(Un) Happy Cruises a blight on the Tourism landscape

Torrevieja is still looking towards redeveloping the Marina Salinas breakwater and converting this into a cruise terminal.

SPANISH TOURISM is slowly making a recovery and going from strength to strength with the INE announcing that in August alone there were 4,380,000 overnight stays from visitors of the UK, France and Germany, an increase of more than one hundred thousand over 2010. However not all is joyful in the world of Tourism as Happy Cruises offered a less than smiley face on Saturday when they announced that they would be ceasing operations immediately, with a decision on their imminent future to be taken this week.

During 2011, the troubled Spanish company, which homeports out of Valencia City, expanded their fleet to three ships with the addition of the chartered 21,884 gross ton HAPPY DOLPHIN (ex ORIENT VENUS, DELPHIN VOYAGER, HAINEN EMPRESS) just last May. Along with their other two ships, the 19,093 gross ton, 1992-built GEMINI (ex CROWN JEWEL, SUPERSTAR GEMINI) and the 22,945 gross ton, 1970-built OCEAN PEARL (ex SONG OF NORWAY, SUNDREAM, DREAM PRINCESS, DREAM, CLIPPER PEARL, CLIPPER PACFIC, FESTIVAL), the company had hopes of carrying up to 100,000 passengers a year.

The company stopped work on Saturday and all operations planned have been suspended while the Happy Cruises website is disabled. Spanish media said the company states that the cessation of business is "temporary" and that the administration's desire is to "continue their activity." Happy Cruises competes in the Spanish market with Pullmantur, a division of the Royal Caribbean Cruises group and Ibero Cruceros from Carnival Corporation.

Happy Cruises are considering various plans to address the crisis and held a stockholders’ meeting on Monday. The cruise company ceased operations in a time this weekend with passengers warned ahead of time and offered alternative cruises, hotel accommodation, or refunds. Happy Cruises said that this measure has been caused by liquidity problems, like most travel companies in Spain.
 
Shareholders will vote whether to continue or not with the majority shareholder Globalia having a 20% stake. As we go to press, the company still hope to reorganise and move forward and said that “This week our future is in doubt but the truth is that we are not even in bankrupt, much less in bankruptcy” Local Video Production company Photo Video Spain had also made approaches to Happy Cruises to produce video content for 2012 and along with thousands of passengers are waiting to hear news.

The three-ship fleet of Happy Cruises consists of a couple of ships that had a very loyal following when sailing for Cunard and Royal Caribbean. The OCEAN PEARL was originally constructed as the first vessel for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line.  The GEMINI began her career with the now defunct Crown Cruise Line but became best known for her tenure with Star Cruises and in May 2011the recently added HAPPY DOLPHIN was built for Venus Cruise which was a division of Japan Cruise Line. 


The company had previously operated under the name Quail Cruises but ran into financial trouble during 2009 when the PACIFIC (ex. SEA VENTURE, PACIFIC PRINCESS) was seized. However, it is highly unlikely this Spanish-based line will rise from the ashes for a third time.  The GEMINI and OCEAN PEARL terminated their current voyages at Valencia and Malaga with HAPPY DOLPHIN ending in Venice, Italy. Although all the ships have finished cruising and are laid up in their final ports of call, the fleet has been sailing at 80% capacity, which, if the onboard revenue is managed correctly, should be showing a decent profit!

Although all may not be happy with their cruise line, cruising in Spain is on the up, with the possible exception of the Port of Cartagena which announced that Cruise Traffic has dropped off 21% from 2010 with much of the blame being laid at the doors of locals shop owners, pubs and restaurants, who do not make the effort to open specially when a cruise ship or tourist event is happening in the City! Back in August, Cartagena Mayoress Pilar Barreiro issued the adage that shops and business need to ‘adapt or die’, a message that seems to have been lost on the local business community who have little understanding of how the business of cruising actually works!

On a more positive note, Torrevieja is still looking towards redeveloping the Marina Salinas breakwater and converting this into a cruise terminal. As one of the more innovative councils on the coast, they are working closely with the APYMECO, the small and medium business association or chamber of commerce, to look at the impact of bringing a cruise ship and an influx of 3,000-5,000 visitors might bring to the city for an eight hour stay.

Cruise veteran Eva Tejedor from AtSeaTV.com said “an issue with the newer, Spanish ports of call is that they do not have the experience to know what to offer cruise passengers when they arrive in Port! They need to ask themselves what facilities, beaches, monuments, museums, shopping opportunities and tours will be of interest to cruise ship passengers! Our experience of visiting more than 150 of the world’s cruise destinations is that Spain’s newest Ports of Call are happy to rest on their laurels, not add new activities and tours and don’t realise that in the Mediterranean, one port is very like another so Tourism Departments and entrepreneurs need to work together to build new and unique attractions.”

And staying on the cruise theme, the RMS Queen Mary was launched this very week back on September 26, 1934 and once upon a time was the largest and fastest liner built. The imposing ship, 310-metres long (three football fields end-to-end) and 36.14-meters wide, weighed in at 81,237 gross tons, powered by steam turbine 16 which generated 160 000 horsepower in the four axes, which gave her a speed of 30 knots. The ship had 776 staterooms, 784 in tourist class and 579 in third class.

The first trip was scheduled for May 14, 1936 leaving from Southampton and then the inaugural cruise, covering the route Southampton-Cherbourg-New York, was scheduled for 27 May. Despite what was thought, could not break the speed record previously imposed by its French rival, due to bad weather. After this first trip, she remained in dry dock during July while adjustments were made to the turbines and the four propellers. Upon resuming sailing, the  Queen Mary broke the speed record and snatched the Blue Ribbon from Normandie with an average speed of 30.99 knots (57.39 km /h) on route to New York and 31.69 knots going east to Southampton, a record she held until overhauled by the SS  United States in 1952. And now you know!

Keith Nicol