What annoys you most about Cruising?

This week the Off Radar Cruise News team investigates the success of the Cruise Industry in balance with what annoys people most about Cruising, as such repetitive complaints endured by Cruise Passengers over the last decade could impact on the fortunes of Cruise Lines to continue what is nothing short of a staggering expansion plan. In this weeks article we desire the benefit of your opinion. If you can't wait and would like to participate in our opinion based Poll immediately simply click this link: OFF RADAR POLL


The Cruise Industry has experienced in excess of 900% growth in passenger numbers over the past 20 years and the trend seems to be recession proof too. Yet other sectors of Tourism have suffered in recent times and in particular Travel Agencies and Tour Operators are decaying. Both travel models have been on the decline in the last 10 years, mainly due to their failure to adequately adapt to the modern world, come up with anything new to drive the market forces or truly embrace the values of the Internet and the rising independence of travelers. Yet, the Cruise Industry marches on with an average of 10 Mega Ship new builds year on year fore-casted for the next 3 years at least. The question is for how long?


First lets try to understand the core generators for the prolific success of Cruising, which undoubtedly are many fold. Here below is our preferred selection from the multitudes of qualifying reasons...

• Multi-destination vacation without packing and unpacking.
• Attention to detail and catering for needs.
• Excellent value for money.
• Food Glorious Food!
• Magnificent and varying facilities on board.
• Safety, Security and Sanitation in addition to the cocooning effect.
• Enhanced services on board compared to Hotel operations.

With ever greater penetration into the mass markets of the Western world year on year, thereby exposing millions of new people to cruising, the Industry will soon face a mountainous challenge in the coming years to maintain such rapid growth and to physically fill all of the increasing number of cabins on board Mega Ships, that essentially frequent the waters of the Caribbean & Mexico, Mediterranean, Northern Europe, South America, Alaska and emerging destinations like the Gulf and Asia. 


Subsequently, one of the main issues for Cruise Lines to consider is how to keep existing passengers Cruising, whilst simultaneously generating a constant flow of first time Cruisers as Cruise Operator's enter deeper into Western mass markets. 

Part of the challenge is psychological, in that when a "First Time Cruiser" initially experiences the wonders of Cruising they are somewhat easy to impress with a perceived excellent service, sumptuous 7 course dinners and food all day long, multiple exciting destinations, fantastic entertainment and an impressive array of services and facilities to choose from. Trouble is, as these same Cruisers embark on their second Cruise experience, all such positive factors suddenly comprise the "Minimum Expected Requirement" as expectations begin to risk exceeding product delivery. At this point the Cruiser will either take a vacation on the land or try another Cruise Line for something different. It should also be noted that the market trend is to build ever larger ships, however the growing tide of experienced Cruisers are tending to show a preference for something more "Small and Friendly" with a personal touch. Silversea, Seabourn, Cyrstal, Regent, Windstar, Star Clippers, Azamara and Oceania have all understood this window of opportunity and its pleasing to see quality Mega Cruise Lines like Costa Crociere starting to downsize newer vessels.

This brings us to the title of our article "What annoys you most about Cruising?". There are a number of complaints, gripes, rants or repetitive annoyances that still exist in Cruising, which tarnish the reputation of the Industry as a whole and impacts on the capacity of Cruise Operators to maintain dramatic expansion. If Cruise Lines can finally solve these issues and refrain from cutting the product in these tough times to make way for ever greater discounts, there may be hope to generate greater demand to meet the rapidly expanding capacity. 


So what are these repetitive annoyances I here you say? Well that's the very question we want to ask you our wonderful 23,000 readers. We have identified what we think are the Top 10 annoyances of Cruising, however we would like you to state which one annoys you most by completing the below Poll. If you have any more suggestions we are all ears and the results of our Poll will be shared with Readers and Cruise Lines alike.

Participate in POLL

Thanking you in advance for your views.


Grant Holmes
Publisher
Off Radar Cruise News