5 Great Spaces to Lounge at Sea

Posted on 10 June, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

Life is sweet in these special areas on cruise ships that invite guests to de-stressBy: Marilyn Green

The Library on Oceania Marina is home to comfy leather armchairs and around 2,000 books and periodicals. // © 2014 Oceania

Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, but by the time our overworked brains get the message the vacation is often nearly over. Understanding this dilemma, cruise lines have devised some outstanding spaces that entice guests to slow down, relax and enjoy. These are the ones I love best.

Library, Oceania Marina
I immediately fell in love with Oceania Marina’s library, and I had plenty of company. It looks like a P.G. Wodehouse or Agatha Christie setting with guests who are reading, sipping and dozing while sprawled out on huge leather chairs.

Be sure to explore the nooks created by the shelves holding 2,000 books and periodicals to find your perfect place. You have to get up very early on sea days to stake out a chair and a favorite nook. On my cruise, some people come to the library at 4 a.m. to grab a chair near the fireplace. The library’s English country house atmosphere is beyond soothing. With the availability of coffees and snacks at the adjoining Baristas Coffee Bar, and computers for Internet access, some passengers make a day of it.

Spa Recovery Room, Costa Luminosa
Most ships’ spa recovery rooms have elegant, minimalistic loungers with a view of the sea, but not onboard Costa Luminosa. Here, guests who have had a massage or other spa treatment can chill out on canopied beds with filmy curtains in a shady, quiet room that seems to inhabit another world altogether. And if you prefer a sunnier spot to let the pampering soak in, you can push open the picket gate to the outside garden from your treatment room, step out and relax in a chair.

Explorations Cafe, Nieuw Amsterdam
Explorations Cafe, powered by the New York Times, is my fantasy of what a retreat should be, and guests are constantly saying they need one at home. The ingredients speak for themselves: blissful, squashy leather chairs and couches, Internet stations, pastries, brownies, cupcakes, specialty coffees and thousands of books, magazines, DVDs, newspapers and table games — not to mention vast views of the sea. It’s full of guests from morning to night, sending emails, reading, chatting and playing games.

The Hideaway, Celebrity Silhouette
Many ships have comfortable chairs, but Silhouette has nests that for me brought back memories of childhood retreats. Tucked away near an impressive 20-foot live tree that stands over the atrium, the intimate The Hideaway is an irresistible stylized tree house, with comfortable seating and suspended nests where guests can enjoy the peace, read or play with the Apple products from the Celebrity iLounge.

Seabourn Square, Seabourn Sojourn
I never thought I’d choose a purser’s desk for relaxation, but Seabourn Sojourn’s Seabourn Square makes dealing with questions both serene and pleasurable. The core of the ship and its collective living room, Seabourn Square includes purser and concierge functions but guests sit across from staff — there is no standing and waiting. And the atmosphere is eons away from a typical front desk. This open space at the heart of the ship is gently divided into areas for Internet access, a very fine library of books and magazines and plenty of seating options, from easy chairs and couches to tables and chairs perfect for enjoying the specialty coffees, teas and pastries that are always readily available.

China redeployments could help boost Caribbean cruise prices

Posted on 20 May, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

By Tom Stieghorst

China is suddenly the hot spot for large new cruise ships, a development that could help cure the plague of overcapacity and low prices seen in the Caribbean market this winter.

The latest ship to join the fleet cruising from China is the Costa Serena, which will be stationed in Shanghai, starting mid-2015.

At 3,780 passengers, the Serena will be the largest of three Costa vessels operating year-round from China and the largest Carnival Corp. asset in the region. The company’s Princess Cruises subsidiary plans to offer a summer of sailings from Shanghai on the Sapphire Princess, starting May 21.

The Costa move comes on the heels of a head-turning announcement by Royal Caribbean International that it will put the as-yet-undelivered Quantum of the Seas year-round in Shanghai, after a six-month stint at Bayonne, N.J.’s Port Liberty from November to May.

Robin Farley, a leisure industry analyst at UBS Securities, said that, taken together, the moves have implications beyond the Asia market.

“We believe the emergence of China as a major sourcing market can provide new demand for tonnage that can be redeployed from more mature markets, which could also potentially drive pricing in those existing markets,” Farley wrote in a note to investors.

More specifically, she said, the withdrawal of the Quantum from the domestic market reduces Royal’s capacity in North America by 1.5%; the ship represents 3% of its 2014 Caribbean capacity.

Except for the Oasis-class ships, at 4,180 passengers the Quantum would be the largest ship in the Royal fleet.

The impact of the shift of the Serena is a little more indirect on the North American market, since it is currently deployed on Mediterranean and Red Sea itineraries.

But if the loss of one ship in those regions results in Costa shifting a ship from the Caribbean (in the winter) to cover the void, it could reduce capacity in the Caribbean another 1%, Farley said.

Although the changes are small in absolute terms, a reduction at the margins could have a relatively larger impact on pricing as supply and demand come back towards equilibrium.

Sourcing of cruise passengers in China on a sizeable scale only started in 2006 when Costa positioned its first ship there, the 1,000-passenger Costa Allegra.

Since then, it has ratcheted up capacity with a series of bigger ships, including the current Costa Atlantica (2,680 guests) and Costa Victoria (2,394 guests) operating from Shanghai.

