Is one of the key changes made to let cruisers resume
too high a price to pay? Or is it worth it to be able to let cruising
start again? Quite a few cruisers have reacted
negatively to the news that, as cruising has started up in Europe, you're required
to go on a cruise line excursion. Four of the cruise lines that have started up in
Europe and are calling on ports, require you to
go on one of their organised excursions, you can't self tour,
and you can't go on independent tours. A lot of cruisers have not liked that
news at all. However I want to explore it in a little bit more detail
before you make up your mind, and talk about the pros the cons and things you
should think about before you decide if it's actually a
price too high to pay, and would stop you going
cruising. Certainly as cruising resumes we don't know at this point in time
what the rules are going to be for cruises out of the USA, but certainly a
lot of these protocols that are in Europe
I think we are likely to see, if they work, apply when cruising starts in
USA. First of all, you need to bear in mind
that there are quite a lot of cruises that for a very long period of time
already require you to only go on their excursions. This applies in expedition
cruising, where the excursions are bundled into
the price of the fare, and you can only leave the ship on
excursions. Now this often applies because the places you go
are very remote or dangerous, so in the Arctic for example,
there's a risk of being attacked by polar bears so there's actually armed
guards and they scope out an area. The same in Antarctica
where they are there's lots of restrictions around
people exploring, and they want to keep you safe. So certainly
the concept of going on a cruise where you can only go
on cruise line excursions is an already established principle for many cruises.
Secondly we're seeing a lot of cruise lines moving
or introducing the idea of cruise line excursions bundled into the cruises.
let's take a look at that, so in ocean cruising Viking Ocean
and Regent Seven Sea Cruises for example, they bundle
excursions into the cruise, and so in all the ports or most of the ports,
there will be one or two excursions that you can go on, and many of the people who
go on those cruises will use the cruise line excursions only.
We're also seeing, for example, Oceania Cruises with their
O-life fare, you have the option of choosing
either on-board credit or drinks package or included excursions. If you go on a
river cruise, for example, excursions for most of those
cruise lines are included, and you'll find on those trips
whether it's on Viking, Regent Seven Seas, Oceania or river cruising, people on
those cruises are used to going and really designing their cruising
experience around the cruise line excursions.
Of course what's important to note, is with these you're still allowed to
head off the ship by yourself, whether it's to go self-touring or
on other independent tours. Thirdly it's really important to understand, this is
likely to be something as cruising starts up again. When
cruising started out of Germany, they were only doing cruises to nowhere.
There were no ports of call. As Italy opened up, we saw the cruise
lines including ports and this was great
because you could now go and call on places, you could go and see places,
however they had a responsibility to make sure that people were safe and
there's three things to that. First of all
they were testing all passengers and crew before they went on the cruise, to
make sure that people coming on board were all negative. Secondly they created
a bubble on board with lots of protocols around cleaning,
some mask wearing and various forms of social distancing to make sure that
people on board were kept safe. The third responsibility
is to make sure that as people head out on port, they are also safe
by extending that bubble. So making sure that people are not likely to be
infected or in fact to infect people locally, and
that was something that excited ports about having cruise ships
back in
So i think it's really important to understand that these
rules around having socially distanced and bubbled excursions
are a way of letting cruising open. It means that you don't have to go
on cruises to nowhere, you can call on ports in a controlled way. Of course, the
downside for many people is a concern around
cost. So what is happening around the cost of excursions?
What we're seeing happening is three things with the cruise lines that are
starting up. First of all they're offering excursions
for much lower cost, we're seeing for example on MSC Cruises
that the cruise line excursions are costing
as little as 30 euros per person. Secondly, they're selling bundles of
excursions, so you can go for example on one of the MSC
Cruises and for about a hundred euros you get a bundle of four or five
excursions, and then they're bundling the excursions
into premium cabins. So if you travel for example in MSC Yacht Club,
you get the excursions included. So certainly there is likely to be some
form of on cost, but the cruise lines do understand that there is a need to
kind of balance those costs. My personal perspective is that cruise
line only excursions as cruising reopens is not too high a price to pay. It means
that cruising can start up, they can keep the bubbles in place and
it means that we can not only go cruising to enjoy the ship
but get out in port and explore. It's going to be much
easier if cruises are sailing with those requirements
to be able to lift those requirements, because if cruises are sailing it's very easy
almost overnight to lift that restriction. However if we have to wait
before we can freely explore a port before cruising could start,
cruising could take a very long time to start up. I think keeping those bubbles
in those social bubbles is a great way of letting
us get out there cruising and exploring. What do you think?
Do you think cruise line only excursions at this point in time is too high a
price to pay? Remember i have loads more videos, so why
don't you watch another one of those right now?