WELLINGTON, New Zealand —  More than 40 passengers on a cruise ship were injured when it was hit by a storm off New Zealand that packed 23-foot waves and powerful winds, officials said Friday.

Unfortunately cruise ships can’t always compete with mother nature!

What’s a cruise line to do??  Come up with something bigger and better of course!  Which is exactly what Royal Caribbean is planning to launch in December of 2009.  Their new ship, Oasis of the Seas, is described in an article written by Spud Hilton, for the San Francisco Chronicle:

Oasis of the Seas will be larger than any other passenger vessel on the planet: 220,000 gross registered tons and room for 5,400 passengers. (By comparison, 220,000 tons is about the same as the tonnage for the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Elizabeth 2 combined.)

This ship, however, will be on the other end of the spectrum, for good or bad: filled to the walls with distractions, diversions and a whole new set of seemingly land-based “wow” features from the same folks who equipped previous ships with boxing rings, skating rinks and surfing machines.

What’s new and, well, water-churning, is a ship shape that allows more passengers to connect with the outside. Designers took the interior Royal Promenade from earlier ships — a narrow, four-story corridor down the middle of the ship that is longer than a football field and creates the atmosphere of a city street — and took off the roof.

Oasis will have what can only be described as a 62-foot-wide slot canyon running 328 feet up the middle of the ship, with a main street and gardens at the bottom and high walls made of the inward-facing windows and balconies of more than 300 cabins. Unlike the inward-facing cabins on the old Royal Promenade, these will have sunlight and sea breeze and — because the slot canyon will continue out the stern of the ship — some small slice of an ocean view.

So, there you have it, the up and coming news of ship shapes to come! The Oasis will sail Caribbean itineraries out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, so start planning next years vacation now!

• Look for the free ice cream between 3:30 and 4:30 every afternoon. Go to deck 15, whichever side of the buffet is closed, that’s where the ice cream is! There are only two flavors each day (they vary every day), but they have nice toppings to go with them, as well as brownies, cookies and milk. One day I filled my bowl with a “brownie sundae” grabbed a glass of milk and went off to watch a movie at the inside theater (more on this later). I thought I was in Heaven!
• Located on deck 5 is the International Cafe. If you’re a coffee drinker this is the place for you to be but make sure you purchase a “coffee card” first. It’s about $24.95 and this gets you unlimited fresh brewed coffee and hot chocolate at the International Cafe and 15 “specialty” coffee drinks purchased at any of the restaurants. The coffee cards are sold in the buffet as you board the ship, or they can be purchased in the restaurants throughout the cruise. Gelato is sold at the Cafe at a reasonable price. But what most people don’t know is that the wonderful cold salads in the case are free. This is a nice place for a “light” lunch. The chicken salad is wonderful. In the later afternoon and evening there is a charge for various foods in the cold case. The part I liked best about the Cafe is the fresh, hot cookies. These are passed around straight out of the oven and yes, they have milk to go with them! This is a nice place to sit, relax, or maybe catch up on your internet chatting. Who cares if your keyboard has cookie crumbs between all the keys when you get home!
• Last secret, after dinner, in either anytime or regular dining rooms, if you’re looking for something different, ask for The Volcano. It’s something normally on the kids menu. It’s an ice cream banana split/sundae with all kinds of good gooey stuff on it. They are all made individually so they will always be different. You can get chocolate or vanilla ice cream or ask for one of the ice cream flavors that is the special on the menu that day.