The debut of a second brand, Princess, with its 2,670-passenger Sapphire Princess, will increase Carnival Corp. capacity in China this year by 74%. Adding the Serena next year will mean 140% growth over two years.

Carnival has set up a dedicated unit in Asia (Carnival Asia, based in Singapore) and is laying the groundwork for selling more cruises to residents of that region, particularly in China.

“We have never been more committed to China as a market of great strategic importance for our company,” Carnival CEO Arnold Donald said.

Carnival has set up 10 offices in Asia, including five in China: Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Chengdu. It said seven of its 10 brands sail in Asia, and 23 ships will visit 90 ports with an estimated 1,439 port calls planned this year, including 220 in China.

Patrick Scholes, a leisure industries analyst with SunTrust Robinson Humphries, said the cruise lines are relatively slow to fully concentrate on China compared with other leisure industries. “It almost seems like the U.S. cruise lines are a day late,” he said.

Scholes pointed to the gaming giants like Las Vegas Sands and Wynn, who were not in the China market 10 years ago but “now they get the vast majority of their business out of Macau and China.”

Global hotel operators also converged on China about 10 years ago. “Now their strongest pipelines for opening new hotels are in China,” Scholes said.

Recently, Scholes said, cruise companies have started to shift their development attention to China. “Welcome to the party,” he said.

Scholes agreed that the increased desire to put competitive tonnage in China could help solve the industry’s structural impasse of recent years in which prices have been anemic even as capacity growth has been kept moderate.

“It sounds like [Caribbean] capacity for the first half of next year will be down simply because a lot of the ships are moving to Europe and Asia,” Scholes said. “So that will be a positive.”

Carnival and Costa see improvement in Q1

Posted on 31 March, 2014 by Spacejunkie2

By Jerry Limone

Carnival Cruise Lines and Costa Cruises are doing better, according to Carnival Corp.’s first-quarter financial report this week (see bottom of this report), but the company’s largest brands in the U.S. and Europe still have a steep hill to climb.

How steep? CFO David Bernstein said that based on the guidance of Carnival Corp.’s competitors, those companies are at or near 2008 levels for net revenue yield, a key cruise industry metric similar to revenue per available room (RevPAR) in the hotel industry.

Conversely, Carnival Corp.’s yield is down about 11% from 2008, Bernstein said.

Delving further, Bernstein said the company took a 10% hit from the global financial crisis of 2009, gained about half of that back by 2011, but lost those gains after the Costa Concordia accident in 2012 and the much-publicized stranding of the Carnival Triumph in 2013.

“Hopefully, as our brands recover, both Carnival Cruise Lines and Costa, we can recoup, getting back to 2008 yields,” Bernstein said. “Hotel RevPARs are also back to those levels, so we have every reason to believe we can get back there, as well.”

There were good signs from Costa and Carnival in Carnival Corp.’s first quarter, the three months ended on Feb. 28. Costa’s yield was up, Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald said, aided by a 50% increase in booking volume.

However, Costa’s gain was more than offset by a yield decrease for the company’s other European brands, which struggled largely due to a stagnant economy in Europe. Carnival Corp. said that net ticket yield fell 3% for all European cruise lines.

Carnival, too, had strong booking volume. Donald referenced the brand’s single-month record for bookings in January, when 565,000 people reserved space on a Carnival cruise. Attractive promotions and increased advertising spending helped make that happen.

ArnoldDonald Donald said the company will spend $600 million on advertising in 2014, a 20% increase over 2012. He said Carnival’s TV ads during the Sochi Winter Olympics and Princess’ first TV ad campaign in 10 years were vehicles to attract first-time cruisers.

But because of discounting, particularly in the Caribbean where most of Carnival Cruise Lines’ ships operate, Carnival Corp.’s yield fell 2.1% in Q1. The company forecasts that yield will fall 3% to 4% in Q2, compared with a year earlier.

The improved performance of Carnival and Costa “builds confidence that we are tracking to turn the corner beginning in the second half of 2014,” Donald said.

But until that corner is turned, discounting will continue. Donald said that increased capacity in the Caribbean industrywide puts pressure on pricing.

The company is “behind on both price and occupancy” in the Caribbean, Bernstein said, despite the Carnival brand’s record-breaking January.

The North America brands are best performing in Europe for their seasonal program, where they are “well ahead on price and occupancy,” Bernstein said.

Carnival Corp. beats expectations, reports Q1 loss

By Jerry Limone

Carnival Corp. said Tuesday that the company had a $15 million net loss for its fiscal first quarter, the three months ended Feb. 28.

The results beat the company’s December guidance, thanks to ticket prices that were better than expected.

The loss compares with a $37 million net profit in the previous year’s first quarter.

Revenue was essentially flat at $3.59 billion. Carnival Corp.’s net revenue yield, a key metric for cruise companies that measures revenue generated per unit of available accommodations, fell 2.1%.

At the same time, operating expenses rose 1.9%, to $3.51 billion, driven by increased spending on advertising. Fuel prices declined 3.4%, to $654 per metric ton.

CEO Arnold Donald said first-quarter results exceeded the company’s December guidance because ticket prices were higher ArnoldDonald than expected for Carnival Cruise Lines and the company’s European cruise brands, and due to the timing of certain expenses.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, Carnival Corp. expects that net revenue yield will fall 3% to 4% compared with the prior year.

The company also anticipates an increase in net cruise costs per available lower berth day (excluding fuel) of up to 3.5% because of higher selling and administrative costs.