The Legacy of Titanic- Cruise Lines learn about reality

by Chris Owen on

Today’s cruise industry exists and operates as it does in many ways as a result of the Titanic tragedy. This week we take a look at the legacy left behind in ways that affect cruise passengers on every sailing of every ship.

Titanic was the most advanced vessel of her day. Built with the best technology of the time, White Star Line which owned the ship thought her unsinkable.

Titanic was designed to compete with Cunard Line’s Lusitania and Mauretania and focused on high-end luxury travel, very much as depicted in the movie Titanic.

Out of 840 staterooms, almost half were first-class accommodations. The ship was built for pleasure and beauty. It was filling that order which would contribute to the loss of life just days after launching Titanic. The ship was designed to hold 32 lifeboats but only 20 were on board.

Cruise line management thought too many lifeboats would take away from the beauty of the ship. The 20 lifeboats on board Titanic could carry a total of 1,178 of the 3,547 the ship might have if fully loaded.

On that tragic night in 1912 when Titanic sank, the SS Californian was the closest ship to Titanic and many believe it could have easily rescued all on board. Unfortunately, the radio operator went to sleep not long before Titanic started broadcasting emergency distress messages.

After the Titanic sinking, ships were required to have enough lifeboats for everyone on the ship. Existing ships were refitted in a variety of ways and ship design changed to address safety issues.

The International Convention for the Safety of Life A Sea (SOLAS) is a treaty passed in 1914 in answer to the sinking of the Titanic. It addressed the lifeboat issue along with specifying emergency equipment and procedures including radio watches.

Today, advanced weather forecasting and navigational equipment on cruise ships take advantage of the great strides made possible by modern technology. GPS monitoring allows cruise lines to know where cruise ships are at all times. On-board video surveillance systems keep track of passengers and crew and are often called upon to solve cases of crime at sea.

Join us tomorrow as we take a look at one of the key figures in the Legacy of Titanic, the Captain of the ship. We’ll explore the Captain’s role then and now as more cruise ships sail more itineraries in more parts of the world than ever before.

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Flickr photo by formatc1

Google to dominate online travel selling, we hope

by Chris Owen on

Late last week, Google won government clearance on its $700 million bid for ITA Software in a deal that opens the door for the innovative Internet search powerhouse to dominate online travel selling.

ITA Software, who’s latest innovations include include ITA PSS, a next-generation passenger services system, Needle, a smarter way to organize and publish data on the web, and OnTheFly, an airfare shopping mobile application will make a nice addition to Googles stable of brands. ITA already powers the reservation systems of most US airlines and several online fare-comparison brands like Kayak, TripAdvisor and Hotwire. It looks like a match made in heaven as tech-savvy Google gets an infusion of travel sense from a leader in that game.

But there is a catch. Make that possible bump in the road that we hope they get over smoothly.

While Google is buying and hiring to solidify the top position in all it does, it’s competitors and the government are looking very closely at what they are up to. They fear Google could use it’s substantial Internet search engine clout to monopolize the online travel business.

Would that be the same fear Yahoo might have had about Google’s search engine capability? Perhaps a natural order of things will play out here too.

To win approval, Google agreed to ongoing federal monitoring of its behavior. Google also agreed that ITA will continue to provide service to existing customers for five years in a “reasonable and nondiscriminatory way”. That should satisfy the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department for a while but they both have Google in their sights, ready to pull the trigger on a full-scale investigation, given the chance.

In his blog, Google’s Senior Vice President Jeff Huber writes:

“How cool would it be if you could type “flights to somewhere sunny for under $500 in May” into Google and get not just a set of links but also flight times, fares and a link to sites where you can actually buy tickets quickly and easily? Well that’s exactly why we announced our intention to buy ITA Software, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company that specializes in organizing airline data last July-and we’re excited that the U.S. Department of Justice today approved our acquisition.”


Last July, Gadling’s Darren Murph called the ITA buy “a huge win for consumers who are tired of crawling three different airline search engines to get a somewhat comprehensive look at their options.” adding “we personally can’t wait for this marriage to officially bear fruit.”

Now that the sale has been approved and Google has agreed play nice, we should start seeing something pretty quickly. Until then, there’s always Google maps:


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Flickr photo by brionv

The Legacy of Titanic, what we learned in the last 99 years

by Chris Owen on
This week marks the 99th anniversary of the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912. If you have seen the movie, you know the basic story. Four days into a transatlantic crossing, the ship hit an iceberg just before midnight then sank hours later. In one of the deadliest disasters in maritime history, over 1500 people died in the icy water south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Today’s cruise industry exists and operates in many ways as a result of the Titanic tragedy. This week we take a look at the legacy left behind that affects cruise passengers on every sailing of every ship.

