How Carnival Corporation will recycle its two cruise ships responsibly?

Carnival Corporation & plc has announced agreements with maritime reclamation and recycling specialists EGE CELIK and SIMSEKLER to responsibly dismantle and recycle two retired ships scheduled to leave its fleet. The move comes as part of the company's strategy for a phased resumption of cruise vacations with specific ships and brands returning to service over time.

Carnival Corporation worked with the environmental non-profit Bellona Foundation – a lead partner in the NGO Shipbreaking Platform – and the specialized ship recycling experts Sea2Cradle to formulate an approach to dismantling and recycling the ships. The organizations also helped identify best-in-class certified maritime vessel retirement solutions worldwide that are able to reuse, reclaim and recycle retired ships in support of Carnival Corporation's commitment to a sustainable cruise industry.

"Our highest responsibility and top priorities are compliance, environmental protection, and the health, safety and well-being of our guests, the communities we visit and our crew," said Bill Burke, chief maritime officer for Carnival Corporation. "That commitment extends to our cruise ships, starting from the moment a ship becomes part of our fleet and continuing all the way through to its retirement. In addition to limiting our vessels' impact on the environment throughout their service time in our fleet, recycling our retired ships following the European Ship Recycling Regulation ensures we are applying the highest global standards and contributing to a sustainable cruise industry."

After an intensive review of sustainable ship recycling facilities, Carnival Corporation selected Turkey-based EGE CELIK and SIMSEKLER based on their track records of compliance with key national and international environmental agreements and regulations. Both recycling companies are certified by the Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships. They are also strictly required to adhere to a complex matrix of global standards set forth by the European Union (EU), International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Basel Convention multilateral environmental agreement.

Sea2Cradle will operate as advisor to ensure safety, compliance

The recycling companies will formulate a Ship Recycle Plan for each vessel – Carnival Fantasy and Carnival Inspiration – that goes beyond what is required by consulting with Carnival Corporation's advisor Sea2Cradle to ensure optimal compliance with key national and international environmental standards. Each plan will include a complete inventory of hazardous and regulated materials and the procedures planned for safely removing and processing the materials in an environmentally friendly way. Once these materials are safely removed and processed, the companies will begin dismantling each ship.

Ships will be stripped of machinery, electronic equipment, glass, wood and other materials that can be directly upcycled for reuse in new ships, used in ship repair or repurposed for other applications. Steel and metal scraps will be salvaged and recycled for direct use or be sent to the mill for producing other products and goods. Working on behalf of Carnival Corporation and as an added assurance, Sea2Cradle will supervise ship dismantling and recycling at the demolition yards throughout the entire process to ensure the highest health, safety and environmental standards are maintained.

"We are proud to collaborate with Carnival Corporation for the clean and safe recycling of their retired cruise vessels," said Wouter Rozenveld, director, Sea2Cradle. "We recently carried out the Inventory of Hazardous Materials that will form the basis of a unique ship recycling plan created for each vessel."

Added Rozenveld: "Our experienced supervisors will be present at the yard during the entire recycling process, to ensure the recycling plan is adhered to and that all health, safety and environmental measures are followed. We will also see to it that non-recyclable materials are being disposed of and treated properly, and we will remain on-site until the last piece of steel is brought to the smelter to produce new products."

Sea2Cradle estimates that a significant percentage of the ship materials from both vessels will be reused, reclaimed or recycled.

Plan supports commitment to sustainable cruise industry, helps reduce operating expenses

Sigurd Enge, Bellona Foundation head of shipping & Arctic issues, said: "Bellona Foundation endorses Carnival Corporation's decision to responsibly recycle their retired ships in Turkey, and we applaud them for leading the way to responsible management throughout the lifecycle of their ships. Dismantling a cruise ship is complex, involving many components for reuse, recycling and waste for deposition. We are grateful for Carnival Corporation's commitment to performing the recycling in a proper way to avoid pollution and to safeguard the environment."

Since pausing its guest cruise operations in mid-March in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the company has taken significant actions to reduce operating expenses, including accelerating the retirement of ships from its fleet in fiscal year 2020 and delaying new ship arrivals.