Okay, so you’ve tried to forget that you’re in the middle of nowhere and what better way to do this than to find a place to eat.  No problem.  There is food anywhere, anytime.  Gone are the days of the “Midnight Buffet”.  Food is available 24 hours a day.  We signed up for regular dining (same time, same place every day), but were waitlisted since we booked the cruise so late.  We opted to just stay with “anytime” dining which worked out well.  You go to eat in either of the 2 formal dining rooms at anytime between 6 and 10, with the option of either sitting alone or joining others.  We always joined others, a great way to make new friends!  Anytime dining gave us the freedom to dine on our schedule although one drawback (unless you’re very disciplined-which you shouldn’t be on a cruise) may be that because your dining schedule varies, you aren’t “programmed” into the regular ships schedule.  For instance, when you have early assigned dining it’s usually so that you can attend the late show, and vice versa, when you have late assigned seating you’ll probably attend the early performance of the show.  With “anytime” dining we tended to miss the shows completely because we weren’t on a specific schedule and didn’t plan accordingly.  Another drawback to “anytime” dining is the fact that you don’t have the rapport with the wait staff that regular dining offers.  It’s so nice to have someone actually remember that you like lemon in your tea or that you prefer decaf coffee.  Regular wait staff also seems friendlier.  (Could it be because their tip may be in jeopardy)?  With “anytime” we did have the inconvenience of waiting to order until more people were seated at our table.  One night in particular our waitress made four of us wait over 20 minutes before taking our order saying that she was waiting for the last two seats at our table to be filled.  As it turned out no one else was seated at our table.  No apology was offered by the waitress.  From that night on we went to a different dining room and requested service as soon as we had at least four at the table. 

The food in the dining rooms aboard the Crown Princess was good and plentiful.  I wouldn’t call it exceptional.  There were options to pay extra at two upscale restaurants (Crown Grill and Sabatini’s) but we didn’t try them.  Most people we spoke with that had been to them said the food was good, but just too much to eat and not worth the extra money.  We were surprised to go past one of these restaurants and find maybe only 2 people dining there.  I can’t imagine that this is a worth while operation paying all the extra staff for this restaurant with so few patrons.  Perhaps we didn’t happen to see it when they were busy, or it was just the nature of the people on this particular cruise to not frequent these restaurants.

One of the kinds of pain we talk about here at Neuromarketing is the “pain of paying” or “buying pain” – brain scans show that shelling out cash can activate the pain centers in the brain. (See The Pain of Buying.) Cruising generally excels at minimizing this kind of pain, too – once the cruise has been paid for (often many months before the actual cruise), almost everything is included. Elegant dinners, sumptuous buffets, Broadway-style entertainment, and much more is “free” on board the ship. For customers who feel the pain of paying more acutely than others, cruising is about as pain-free as you can get. Want more lobster? It’s free. Care to watch a recently-released movie after the performance by a concert pianist, and then hang out at the disco until dawn? It’s all free. Cruise lines further minimize paying pain by ensuring that their passengers pay for nothing with cash – one’s “cruise card” is a combination room key and shipboard credit card that one can use to buy anything on the ship. (In almost every case, an automatic service charge obviates the need to calculate a tip or even look at the amount one signed for – a great way to further minimize buying pain.)

… The Crown Princess, though, seemed to be packed with opportunities to spend a little extra. Brewed coffee, free in most areas of the ship, cost $1 in the coffee shop. And while many food items in the International Café were free, a couple of scoops of gelato would set you back all of $1.50. Tapas were available in the evening for an additional charge. Orange juice was free at breakfast, but ordering fresh-squeezed juice in another venue cost $2.75. If you wanted to spend four hours in a relaxing pool area called the Sanctuary, your cruise card would be billed $10. To eat at the Crown Grill steakhouse, a specialty dining venue, a $25 charge applied. And, if you were audacious enough to order lobster, a further $9 fee would be assessed.

The post concludes that constantly charging cruisers for items that might normally be included in the cruise price has an impact beyond the minimal value of these charges. Even though most of the cruise passengers spend many thousands of dollars per year on travel and would hardly miss the extra dollar or two, by assessing these small charges Princess ratchets up their “buying pain.”

