CRUISE NEWS - MORE TROUBLE FOR CRUISE LINES

Cruise news time! Well, staff shortages, crew shortages continues to be the topic du jour or du week, however you want to say it. We've got another major cruise line, NCL, now talking about stopping bookings on a popular cruise ship until until November because of staff shortages. And look, we talked about Carnival yesterday and there are people that are upset with the news that I talked about yesterday in a way that I didn't think they would be upset about. Cruise news, let's talk about it. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to La Lido Loca. I'm your host, Tony, here on location at the lovely Havana Bar. There's no music going on right now. At the lovely Havana Bar, 7 a.m. 7 a.m. on our way to Mazatlan. I've got to be at my tour bus at 10 45, so Excursion Tony is in effect trying to bring you guys some cruise news. Just living that cruise life. I'll share more about it. Went to, where did we go yesterday? Puerto Vallarta, and I actually went and found the aerialist at the boardwalk at the Malcón, as many of you had recommended. And so I'll share more of that with you guys later. But I wanted to get back to talking about this conversation about staff shortages. And this time it's impacting NCL Cruise Line. NCL, they operate the only U.S. flagged vessel that's operating for cruises in North America. And it is the pride of America doing cruises around the Hawaiian Islands. And well, they're having trouble getting staff on that cruise ship. Now, again, I said it in yesterday's show, staffing issues are common right now. It is hard to get crew members back on board cruise ships because of visa issues, because of traveling, because of quarantine issues. And sometimes it's just because of lack of people to put on cruise ships. Norwegian Cruise Line, that pride of America cruise ship, normally has over 900 crew members. Right now they're sitting at 550 crew members. And so in response to that crew shortage, they've done a few things. They've limited guest capacity. They've also limited some of the venues that are open. They've closed down some venues. And they've stopped the bookings all the way through October. And so they're taking the stance that they're going to keep their passenger number low. They're going to close down some venues and they're not going to book any new cruises into the pride of America until late into the fall. Tony from the future, just a quick point of clarification there. The pride of America already has bookings for those months. They're just not adding new bookings. So there's no cancellation of people that are already booked on pride of America. There's just no new slots. So they're limiting capacity. I don't know if that was that clear in that moment. So I thought I'd clarify it like clarified butter. I had lobster yesterday at the Malcon. Okay, back to the show. This is a problem that I think you're going to see all the cruise lines struggling with as capacity grows. Demand is out there. Everybody wants to get back on a cruise ship. And now even more new cruise ships are coming online. And so the inventory is going to be there. The cruise ship inventory is going to be there. But the ability to service passengers on cruise ships is going to be a challenge. And look, I told you the story yesterday about Carnival closing down the chef's table and closing down the popular restaurant Cucino del Capitano. I want to give a little more of an update on that and talk about some of the outrage that I've seen on the internet. But first, let me quickly invite you to subscribe. If you'd like staying up to date with everything that's going on in cruising, please consider subscribing with the notification bell on that way you don't miss out on any of these episodes. Well, the story is simple. Again, staffing issues causing a couple decisions to be made for Carnival cruise line one was no chef's right now. Number two was closing down Cucino del Capitano, the specialty restaurant aspect of Cucina. In the evening, you can pay $18 and have a full Italian menu served to you. Wonderful spend of $18. It used to be $15. Wonderful spend of $18. As many have pointed out, to me, this is irrelevant. They're still going to have Cucina del Capitano for lunch, but it's not the same thing at all. It's just a pasta menu. It's not the same experience that you're paying $18 for at night. That's still there, but that has nothing to do with the restaurant experience at night. Also, they're going to offer some free included at the main dining room versions of Cucina dishes. Again, it's not the same thing. If you love that Cucina $18 experience, that's going away for a while until the staffing issue is fixed. It's not forever as far as we know. They're also making some changes to what they're giving to their Platinum members, to the Loyalty Club folks. You guys know I don't really believe in the Loyalty Club. I believe you spend a lot more money than if you would have bought things a la carte. I understand why people like Loyalty. Let me just say this. Of all the things to cut back, I would not cut back on the Club. People that are hooked into cruising on a cruise line because they're loyal to it and they want to get the Loyalty perks, those are not the people that I would make mad. These are the people that are putting in hundreds of days on your cruise line. Don't cut their perks. Overstaff the Loyalty. That's my opinion. To me, it doesn't make sense. I don't know what business decisions going into any time any cruise line cuts the Loyalty perks. Those are the people that I would the happiest. That's neither here nor there. I started looking on the internet and there are people that are upset. Let me set the stage again. Let me contextualize it a little bit. The thing that Carnival cut out were four pay options. Chef's Table, you have to pay for that. Kuchina, you have to pay for that. They're not temporarily taking away anything that was already included in the guest experience. It's not like you paid whatever your cruise fare is and you were going to get Kuchina dinner for free. You weren't. You were going to have to pay for that. It's not like you're going to get the Chef's Table for free included in your cruise fare. You weren't. You were going to have to pay for that. Carnival, I feel like making the smart decision taking away things that people are going to have to pay for. Can I digress a second? Look, we've been doing pretty good not having late night pizza. One of my favorite things on Carnival is late night pizza. There's been one time on this cruise that we wanted to have some late night pizza but the the line for pizza as we know on Carnival wraps all the way around the Lido deck sometimes when it comes to getting pizza at night. They used to have the order it on the Hub app and for five bucks they would bring you your late night pizza. Well that's gone away too and nobody told me about that. I'm not mad but I'm just saying there's a lot of people out there that if you're going to get mad about something, get mad about the pizza delivery. They're mad because they can't do the for pay thing and I understand that there's a broader conversation of would the cruise restart marching forward super quick trying to get to a higher capacity? Have we sacrificed the right things? I can't make that call. We're talking about multi-billion dollar corporations that were forced to eat a dirt sandwich during the shutdown that are now trying to figure out how to survive and then throw on that all the turmoil of the stock market and challenges getting staffed up. Honestly, as somebody that's worked in corporate environments in leadership, as somebody who is an outsider looking in, I'm glad I'm not trying to make decisions for the cruise lines right now because trying to balance customer satisfaction and the financials and navigating the government, I would probably not be sleeping very well. Let me just say that but anyways that boom that's your cruise news. I gotta go excerpt. I gotta go excerpt. I think I'm gonna see a cliff diver today. Boom, how about that? I'm going excerpting. I'm gonna get out of here but it's your turn. Leave a comment below. Hey, I just want to say there was a little bit of a debate yesterday. I'm a little bit all over this morning show. This might be my favorite thing about Carnival switching to Pepsi. Diet Mountain Dew. There was some conversation yesterday about the way that I say CUNARD. You know, I used to say it a different way and then I went and I listened to other people say it that I think are in the know and I looked it up on the internet and I'm pretty sure it's CUNARD. So I don't know anybody who was reaching out what level of research that you've done but I think it's CUNARD, just so you know. Come at me bro. What do you think? No, I don't know. Anyways, do you say CUNARD or do you say knuckle sandwich? Comments below. You know how it goes. Thank you so much for checking out the show today. I hope you enjoyed it. I sure enjoyed being here in the Havana Bar. Please hit the like button. That's what I'm trying to say and unfortunately if you don't hit the like button I'll be forced to punish you and your punishment will be this. You will have to re-evaluate every word that you say because somebody's going to say that you say it wrong and so when you're saying a tomato I'm going to look at you and say no it's pronounced CUNARD. It's Tony for and until the next time we'll see ya. I love you guys. We'll see you on the Lido.