Commentary: COVID-19 and the Cruise Industry

[This article is written by Iain Hay, Anchor Hygiene Services Limited]

The entire concept of designing outbreak prevention and cruise ships’ responses has changed beyond measure since the COVID-19 pandemic. Suddenly it is not just the usual suspects – the United States Public Health Service (USPH), and other port health authorities who are interested in how cruise operators manage compliance and how they respond to illness on board. We must now also consider that the countries and port authorities we visit have a critical say with regard to the disembarkation of infected people and those who have tested positive and how that process is managed at every step of the way.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic public health authorities in certain key countries followed the lead of the United States’ Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP), requiring that each vessel has a written Outbreak Prevention and Response Plan (OPRP) in place that details standard procedures and policies. But those OPRPs are geared to specifically address gastrointestinal illness onboard and nothing else as that is all the CDC were interested in.

Cruise ships were simply unprepared for the onset of a major outbreak of an illness unrelated to gastroenteritis and they had minimum plans or resources in effect to manage isolation for a highly infectious and potentially deadly outbreak the likes of COVID-19. They had never considered an outbreak in which port authorities and even the CDC would prohibit ships from disembarking infected people to medical facilities ashore. Having said that, however, the day-to-day protocols in effect on every cruise ship, although designed to principally protect against norovirus and gastrointestinal illness, were sufficient to deflect an all-out industry-wide pandemic within a world-wide pandemic. Only circa 57 ships (22% of all ships in the cruise industry) reported 2,787 COVID-19 cases and of the 520,000 world-wide deaths only 74 were attributed to cruise ships, which represents a startlingly low 0.07% of the world’s COVID-19 fatalities. In other words, 99.93% of confirmed cases around the world had no direct tie to cruising (source: Cruzeley, May 2020). A stark realisation then, that cruise ships are not overtly dangerous, as some sensationalist media organisations described them, veritable petri dishes (New York Times, Feb 2020) spreading the virus willy-nilly.

At the height of the pandemic Diamond Princess was prevented from docking in Yokohama, Japan, which resulted in catastrophe; Ruby Princess was denied docking in Australia and the Grand Princess in the United States to name but a few. These decisions led to exponential spread of the virus on those ships as well as to unnecessary deaths onboard. Aboard the Diamond Princess 712 people (567 passengers and 145 crewmembers) contracted COVID-19, of whom 14 died. This was a humanitarian disaster that must never be allowed to reoccur and it was thanks to the refusal of the port to allow the ship to dock from the start of their crisis, to quickly isolate the sick in hospitals ashore, or to effectively quarantine the healthy people. Of the total 74 cruise-ship-related COVID-19 deaths the 14 who died aboard Diamond Princess represented a staggering 19% of world-wide shipboard COVID-19 deaths.

By mid-March 2020 at least 10 ships around the world – carrying nearly 10,000 passengers were stuck at sea after having been turned away from their destination ports in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a Guardian newspaper analysis in the UK. Some of those ships were facing increasingly dire medical situations, but the clear threat to human life did not sway those ports or the CDC to act decisively to potentially save the lives of ill people onboard the ships.

Cruise ships are, first and foremost, holiday destinations with only a minimal medical response team on site and limited facilities (medical and testing equipment, isolation wards, etc.) so a major outbreak can very quickly overwhelm the ship’s hospital, allowing illnesses to spread at an alarming rate if local port and health authorities stand back and fail to allow access to shoreside medical care.

Ships must train their crew and be prepared for outbreaks that are not gastrointestinal in nature and which effectively fall under the radar of the VSP and the other health authorities cruise ships work with globally, including the likes of Health Canada, EU Shipsan, Brazil’s ANVISA and UK Port Health.

It is no longer feasible for ship operators to focus purely on passing inspections and achieving high public health scores twice per year. Ship operators’ claims that they are building ships that are USPH-compliant whilst simultaneously cutting back on the costs incurred to achieve that status has to be reversed.

Cruise ship management culture, both corporate and shipboard, needs to change. The days are over when a score is all that matters whilst ignoring critical violations. COVID-19 has driven home the reality that public health inspections are about highlighting risk and that ship managers’ responsibilities lie in alleviating those risks.

It is now time for the VSP to revamp their inspection platform to NOT focus on scores, but to look at the critical violations, and for the ships to respond with detailed corrective action statements accurately outlining what has been done to correct infringements. Public health and the prospective cruise clients who read public health inspection reports on the internet do not need to know what still needs to be done; only what was actually done to make good findings.

