Literally, where do we go?
If you take a look at any cruise company’s website these days, you will see a LOT of cruises to Norway and the Baltic.
Why?
Because there is nowhere else that is safe to go.
Let’s start with the Mediterranean: Italy, fine. Turkey, fine. Syria,? Erm, no. Israel? No, because for some reason the cruise companies have had an almighty attack of cowardice, despite the fact that the Foreign Office have no problem with us going there. Egypt? Nope, not at the moment. Libya? Nope, no visits to Leptis Magna for us any time soon. Tunisia? Er… Malta, phew, yes! Let’s go to Malta!
So the only cruises available in any number at the moment are to the Western Med. Precious little, if anything at all for the Eastern Med.
Okay, so that’s the Med. What about the Caribbean? After all, US ships go virtually nowhere else? Well, it’s okay, but it’s not 100% cheery there either:
The cruise companies may well soon start avoiding certain islands altogether.
Of course, this isn’t every island and these incidents make the news because they are so unusual, but the overcautious nature of cruise companies, particularly those owned by Carnival, an American firm, who start with the assumption you are going to sue them and work backwards from there, means that avoidance may become the name of the game in very short order.
And then there is South America. Let’s go the Falkland Islands and see the penguins. Well, we were going to go to Argentina. And, of course,we’re not allowed to do both…
What about the Indian Ocean and the Pacific? In the past, we have been turned away from the Seychelles (pirates), Bangkok (bombs), Tokyo (too crowded!)… the list goes on.
So, the world is literally getting smaller, both for the populace as a whole, but particularly for cruise ship passengers, and I have a feeling it is only going to get smaller, as cruise companies avoid more and more places for fear of what might happen.
I don’t want to make you miserable, but you may just want to bear it in mind when you’re planning your next jaunt. There may well be at least one place, possibly more, you get diverted away from, possibly with very little notice or warning.
I would be interested if any of my readers have been anywhere that might be perceived as a bit dodgy recently, and how it was for you. Please let me know, and maybe together we can persuade the cruise companies that there is more to life than fjords.
cruisetheoceanswithemma.com 
Time to fly…………?
🙂
t x
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If people would stop suing the cruise lines every two minutes, then maybe they would get a bit more adventurous. Till that happens, they’ll continue to play it ultra-cautiously.
But, Simon, isn’t society getting more litigious, not less? Particularly State-side. And remember that Carnival is an American firm. They don’t just own Carnival Cruise Lines, they also own Costa (ooh, didn’t even MENTION the Concordia or the Allegra!), P&O Cruises, Cunard, Holland America, Princess Cruises, Seabourn and several others in other European countries. But they all go back to America for the legal stuff!
Yep, my point exactly. Sad isn’t it. 😦
Have to agree with your findings, Emma, we are having great difficulty in finding a decent cruise that goes somewhere we haven´t been before.Then they won´t guarantee the cruise destinations won´t be changed. We did find a western med.cruise with Royal Carribean last September, we thoroughly enjoyed that and we visited a few new places, but even then we had to put up with the likes of Naples, somewhere I have vowed not to go again.- but that is another story.
My brother in law is on the Oriana at the moment and he has had one port of call changed, the reason being – all the berths are being used on that day !!!!!!! So even the western med. is not reliable.
We were in America when the Carnival ship caught fire and drifted for days in the gulf!! The coverage on American T.V. was something worth watching- it went on for days, bet carnival are counting their losses on that one and future cruises.