Le Chic Geek
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The internet on cruise ships costs a pretty penny. I just spent more than I want to think about checking work emails while at sea. But the cost makes sense–the cost not only includes the infrastructure to maintain an internet connection at sea, but also ensures too many people aren’t logging in at once sending the internet to a crawl. (See Amtrak.)
But Carnival is in the process of rolling out a social media package to its ships, which I think is brilliant.
For $5 a day, users can update their social media pages with pictures and stories from their cruise.
This helps with three things:
1. Free Advertising
When are people the happiest about their cruise? When they are actually on the cruise.
For those addicted to social media (ahem, not like anyone we know here), you also help advertise for a place when you update your pals on your day-to-day breakfasts. Seeing a flood of pictures from a Carnival cruise (and never from another one) will help reinforce that people will have fun on Carnival Cruises.
2. Outlet for Complaints
If someone is upset about their time on the cruise, who do they complain to? Usually, their fellow passengers, bringing their fellow passengers’ attention to things they never noticed in the first place.
As an aside, I went to an all-inclusive once and was loving it, then met a couple who mentioned every single problem they had on the resort. It was a downer until I reminded myself what a good time I was having until I met them.
Carnival could use this social media opportunity as a way to give cruisers an outlet for their complaints, and potentially a resolution while still at sea. They could set up a twitter account akin to Hyatt’s @HyattConcierge.
3. They Can Corner the Millennial Market
I hate to admit it, but I was fretting over my loss of social media access while on the cruise. Everyone kept telling me to just take the time to relax while at sea, but that’s how I relax.
While cruise lines have been trying to market to millennials, they are having trouble capturing them. They’ve been trying different advertising methods without strong results.
Millennials have been mostly booking short cruises (and Carnival has had some success with their short cruises with Millennials). But I think the reason why they prefer these short cruises is because they do not want to be disconnected from their networks for that long.
What do you think?
“But I think the reason why they prefer these short cruises is because they do not want to be disconnected from their networks for that long.”
Counterpoint: It’s also because many millennials don’t have a lot of vacation time. My first job I started with only 2 weeks of vacation. When you count going to see family and such, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for extended trips like cruises.
I see what you are saying, though millennials are also taking bucket list type longer trips at a younger age too. Hm..
Hmmm I think I have to disagree with the part 3 above re booking shorter trips. I’m a millennial and I am a huge cruise addict! The longer the cruise and the more sea days the better. Prior to getting into this whole miles + points hobby, cruises were all we did. I loved the idea of getting on the ship and disconnecting from everything. I have status with RCCL (earned the hard way pre-hyatt partnership) so we go always got free internet so it wasn’t so bad since it was enough to check email once a day. I think I might be in the minority though because friends my age prefer the shorter cruises. They tell me they feel trapped on the ship and are afraid of getting bored. There’s nothing better for me than sitting on my balcony and staring out in the blue waters. Don’t get me wrong, ever since I started this hobby, I’ve been doing the longer bucket list style trips like you said above and I love them. What I don’t love is that they aren’t as relaxing since I want to see everything! I am constantly on the go so there’s not as much time to relax. If I were on a long cruise, I have that flexibility. With that said however, we did a Mediterranean Cruise and British Isles cruise and while they were long, these cruises were very tiring since we were also out and about from early morning to late night.
Anyway! I would love it if you did a cruise review! I think it would offer great variety to the usual trip reports we normally see on Boarding Area =) Pretty please =)