who sailed on them rave about the service or even say it was great. The word used most was "friendly".

It seemed that only once the Connie was pulled from service, did I ever hear people start to really complement the service. I think that's when they were able to cull the 'best of the best'.

Then of course you have the short-lived Patriot. Besides the plethora of mechanical problems she had during her short time in service with US Lines, the service only seemed to smooth itself out in the very last month or so. This ship presented a real challenge and I heard lots of grumbling from Indy pax that the servcie had really declined as they pulled a lot of crew from her to serve aboard the Patriot.

IMO, the POA's problems are very real and have been compounded in several ways.

1) POA and Project America are much higher profile and attracting a much more scrutiny.

2) More crew are needed.

3) Hawaii's tourism is booming, there seems to be no shortage of land-based jobs. Hawaii's unemployment is less than 3%. American Hawaii and US Lines sufffered from the same problem even when Hawaii's unemployment rate was higher due to a pre 9/11 downturn in tourism due to a lousy economy in the Pacific Rim.

4) Lack of expertise and supervision. POA's Hotel Director publicly admitted they didn't hire enough supervisors. They (wrongly) calculated that American service personnel were more self sufficient.

5) Much the same as AHC and USL, NCL is forced to tap a resource pool that is largely comprised of very young people for whom this is not a career.

6) NCL's acquisition cost per employee is $8,000 to $11,000 per person in training and administrative costs.

7) It's taking the USCG and MARAD much too long to license all the necessary staff.

8) From my personal experiences aboard the POA, the majority of guests I spoke to had very high expectations of the ship and crew. Not that they shouldn't mind you, but most seemed to be expecting a cruise experience in line witn Celebrity, HAL, RCI and even NCL's international ships. I think the fault for this point lies with the travel agent community.

All in all, I had a very pleasant cruise aboard her during her first voyage in Hawaii and would repeat a cruise aboard her or any one of the NCL America ships in a hearbeat.

Was everything perfect? No.

Was I expecting perfect? No

Did any problems, challenges or issues I encountered "ruin" my cruise. Absolutely Not!

Was every staff member I met 100% commited to making it work and work well? 99% of them were giving it their all and then some.

Secondly, people who sailed Constitution and Indy knew their ships were quite old- they didn't expect a modern, cutting edge, premium cruise product.

Third, Connie and Indy were much smaller and required fewer crew members to create an acceptable experience for passengers.

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Originally posted by Tim in 'Lauderdale:
8) From my personal experiences aboard the POA, the majority of guests I spoke to had very high expectations of the ship and crew. Not that they shouldn't mind you, but most seemed to be expecting a cruise experience in line witn Celebrity, HAL, RCI and even NCL's international ships. I think the fault for this point lies with the travel agent community.

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Exactly the point I raised earlier!

Why does NCL need megaships for this role? If the cruise experience is more pleasant on smaller ships, fine, use them. I believe Paul Gaugin qualifies as a "smaller ship" and it seems to have played to excellent reviews. Likewise "Deutschland" a few years back.

I remember a time when 747s were first introduced when a question was reportedly asked "When does this place get to San Francisco?"