Ships must operate to the highest standards of public health compliance at all times, irrespective of their geographical location, if virulent person-to-person spread contagious diseases like coronaviruses continue to lurk as in all probability, at least until a vaccine is developed, they will. And new viruses will undoubtedly follow in the future to keep us on our mettle. Thus, crew public health training is of utmost importance, pre-boarding and throughout the contract, more than ever before.
The outbreak prevention focus for the future needs to radically change. Cruise operators need to develop plans that are three-tiered:
– Prevention: A robust and mandatory screening protocol is needed for all guests, crew, and for the vessel itself prior to embarkation with a view to ensuring voyages are 100% COVID-free prior to setting sail.
– Mitigation: Detailed processes and thorough reinforcement of the preventative actions, with measures that must be carried out during pre-boarding, onboard and post-cruise.
– Response: A detailed plan focused on patient care, management of passengers and thorough company and vessel protocols with shoreside and health authority support needs to be developed.

Note that in June 2020 the European Union (EU) released an excellent document on which to model a new cruise ship infection control programme and the World Health Organisation (WHO) is working on additional information/guidance. Furthermore, there has been some excellent scientific literature published outlining robust screening protocols, which are accessible through the internet.

During the pandemic crisis, ships’ managements felt helpless; incapacitated by unhelpful port authorities who refused to wake up to their altruistic responsibilities and permit coronavirus-infected people to disembark in their ports to be medically treated and/or isolated.

Ships were simply unable to quarantine healthy people onboard to an extent that would protect them from the virus. Nor could ships safely isolate ALL those who were infected and/or tested positive for COVID-19, whether symptomatic or not. Thus, new prerequisites to a restart of cruising will undoubtedly include the need for a number of cabins to remain unoccupied every voyage for use as isolation facilities.

It was generally felt that the cruise industry was let down by the world’s media whose sensational, one-sided and deliberately misleading creative portraits of the industry’s capability to handle outbreak crises were designed to apportion blame without consideration of facts, and to instil fear into prospective passengers. And they were also let down by those the industry considered allies - The CDC issued a 100-day “No Sail Order”, which they later extended, banning all foreign-flagged cruise ships to use American ports; and many ports themselves, world-wide, failed to allow ships to dock or even to allow the many thousands of serving crew to travel home long after the guests had departed.

The crew may have been accommodated for free and were well fed while they floated around the world in surreal uncertainty, but food and shelter alone for stranded crewmembers, given that those with no job to perform on a ship void of guests were not being paid, does not put food on the tables of their families far away; and the realisation that many jobs would be ultimately lost to the pandemic led to and continues to cause much high-stress anxiety, the sad consequence of which has resulted in several crewmembers of different cruise lines committing suicide out of sheer desperation.

The CDC holds the cruise industry to the highest standards and the VSP is very supportive with regard to offering guidance and training as well as epidemiological assistance in gastrointestinal and norovirus outbreaks. However, once the industry faced a problem that was not gastrointestinal in nature the CDC was no longer there offering their support. Instead, they unilaterally took the decision to close all U.S. ports to foreign-flagged vessels despite the CDC’s knowledge that those same cruise ships operate at the highest public health standards way beyond the reach of any US-flagged ship, or shoreside operation. No hotel or state/provincial institution could keep up with the plethora of public health programmes aboard foreign, or flag-of-convenience cruise ships. US-flagged ships, airlines and ground transportation in the United States are held to much lower Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards that also applies to shoreside American hotels, catering and institutions, but despite that they could operate while the foreign flagged cruise industry was effectively punished.

The cruise industry was one of the first to cease operations once the pandemic took hold and they will be amongst the last to resume, at great cost to themselves and to the many supporting businesses, ports and authorities they work with around the world; not to mention the cost to the many thousands of crew sitting at home void of income and with no idea what the future holds for them.

It is no secret that on cruise ships, just as in any other confined space like airplanes, hotels, clubs and even hospitals, the risk of person-to-person viral spread is increased. However, COVID-19 illness and death figures prove that the cruise industry was far from complicit in spreading coronavirus. Yet, thanks to biased reporting, cruise ships are portrayed as pariahs. With this in mind, the importance of putting airtight systems and effective training in place before the restart of operations commences has to be the industry’s No. 1 priority. They cannot afford to give the press a reason to try to destroy their reputation a second time given that coronaviruses will still be with us for the foreseeable future and we all know that bad news sells.

