Norwegian cancels short cruises

Jason · March 19, 2004

The Norwegian Star, is a sister ship of the yet to be completed Pride of America. Norwegian Cruise Line has decided against offering three- and four-day interisland cruises that were expected to start in October.

Norwegian Cruise Line has canceled plans to do three- and four-day interisland cruises starting this year.

It had originally planned to start the cruises in October, but the construction delay of the Pride of America ship forced it to pull back. The shorter cruises were originally seen as good itineraries for Japanese visitors and kama'aina weekend vacations.

Now Norwegian estimates the Pride of America, expected to be the second U.S.-crewed and U.S.-flagged ship sailing interisland cruises in Hawai'i, will not be completed and ready for cruises until sometime in 2005. The ship will do the standard seven-day itineraries instead of the shorter cruises.

The Pride of America ship suffered a mishap in January when it took on water and sank in a shipyard where it was being built. It took about a month to refloat the ship and now the shipyard is still assessing how long it will take to repair and complete the vessel. The Pride of America was to begin sailing this summer, but Norwegian is replacing it with the renovated and U.S.-flagged Pride of Aloha ship, which will start in July.

Norwegian officials were unavailable for comments yesterday, but the cruise line has told travel agents that the Pride of America won't be ready until next year and that the plans are for seven-day cruises instead of three- and four-day cruises.

"They were trying to get the local people to come on a trip or try to get the Japanese to come and do a four-night cruise," said Danny Ching, president of Non-Stop Travel, a leading travel agency selling Norwegian cruises in Hawai'i. "That really hasn't produced that much interest to make it worth their while."

The three- and four-day cruises were touted as ways to draw more tourists to stay on the Islands with cruise-and-stay packages. The packages would have brought travelers to stay in hotels before or after their cruise, visit attractions and go shopping Ã¢â‚¬â€ and delivering an additional boost to the local economy.

Ching said travelers mainly want the seven-day cruises, especially tourists from out of state. The three-day cruises were "the perfect weekend getaway" for kama'aina, but the demand for shorter cruises wasn't there, he said.

"What they were expecting is probably not going to happen," he said. "It's probably not going to materialize."

Each of the U.S.-flagged ships will employ about 1,000 U.S. employees, most of them Hawai'i residents, creating a boost for tourism employment. The influx of cruise passengers is also expected to increase commerce for an array of local businesses including tour operators, farmers providing local produce, suppliers and shops.

Tourism businesses and Norwegian's new hires have eagerly awaited the arrival of the new cruise ships, but the plans hit roadblocks with the initial sinking of the ship followed by the shipyard's filing for protection from creditors, leading to months of uncertainty.

The change in plans and unknown delay for the completion of Pride of America could mean more challenges for cruise ship workers and the tourism industry.

"That's kind of disappointing," said Danny Casey, past president of the Hawai'i chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents. But he said he could see the problem of depending on the Japanese market for short cruises. He said some tourists may not want to travel all the way to Hawai'i for such a short cruise.

Ching hopes the Pride of America is ready as soon as possible. He said the travel agency gets lots of inquiries from people interested in taking the new cruises from Hawai'i and the Mainland.

"The more ships here the better for the tourism industry because there's more people here," Ching said. "The later it gets here the less tourists."

Stan Brown, Marriott's vice president in the Pacific Islands, said the changes will mean less demand for flights into Hawai'i. Marriott has a partnership to provide hotel rooms for Norwegian cruise packages.

"It's certainly going to have an impact," Brown said.

[by Kelly Yamanouchi, Advertiser Staff Writer]