Going down this road, safety at sea comes up as a primary topic when thinking of the Titanic.

In the world of travel agents from which I came, “Titanic” is a word avoided almost as much as “torpedoes” and “pirates”. I remember being told when I started “If you say the word “sink” you better be talking about a place to wash out your coffee cup and if you say the word “sunk” you better be talking about basketball.” When asked what he thought would happen to the cruise business if a cruise ship sank today, a cruise line sales manager told me over lunch one day “Oh, we don’t even talk about that.” The mood of that luncheon became somber from that point on.

Those keywords are not what we want to think about. It’s not the pretty picture of a serene cruise vacation that marketers want us to buy into. Cruise lines, sellers of travel and the like, want those images to be as far from our minds as possible. Ninety-nine years puts a lot of time between us and the sinking of the Titanic when 1517 passengers died.

Still, there are people charged to never forget Titanic and make it their job to take lessons learned back then, build upon them and move forward.

It can be as simple as the intensity that today’s cruise ship crew members have during the typical safety drill performed at the beginning of each cruise. This is not a time for joking around and having a frozen cocktail. That came before the safety drill and will resume after. As passengers follow directions during a safety drill, now is the time to practice what to do if faced with the worst possible event at sea.

It can be as complex as set-in-stone rules regarding documentation needed to board a passenger ship. The requirements are strict and systems on board keep track of every passenger coming on or going off a ship. Behind-the-scenes activities performed by everyone from travel agents to embarkation staff at the pier help insure a safe voyage.

It can be as commonplace as a change in the itinerary of a cruise ship due to weather, safety or mechanical concerns. That topic has come up a lot recently as ships from all major cruise lines canceled calls to trouble-spots around the globe. Each year during hurricane season, itineraries are commonly changed to avoid major storms. Not long ago, a major cruise ship lost power and had to be towed back to port.

Cruise liners today are much bigger and better equipped. At 46,328 gross registered tons, Titanic was the largest and most advanced ship of her day. Today’s largest and most advanced ship, Allure of the Seas, is more than four times larger and carries almost twice as many people. Big ships are not nearly as “remarkable” as they were in 1912. Shipyards seem to crank them out as fast as they are ordered. Cruise lines deploy ships all over the planet now without hesitation to move one if an itinerary does not produce the anticipated results. Are today’s cruise lines operating as safely as possible? Is it possible to ever have another Titanic-like event?

Join us tomorrow and the rest of this week as we answer those questions and remember some mistakes made at the time that might have avoided the tragedy altogether.

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Flickr photo by scmikeburton

The 11 Best Cruise Blogs

by Chris Owen on
There are a lot of great travel blogs out there but not a lot that deal exclusively with cruise vacations. Here is a list of my favorites, in no particular order, along with the names of their writers and what they have to say about themselves. These are 10 great cruise blogs that anyone half-way interested in cruise vacations should take a look at, probably every day.Some of these writers I have met, others not but all share a passion for cruise vacations that is undeniable. For good cruise vacation information, these are the ones to read. They’re also some of the best ones to follow on Twitter so I included their Twitter handles too. In fact, if you made a list called “Cruise Experts” every one of these would make great additions.

