Viking Star: The Snow Grotto

Posted on 26 April, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

by Tom Stieghorst

Viking Star’s Snow Grotto

The Snow Grotto on Viking Star is the latest unusual treatment feature in a cruise ship spa.

After heating yourself in a steam bath or sauna, you walk into a small room with snow on the floor and benches to sit on. The room is kept at sub-freezing temperatures.

It is supposed to mimic the Nordic bathing tradition that calls for a romp in the snow after a long sauna.

The room is cold, with dark stone walls illuminated by blue light, giving it a winter vibe. I was worried, I have to admit, that it would be uncomfortably frigid, but that wasn’t the case.

I spent about five minutes cooling down in the snow grotto after my sauna, comparing notes with the other guy in the room. He was from Chicago. I grew up in Wisconsin. We both though it was crazy that someone would put this on a cruise ship, yet we both wanted to try it, too.

The room is supposed to release snow flurries periodically from the ceiling, but we weren’t lucky enough to be there for the snowfall. We were lucky enough, however, to have been warned to wear bath sandals. Apparently, the cold snow on bare feet is not much fun.

The snow room is a first for a cruise line carrying North American passengers and fits naturally with the Nordic theme of Viking Star. There is a ferry with routes in the Baltic Sea that has a snow room and Norwegian Cruise Line also has plans to offer one on its next ship, Norwegian Escape.

Reinventing Norwegian

Posted on 16 April, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

Perhaps no company has had more revolution in the top management than Norwegian Cruise Line, which has had to structure new roles for executives following the $3.03 billion acquisition of Prestige Cruise Holdings and its two brands, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

Closing the deal in November set off a cascade of changes that began with a new corporate structure under a parent company, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH).

Next, Prestige President Kunal Kamlani resigned, followed two months later by NCLH CEO Kevin Sheehan.

With former Prestige Chairman and CEO Frank Del Rio stepping up to take Sheehan’s place, openings were created for Stuart, 51, and Montague, 41, to step into brand president roles.

Stuart, a 27-year Norwegian Cruise Line veteran with a long history on the sales side of the company, said in an interview after being promoted that he would continue to be more involved in sales than the average brand president.

“The key part of this role really is driving demand for the brand,” Stuart said. “I’m going to be very, very involved with travel partners.”

For their part, travel agents are thrilled to have Stuart in such a high-profile role because, said Signature’s Sharpe, they credit him with the line’s “Partners First” initiative and its support for the agent distribution channel.

“I keep getting members calling me,” Sharpe said. “They’re so happy for him and for us.”

Only time will tell whether all the change at the top is ultimately good for the cruise industry and travel retailers. But like Sharpe, Wall is optimistic that the positive energy of new blood will outweigh the loss of experience and institutional memory at some lines.

“It’s easy to have tunnel vision and automatically assume the way to go is the way it’s always been,” Wall said.

Coggins, too, said that on balance the changes are positive.

“If you bring someone in from another industry, they come with fresh ideas,” Coggins said. “They bring the perspective that will help attract the first-time cruiser.”

The end of ‘Cruise Like a Norwegian’?

Posted on 15 April, 2015 by Spacejunkie2

It looks like we won’t be cruising like Norwegians for too much longer.

Norwegian Cruise Line has put its creative and media accounts up for review. According to Ad Week, the current account holder, the Martin Agency, declined to participate in the review.

The move follows close on the heels of the departure of Maria Miller, the Norwegian senior vice president for marketing, who was behind the line’s “Cruise Like a Norwegian” slogan.

Devised after Martin won the business in 2011, the campaign celebrated vacationers who embodied the “passion, freedom and flexibility” of the company’s Freestyle Cruising concept.

“Cruising like a ‘Norwegian’ is for those who live life to the fullest, embrace new adventures and are passionate about their experiences,” is how the concept was described on announcement.

It coincided with a campaign by former Norwegian CEO Kevin Sheehan to root out use of the abbreviation NCL, which Sheehan thought was not understood by most potential guests.

Whether “Cruise Like a Norwegian” was any better understood is something I’ve always been curious about.

I’ve interpreted the slogan as a kind of creative conceit that imagined this group of fun and intrepid people that Norwegian chose to call “Norwegians.” Taken in those terms, cruising like them made some sense.

Taken in literal terms, it is hard to imagine that the average consumer would know anything about how someone from the country of Norway cruised. Why would they want to cruise that way? Too literal, perhaps, but for someone new to cruising it could have been a head-scratcher.

The campaign did have the virtue of pounding home the name of the brand at every turn. It would be hard to watch the company’s current ads, with their lively “Let’s Go” theme music and catchy “Cruise Like a Norwegian” coda at the end, and mistake them for an ad from some other cruise line.

Then, too, ad campaigns run their course over time. After four years, the mileage on “Cruise Like a Norwegian” was starting to pile up. Norwegian spent $33 million last year on measured media, according to Kantar Media, spreading the gospel on Freestyle Cruising.

Now Norwegian has a new president in Andy Stuart, and its parent company, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, has a new CEO in Frank Del Rio. They’re entitled to a marketing theme of their own.