Is Carnival Cruise lines just having a bad couple of years, or do they just suck?

[randomness]

The news about the Carnival Triumph and its recent troubles got me to looking into the line's recent record:

• On November 8, 2010, a fire broke out in the generator room of the Carnival Splendor and the ship lost most power.


• On January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia, operated by a Carnival subsidiary, ran aground off Isola del Giglio, Tuscany. The ship capsized and partially sank, killing 32 people.


• In March 2012, the Costa Allegra, owned by Carnival Cruise Lines' Costa Cruises subsidiary, suffered an engine room fire and went adrift in the Indian Ocean.


• In February 2013, the Carnival Triumph, with 3,143 passengers aboard, suffered an engine room fire, leaving the ship adrift for days in the Gulf of Mexico.

Is this number of incidents normal for cruise lines? Is Carnival Cruise lines known to be more accident prone than other lines? They do have a large fleet, so I suppose it could just be random chance, but it doesn't seem like a good record.

I don't know the first thing about cruise lines and their reputations, so I'm asking.

Comments

[theloriest.livejournal.com]

I read an opinion article about cruise ships recently that said cruise ships in general have way more problems than make it to the news.

It all made sense... scary sense... but sense... in explaining why there are so many dangerous issues on cruise ships.

The cruise lines operate their ships virtually 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Cruise ships do not make money unless they are operating. The cruise lines push the ships just as hard as they push their crew members. A ship out of service for a week for routine maintenance means the loss of tens of millions of dollars and thousands of dissatisfied customers.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Great minds think alike? It was a really good article. I almost sent it to r_ness when I read it, but he hadn't, at that point, expressed any interest in cruise ship problems.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I posted about cruise ship problems before, but it was nearly a year ago. I'll freely admit it's not really very high on my list of travel concerns.

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

Given our joint coining of the terms JV/varsity dating and poly, you will probably appreciate that I recently referred to cruise ships as JV travel.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I like that term!

And at least JV travel, unlike JV poly, is something I've successfully avoided. (Oh god, so not proud of my JV poly moments.)

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the one breakdown in the analogy is that I'm not critical of people who choose JV travel if they also play varsity occasionally. I don't think there's anything wrong with a relaxing vacation rather than a traveling vacation, and relaxing with a side of seeing something new is totally understandable. Maybe it's intramural travel? I have no idea what intramural dating or poly would look like though.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do have a problem with "One True Way"ism, whether it's in poly or in travel.

I think using JV to describe a proficiency level is more true to the original coining of the term than to use it as a challenge rating.

There are some people or combinations of people who would be very challenging to date. I once might have been interested in taking on that challenge, but now I might think carefully about why I wanted to do act on that before I did.

I think that's either experience or fatigue.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

If cruise craps out due to engine problems, does Carnival refund peoples' fees?

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

I think it depends and I don't really know the details of this particular incident. But in general, I think the corporation first tries to appease customers with a free cruise, and if that doesn't work, a full refund is usually in order. No sense in making PR problems worse than they already are.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

According to reports, in this particuloar case the cruise line is offering a full refund of the cruise fare, plus a refund of all shipboard purchases (except for gift shop, art, and casino), plus a cruise credit equal to the fare paid for the voyage. They then added that they will be paying everyone $500 on top of all of that.

That last bit is unusual. It probably speaks to just how bad a PR disaster this has been.