  1. USA Today’s The Cruise Log-Gene Sloan- “I oversee USA TODAY’s Cruise Log (cruises.usatoday.com), an online site where cruise fans can blow hours at a time talking about cruising. It’s just my latest gig as a travel writer, an occupation that has kept me on the road more than 1,200 days over the past 15 years as I’ve written about everything from cruising to trekking in the Peruvian Andes” (@CruiseLog)
  2. CruiseCritic blog-Carolyn Spencer Brown and a host of others- “Sometimes the juiciest info we come across as we report on all things cruise related simply can’t make it into the “real” stories we produce on the Web site every day. But we’ve got space here to share with you outtakes, random observations, occasional glimmers of inspiration, and other stuff – so we hope you’ll not only visit often but also join in the conversation.Who’s on the Cruise Critic team? Our key bloggers will be London-based Sue Bryant (SJB), Cruise Critic’s contributing editor, and Carolyn Spencer Brown (CSB), the site’s editor in chief. Jamey Bergman (JAB), Cruise Critic’s U.K.-based web producer, Dan Askin (DA) and John Deiner (JD), our managing editor, will also be jumping onboard as will occasional guest bloggers.”
  3. John Heald’s Blog-John Heald- “I started this blog when a lady called Stephanie said “Oh John, please write a blog, it will only be for a week and won’t take up much of your time.” That was back in 1492 and here I am still writing in the same pair of underpants. I am Carnival’s Senior Cruise Director and Brand Ambassador, and I am here to share my life with you in all its boring and sometimes toilet-based glory.” (@CarnivalCruise)
  4. Avid Cruiser– Ralph Grizzle- “I began my journalistic career at the age of 32, following the conclusion of my ‘sabbatical decade.’ From 1980 through 1990, I bicycled across America, pedaled through Europe and island-hopped the South Pacific. After backpacking through Bali, bussing through Java, hopping a boat to Singapore and crossing Malaysia to Thailand, I flew into Burma, tramped to Dhaka and endured a 32-hour train ride from calamitous Calcutta to bustling Bombay. From there, I hopped a plane for Greece and traveled to Switzerland before returning home, where I settled, quite naturally, into a career of travel writing.” (@avidcruiser)
  5. Captain Greybeard– (this is the plus one- Sheesh, how could I forget?) “John Honeywell is a cruiseaholic and addicted to traveling the oceans. Any day at sea is better than a day in the office” (@CaptainGreybeard)
  6. Expert Cruiser-“Anita Dunham-Potter is a cruise journalist and consumer advocate. Her articles offer advice and insight for travelers that want all the facts to be informed. Dunham-Potter is Tripso’s and MSNBC.com’s cruise ombudsman. In addition to the aforementioned columns on MSNBC.com and Tripso she has penned numerous columns for the Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Princess Cruises, Fodor’s , Smarter Travel, along with numerous trade publications.” (@ExpertCruiser)
  7. About.com– Linda Garrison- “Cruises are a great vacation for almost everyone who loves to explore new places, meet new people, eat good food, and seek new horizons. My goal is to provide the About.com Cruises Web site visitor with all the information necessary to plan and enjoy the cruise experience as much as I do. In addition to general information on cruise planning, the site is rich in cruise news, cruise specials, and cruise photos and information on cruise ships and cruise destinations around the world.” (@AboutCruises)
  8. Royal Caribbean Blog-“We’re big fans of taking cruises and over the years, we’ve grown fond of cruising with Royal Caribbean and our favorite thing to do when we’re not actually on a Royal Caribbean cruise is to share our passion for cruising on Royal Caribbean with other fans.Royal Caribbean Blog offers daily coverage of news and information related to the Royal Caribbean cruise line along with other relevant topics of cruising, such as entertainment, news, photo updates and more.”
  9. Ship Critic blog– Anne Campbell- “ShipCritic Blog is a labor of love by Anne Campbell, a journalist who has been covering the cruise industry since 1993. Why a blog? This newfangled technology is the best way of interacting with cruisers, both first timers and veterans, who also share a passion for seeing the world by ship.” (@ShipCritic)
  10. 50 Essential Experiences, The Travel Bucket List– Princess Cruises- “Few people have seen more of the world than Princess Cruises’ own destination experts. In the past 45 years that Princess ships have been sailing to all seven continents, many of our longest-serving shipboard and shoreside employees have logged thousands of sea and air miles visiting hundreds of countries, cities and sites. We’re often asked, “You’ve seen it all. What places do I really need to have on my travel bucket list?” Below, on a weekly basis for the next year, many of our 15+ year employees will share their inspirational stories that make up our 50 essential travel experiences. Enjoy the journey!” (@PrincessCruises)
  11. Frommers Cruise Blog– Matt Hannafin- “Matt Hannafin is a freelance writer, editor, and musician based in Portland, Oregon. Author of Frommer’s Day by Day Vancouver & Whistler and coauthor of Frommer’s Cruises and Frommer’s European Cruises, he also freelances for numerous newspapers, magazines, and websites and was a major contributor to the recent bestseller 1,000 Places to See in the USA and Canada Before You Die. He still pines for his hometown of New York, NY, but is getting used to the Pacific Northwest now that he’s bought a good raincoat.

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Photo of the Day- Kensington Gardens

by Chris Owen on

Called “I need a break” this photo from Flicker contributor Marco Musnjak shows chairs in Hyde Park on a cloudy summer day taken in Kensington Gardens, London, England using a Nikon D90.

Offering a wide variety of compositions using a variety of cameras, Marco’s photostream is one you’ll want to visit.

We want to see your work too. Upload an image to Flickr’s Gadling Group Pool. Chosen images end up as future Photos of the Day.