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CRUISEWHIZ CRAIG OR EVERY OLD CRUISE IS NEW AGAIN/RETURN TO TRADITIONAL CRUISING
By Craig Satterfield, ECC

Reflecting on the industry after my 35 years of selling cruise vacations, (really the sizzle of cruising), I realize that my personal cruise interests lay in traditional cruising. I still remember my first cruise, a four night sailing from Honolulu to San Francisco aboard Pacific Far East Line’s (ex-Matson) SS Monterey.  Four days out in the open Pacific, enjoying the sea air, reading a book on the Promenade Deck and after dinner enjoying a simple show in the lounge each evening which was highlighted by 50’s entertainers Art and Dotty Todd.  Traditional cruises, you might have remembered or read about are the smaller ships with no rock climbing walls or water slides or 15 different places to eat. Just a relaxing ocean voyage with nothing you need to climb or register for.  Doing nothing is really something to do these days.

I think that there are others like me that are longing for the time when you would actually run into the same guests sailing on the ship more than once.  We used to eat in the same dining room for every meal!

All of a sudden I have been re-exposed to a hand full of cruise lines that still sail the old fashioned way.  They all seem alive and well.  These companies may not be known to you but if you find that some of your cruising clients are interested in sailing this way, you might just want to get caught up by the past. 

It is exciting to thumb thru their brochures and visit their websites to see the outline of familiar ships. Now mostly with new names, these are beloved ships a lot of us have sold and sailed on in years past. So many fun times and memories attached to them. I was pleasantly surprised that three of these cruise lines are now available to book on Amadeus Cruise!  They seem to be marketed mostly to the British.  I guess those British cruisers know something the Americans don’t.  To just relax on a deck chair and read a book.

Fred Olsen Lines has been around since 1848 and is still owned by a member of the Olsen family.  They operate four of the older ships I miss.  Remember the Royal Viking Line?  Two of those wonderful ships now sail as Black Watch and Boudicca with a maximum occupancy of only 804 guests.  Some of you old heads might remember Crown Cruise Line’s small 1993 ship Crown Odyssey.  She sails asBraemar, and with only 484 cabins, she has less cabins than the amount of crew cabins on the Oasis of the Seas.  Itineraries range from Norwegian Fjords, the British Isles, Canary Islands and the Caribbean.

Let’s take a quick trip to the Greek Islands on board the smaller and classic liners of Louis Cruises.  Louis sells their cruises primarily thru tour companies but you can book a cruise only cabin if you like.  Their Hellenic fleet includes the Louis Majesty, the original Royal Majesty (aka Norwegian Majesty) doing 3 and 4 night Greek Island cruises, The 25,000 ton Louis Crystal,  that doorstop looking ship that sailed with NCL some time ago, takes visitors to the Greek Islands and Turkey.  Three of NCL’s White Fleet ships including, the 15,000 ton Starward now sail as Louis Orient Queen!  She joins Calypso and Coral also from those early NCL days.  How many of us took our very first cruise on these ships.

You can still sail on the original “Love Boat” from the TV show. Discovery World Cruises has lovingly kept the classic Pacific Princess, now known as Discovery, in tip top condition to sail the World on exciting exploratory routes.  I am also thrilled to hear that the American Queen is going back into service on the Mississippi very soon.  It is too bad that almost all of these smaller but still viable ships are based in Europe and are more difficult to experience without an airplane ticket.

The famous Soviet ship Alexander Pushkin, built in 1965, was known as the spy cruise ship.  Many years later she was brought back as the Marco Polo and still sails with the same name today.  Cruise and Maritime Voyages, again based in the UK, operates her.  She is famous due to her double hull strength allowing her to sail thru broken ice.  She is a perfect ship to explore Antarctica which many American did during her tenure with the Orient Lines.

So you see it is not always about the massive ships and dozens of entertainment and sports options they offer. Biggest and newest is not always what we want regardless of what the big cruise lines say.  There is far more to cruising than that.  It’s what is not there that makes traditional cruising so special. 

For those agents that complain that it is hard to make money selling mass market cruises, check these cruise lines out, many do not have NCFs and are actually very profitable to sell.  They do take a bit more work to book but they are well worth it for your clients as well as yourself.