Me and the doke of Okiedoke (perhaps she would see it a different way), just finished re-booking our West Caribbean cruise for December. The originally scheduled ship was pirated away from us. I thought it awfully generous that the cruise line gave us a nice credit for the trouble. But, perhaps they weren’t as generous as it appears. As Earnest Pettie tells it:

It turns out among FEMA’s many missteps during Hurricane Katrina was the chartering of three Carnival Cruiseships for 236 million dollars. The ships have been unpopular as a destination for evacuees. FEMA didn’t count on people bursting into tears everytime they began singing “If my friends could see me now…” The ships are half empty, but executives at Carnival are insisting they’re half full. They have reason to be optimistic. According to Tom Coburn, the Carnival is making double what it would have made had the government paid to send the Katrina evacuees on an actual cruises on Carnival. That’s how screwed up this situation is: Tom Coburn is talking sense. The boats are just sitting there, which is how you know they got their orders from FEMA.

While I won’t defend FEMA for booking, and half-filling, cruise ships, I will put up a weak defense for the cruise line charging what they did.

To Carnival executives, the contract will ensure only that the company breaks even when it pulls three ships from holiday operations. About 100,000 passengers had their vacations canceled to accommodate the government’s needs, said J. Michael Crye, president of the International Council of Cruise Lines, who has been answering questions about the deal for Carnival.

“In the end, we will make no additional money on this deal versus what we would have made by keeping these ships in service,” said Jennifer de la Cruz, a Carnival spokeswoman.

What critics are ignoring is that cruise ships generate a lot more money from passengers than just the fare. I don’t know the amount received from drinking, gambling, port excursions, and other amenities, but I’ll bet it’s substantial. I’ll let you know.

Then again, a $2,000 stipend could go a long way in a third world country. That is if they could keep from using it in the ship casino on the way.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 29th, 2005 at 2:06 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.