What they don’t tell you about cruising

Men hate cruise ships. That’s an insider’s view and an insight I gleaned from a tour and lunch aboard the luxurious Celebrity Solstice on its maiden voyage to New Zealand waters.

It’s women whom the cruise companies target with their over-the-top interiors and all the trappings of belle époque luxury.

So what about the men? Apparently, they’re terrified of being trapped on a cruise ship for seven, 10 days or even two weeks with several hundred, let alone thousands of other voyagers.

The best cruise ships are designed to provide shy males with places where they can adjust to their surroundings and start to socialise with their fellow passengers.

These spots can range from quiet nook and crannies to bars where dark leather and bookshelves predominate rather than chintzy chairs and massive chandeliers.

Unlike land-based resorts, where holidaymakers arrive and leave separately, you start and finish a cruise with a group of people not of your choosing. Seclusion is not an option.

If men have to brush up on their social skills, the biggest fear for women is eating and drinking too much. Savvy management caters for them, too, by offering cafés, restaurants and bars that emphasise “healthy options,” large gymnasiums, lap pools and exercise classes (deck quoits have long since disappeared from the cruise agenda). But the biggest attractions these days are spa treatments and beauty parlours.

As the cruise-ship people will tell you, and passed on by the dozens of travel agents who make up most of the visitors at each port stop, make sure your choice is aimed at you.

Different strokes for different folks
Cruise ships are tailored to many markets – from laidback luxury for the retired to noisy singles party boats and those catering for families.

The Celebrity Solstice is definitely in the former group, with features that make it a leader in its class. Among them:

• A rooftop lawn with grass grown in an non-organic medium that doesn’t attract the attention of agricultural inspectors looking for dangerous bugs

• A 1600-seat tiered theatre offering Broadway and Cirque de Soleil-type shows

• Casinos and pokies – actually standard fare on all ships (modern cruising began in the Caribbean as a way to dodge drinking and gambling bans in the US)

• Spa resort and an entire class of accommodation called Aqua that has its own dining and facilities that enable you to avoid all but healthiest food and drinks

• Wine dispensing machines where you can fill a glass from several varieties without buying the bottle. A two-storey, floor-to-ceiling glass tower holds 2800 bottles of wine

• A glass-blowing studio and a “molecular bar” dedicated to molecular mixology – where the drinks contain edible rose petals and liquid nitrogen

• If you don’t fancy free dining in the 1600-seat restaurant you can pay a little extra and choose from a raft of different cuisine options; white table fine dining to Asian fusion and everything in between

The industry in a nutshell
Today’s cruise ship industry is dominated by five companies, the two biggest operating in all market segments with dozens of different brands.

While the industry depends on repeat business, most don’t remember the name of the ship they were last on – hence the importance of branding.

Both of the big companies are also the largest operators in Australia and New Zealand during the southern hemisphere summer months.

The Celebrity Solstice is run by Celebrity Cruises, which is part of Florida-based Royal Caribbean International and was originally the Greek-based Chandris Group.  

Royal Caribbean’s main competitor in the Carnival Group, which is also run out of Florida with 11 main brands, including Cunard, Costa, Holland America, P&O Cruises and Princess.

The cruise industry’s rapid growth in Australia and New Zealand has taken many by surprise. Contrary to impression, it is not universally popular, though the industry’s public relations emphasises its substantial economic impact on local businesses.

During its summer season here, the Celebrity Solstice alone will bring 30,000 passengers – mainly from Australia, North America and Europe – to New Zealand waters. Apart from Auckland, it will visit a number of other ports. Tauranga, for example, says the cruise industry will be worth $40 million to it this season and support 732 jobs.

Yet that doesn’t make necessarily make port companies and their owners (mainly councils) happy. They resent paying for facilities, such as $3 million for gangplanks or building costly terminals because they don’t make money out of them.

Recovering the costs from the passengers and cruise lines isn’t easy, as they can go elsewhere and already complain charges here are too high compared places such as the Caribbean.

The seasonal nature of the industry doesn’t help; ports prefer facilities that can be used year-round. As a cruise company executive puts it, “A ship’s a ship to the ports. We are just carrying human cargo and not boxes.”

Governments don’t like cruise ships, either, because each visit means providing customs officers, security and other bureaucratic manpower that is untrained in customer service or in greeting visitors.

To get on and off a cruise ship is an undertaking that makes turning up a couple of hours for an international airline trip look streamlined.

The terminal at Auckland – one of the few New Zealand ports that actually has a functioning one – was built for ships carrying a few hundred passengers back in the 1990s. Today, a single-aisle gangplank has to cater for ships with up to 5000 passengers and crew.

Compare that with Auckland Airport’s four air bridges for a double-decker Airbus A380 carrying up to 480 passengers.

Bigger is best
Cruise ships are getting even bigger. For example, Royal Caribbean has three megaships on order – two new generation Freedom class ones with a gross tonnage (internal volume) of around 158,000 tonnes and another Oasis class to join two others of 225,000 tonnes and carrying up to 5400 passengers. At 350m long, the Oasis ships are the largest in the world. 

The 320m Celebrity Solstice was built in 2008 as the first of five ships that are all 122,000 tonnes. This is a little under Carnival’s biggest class at 128,000 tonnes.

Like an airliner, the basic design of a cruise ship doesn’t differ much, regardless of size or market. It’s a hotel with two decks for swimming pools and two for entertainment, eating and drinking.

Cruising isn’t without its controversies, which make news because, like air crashes, they are rare. The latest is susceptibility to on-board contagious diseases, such as novovirus, which is why cruise ships now have hand sanitisers when you come aboard and walk into each room.