I haven’t talked with anyone who has now become afraid of taking a cruise — I think most people understand that it was a catastrophe caused by one captain who showed terribly bad judgement and negligence of his duty. Like a plane crash, it shocks us and makes us worried, but then we realize that 99.99% of the time airplanes and cruise ships are perfectly fine and everyone arrives safely at their destination.
I have had a few people ask about ramifications of the fear factor, though, and wonder if the disaster will have an effect on prices. So far, I don’t see any movement on fares, but that might be because there are so many offers in effect right now for “wave season.” Really, this is a fantastic time to plan a cruise, and what I’m letting everyone know is that if their cruise fare does happen to go down later then I’ll get them the reduced rate.
Generally, the cruise industry expects the value of the dollar to the euro to be very favorable for American travelers this year, so they anticipate the demand will remain high. I’m still encouraging everyone to book as early as they can settle on their travel dates, especially locking in their airfares.
Someone I talked to today pointed out that now cruises will be even safer than ever as cruise lines analyze what factors contributed to the tragedy and work out how they can prevented from ever happening again. I’ll bet the crew training gets kicked up a few notches for sure, and that more attention is paid to the lifeboat drills.
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