The Neuromarketing post suggests that a very small increase in the total cruise price and elimination of most of the tiny charges would be preferable from a customer satisfaction standpoint. I tend to agree. I found that well-traveled passengers - some with twenty or more past cruises - kept talking about being nickel-and-dimed. These passengers could clearly afford the few dollars involved, but were still irritated by the charges. Let’s hope we see a reversal of this trend and a return to “all-inclusive” cruise prices.

“We had to find our way to the U.S. Embassy. All of this on foot. A family of five in this town we knew nothing about,” Cortes said.

The embassy issued them emergency passports for $455. They spent another $650 on plane tickets back to Florida. The emergency room bill was $600. All together, the Cortes family spent more than $3,000 on their disastrous vacation and they want a refund.

“I don’t want this to happen to another family,” Cortes said.

Royal Caribbean told Eyewitness News late Friday they were concerned because the child is so young and they didn’t want to take any chances. The company said they will give the family a credit to use on another Royal Caribbean trip, but they will not reimburse them for the passports and plane tickets because they didn’t pay for trip insurance. [From WFTV.com - Family Says Cruise Ship Kicked Them Off Boat Because Child Was Sick.]

Perhaps there is more to the story than this - it’s hard to imagine a cruise line treating its passengers so shabbily, and then even refusing to cover reasonable expenses. This is one of those situations where the cruise ship company will end up spending a lot more on public relations (and, probably, lawyers) than they would have spent to satisfy the disgruntled customer.

The Eurodam’s maiden voyage will be July 16, 2008, sailing from Copenhagen. It is being built by Fincantieri and will accommodate 2100 passengers. For full specs and posts about the construction process, check out the Eurodam blog.

Considering the ship is still months from its launch date, this video tour is the next best thing to being there. By selecting various links, one can “tour” some of the ship’s dining areas, see its art collection, and much more. As good as this is, though, it’s not quite a substitute for a real cruise.

Association of British Travel Agents spokeswoman Frances Tuke said the tourists were of mixed age groups, but that most were retired.

“They’ve come to the end of their cruise, and the ship has been impounded in Madeira because there’s a financial dispute,” Tuke told the AP.

Lusa reported that the ship’s operator allegedly had outstanding debts with suppliers. The report did not provide details and port officials did not answer calls after office hours Wednesday. [MSNBC]

All in all, it seems like there could be worse places to be stuck for a few extra days than the Madeira Islands. The operator will almost certainly get things sorted out, and it seems unlikely that the passengers will end up suffering financially.

Check out the details at http://www.carnival.com/CMS/Articles/pokerpro_2008.aspx

Take a look at these statistics from the environmental group Oceana:

Each day, cruise ships generate an astonishing amount of pollution:

• 25,000 gallons of sewage from toilets
• 143,000 gallons of sewage from sinks, galleys and showers
• Seven tons of garbage and solid waste
• 15 gallons of toxic chemicals
• 7,000 gallons of oily bilge water 

Wow!  And all we have to think about at home is our garbage disposals and septic tanks. 

Well, according to an article in Gliving in print, there is some good news for “green” cruise travellers. Some of the larger cruise lines like Carnival, Holland American, Royal Caribbean, and Princess, are making some positive changes for the environment. For instance:

Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruise lines have added General Electric’s alternative engine technology — gas turbine — to their newest ships. This system reduces nitrous oxide emissions by 80% and sulfur oxide by 98%. As an added relaxation bonus, the engine is less noisy than traditional ones.

Cruise lines are also spending millions of dollars to help solve some of our poution problems:

Princess Cruise Lines has reduced air pollution created by idling vessels in port by modifying their engines so they can be turned off while docked and plugged into a nearby land-based hydro-electric power plant. The electricity from the plant is transferred to the ships via specially designed cables. While this currently exists in only one port — Juneau, Alaska, at the cost $4.5 million dollars — the cruise line feels it’s worth the environmental investment and hopes to expand this inventive solution.

So, to all of you that haven’t taken a cruise because you’re worried about the environment, do some research and book that cruise!