This past week there has been a lot of discussion about Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) pulling a second ship out of Hawaii, due to a brewing war between industry rivals. The two sides, NCL with their American flagged ships in Hawaii and the rest of the industry, all non-American flagged ships were at odds over who could violate the most amount of American federal and state laws and get away with it.
The mail bag was full on this topic, as towns have joined in a battle which threatened to make it difficult if not impossible for some towns to court the cruise industry. At the center of the debate was a new rule proposal that would expand the time a ship would have to call in foreign ports, between visits to two U.S. cities.
The proposed rule would place a fixed time period of 48 hours that ships have to call in foreign ports. In recent months, there have been complaints that Holland America Line and others, were stopping in Ensenda, Mexico on the way from California to Hawaii, only long enough to say they did, but not really having a call at port, as no passengers were allowed off the ship while it was in port. Ships were calling in Ensenada for as little as an hour.
The mail bag here, was full of letters supporting the towns, with comments directed at job loss and revenue decline, while American cities and small towns have been feeling the pinch from an economic downturn that has been going on far longer, and much deeper than any politician or investor is willing to admit.
My stance has been good ridden's to bad trading partners. If the ruling runs off all the cruise ships that call in this country, then so be it. But, I doubt that would be much of an issue. If the ships all pulled out of our ports it would be more crushing to the industry, than it would be to American towns. Because of that, it will not happen. The cruise industry can not afford to lose the millions of American passengers they have now.
The industry would have to raise the American flag on their ships, end those dirt cheap cruises where most of the incidents found on Cruise Bruise take place, and raise the industry standards to a level of human rights, we as Americans can be proud of, for a change.
As this debate has gone on, I have answered visitor letters with pretty much the same response. Towns really are not gaining anything positive from having ships call at their ports. The exception are those cities that are home ports. They gain from the overnight stays at the beginning and end of cruises. Small towns, just pit stops on the way to the main attractions get very little revenue from the cruise ships, but they do get a boat load of problems.
After a few years, a cruise line pulls their ships from the pit stops and moves on. The industry says it shakes up things to keep it fresh. The truth is they change the itinerary because it takes a few years for small towns to realize that having the cruise ships calling at their town was a huge mistake. In an election year, it can be very difficult to get re-elected while supporting the industry, when the majority of residents in a town want the cruise industry out.
Enter into the fracas the town of Bar Harbor, Maine. It was a year ago next month
I reported that residents there, who once courted the industry as a great God who would bring fame and fortune to the small town, were beginning to find out, as other towns have, it was a poorly made decision. Now, with this past summer of high cruise ship traffic to mull over for a winter, the tide of public opinion has turned against the cruise industry in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Passengers were not spending the millions of dollars in town, as residents had dreamed. Instead, they added to problems that would be costly to fix. The town would foot the bill for those solutions, as all towns have, with little if any help from the cruise industry.
Towns seem to miss the point that the industry is there to rape and pillage their economy, not support it with little pit stops. This is not a long term love affair with the industry, it is an abusive, self-destructive, one-sided tryst. Small towns become harlots working for pimps.
Now, with ships getting larger, holding more passengers, towns are beginning to see that once ships with 1,100 passengers aboard, can now have about four times that number of passengers and more than 1,100 crew aboard. With two, three, sometimes four ships calling at one time, a town of 10,000 can explode to a town of 20,000 to 25,000 in a matter of minutes. The congestion, noise and air quality in a town during that time can reduce it from a paradise to a community appearance more akin to inner city blight.
Bar Harbor, Maine has just figured this out, and in a stunning unanimous city council vote, handed town a policy to residents to limit the number of passengers who could call at their port at one time. While I am sure the residents are all applauding this decision, the jubilation will be shortly lived.
The council voted to restrict the number of passengers that can disembark at one time to 3,500 in the months of July and August, with the harbor master able to raise that number to 3,700 at his discretion.
The number will increase to 5,500 from May 1 to June 30, and from September 1 to October 31. The restriction will go into effect during the summer season of 2010. This means two more years of hell for Bar Harbor residents.
To understand the numbers, keep in mind that in May and June, it is still cold in Maine, and land-based tourism is very sluggish, as well as in September and October. Hence the reason for courting the industry during that time period. But, by July into late August, land-based visitors are at their peak. The town can shrug off the cruise industry. However, this is when the cruise industry is looking to sail north, as hurricane season is in full swing in the Caribbean and southern U.S.
It will be interesting to see how well the cruise industry takes this 'picking and choosing' blow to their profits. My guess, is they will begin to look for another town of residents more willing to become victims. This is something for other towns to keep in mind.
This is an industry that will do as it wishes. No town will tell them how to run their businesses. While the restriction is worded to say "disembark at any one time", there is nothing at all to stop the cruise ships from scheduling so they can arrive two hours apart.
This would give one ship enough time to disembark their passengers, get them on those tour buses that race passengers through town, bypassing shops, as they head for Acadia National Park, so another ship can pull into port. The park is the only reason the ships stop there at all.
As reported a year ago, the town was thrilled to increase their cruise traffic back then as planned. I reported, "From 1997 to 2007 cruise ship passenger visits have increased by 400%. In 1997 there were a decent flow of passengers at only 27,000 annually. But, by 2007 that number had increased to an explosive 128,596. Through 2011 those ships will increase by 36, bringing 94,000 more passengers to Bar Harbor." 200,000 passengers a year seemed like a good idea, on paper.
Looks like the town has figured out in the past year, what I have been saying all along. If you give the industry an inch, they will take a mile. The thought of financial euphoria is intoxicating, but coming down off the high can be devastating. It is time the word was spread to all corners of the earth, "Just Say No", to the cruise industry sailing with foreign flags. The American economy has enough problems without dozens more towns suffering from the ill effects of cruise industry addiction.
Bar Harbor Maine Love Lost
Tiny Harbor Says No To Cruise Ship Congestion
February 14, 2008