 

Cruising without rock walls? It almost happened

AnneMarie Mathews reports from Miami

At a lively CEO Roundtable event focused on innovation and the customer experience, sponsored by The Miami Herald today in Miami, Royal Caribbean International’s Chairman and CEO Richard Fain revealed that its idea for a rock climbing wall almost didn’t happen.

Fain recalled that when he was presented the idea by his team, at first, he didn’t like. “I thought it was a silly idea,” said Fain. “I asked the team to go back to the drawing board and come up with three more ideas.”

He went on to say that the team came back to him with five ideas, but insisted that the rock wall be one of the five for consideration. He ultimately decided that the rock wall was the best of the five. “We went ahead and built it and it was a home run that we ultimately rolled out to all of our fleet. It became a signature icon on our ships.” He joked that he now calls it one of his best ideas.

Fain’s point in telling the anecdote was that sometimes things don’t go as planned and that leaders must keep pushing for innovation, while cultivating an environment where team members feel they can make a compelling argument for what they believe in.

To foster that environment, Fain has built an elaborate 20,000 square-foot, two story Innovation Lab at Royal Caribbean’s headquarters at the Port of Miami. With glistening lights, many bells and whistles, along with lots of open space for collaboration, the Innovation Lab’s centerpiece is The CAVE, a virtual reality hub that includes the largest LED wall in the Southeast United States and a full-size virtual reality simulator that can accommodate 10 people at a time.

In talking about the inspiration for the Innovation Lab, Fain cited the need to bring people together in one place for collaboration. “Innovation is in the DNA of our company, and we feel that everyone needs to participate,” said Fain. “The best inspiration comes when people argue things out, so we created a place with no offices or phones and lots of toys that help them bring those ideas to life. It’s the opportunity for people to get together and talk it out, that always results in the best ideas.”

Fain pointed to the upcoming Magic Carpet on the new Celebrity Edge, as an innovation that has come from collaboration. “We wanted a better way to get guests ashore and have more of a connection with the sea.”

The 90-ton Magic Carpet is the size of a tennis court and will ride on vertical rails mounted on one side of the ship. It serves multiple purposes, functioning as a specialty restaurant at night, while moving guests to different decks and to tenders to go ashore during the day.

In looking ahead to the next 10-15 years, Fain noted that while technology is nice and must be there, at the end of the day, it’s the crew that provide the experience that really matters. “Technology can do a lot to make the crew’s jobs easier, but when I get letters from guests, they always cite the people as creating the personal experiences and making the lasting memories.”

Tenerife, the beautiful island of eternal spring more than just a winter escape

Known as “La Isla Bonita”, the Beautiful Island, the alluring Tenerife is rapidly becoming a main cruise port of Europe. Its recent two major cruise facility developments have made the entire Canary archipelago a focal point of cruising, transforming it into an undisputed top year-round destination.

A few years ago, in response to the increasing number of winter calls, the port authority had opened a second, 1,000m2 cruise terminal in Santa Cruz de Tenerife; almost immediately after that, it started building another new, 8,473m2 facility, which was opened in September 2016 to join the existing two terminals. One of the most attractive features of Tenerife is that it has a modern cruise terminal right next to the city centre.

Today, with three world-class facilities, Tenerife has become Europe’s ultimate year-round cruise port. Santa Cruz is now the third largest cruise port in Spain, after Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca in terms of ship calls and passenger throughputs. In 2016 it received 524 calls and 884,179 passengers; this year, 2017, its passenger number will surpass 910,00, well on its way to join the “one-million-annual-cruise-passenger league”.

Major brands like MSC Cruises has a homeport operation from here; the island receives regular calls by such other cruise lines as Costa, Thomson, Fred. Olsen, and Hapag Lloyd. It recently added Pullmantur to its list of clients. The Spanish cruise brand is selling a Spanish destination to its mainly Spanish customers; this is probably the most powerful stamp of approval and demonstrates the magnetic attraction of Tenerife. Major liners like Britannia, Anthem of the Seas, Norwegian Epic, among others, have all been among its callers recently.

As a perfect winter escape, Tenerife has long been a favourite among European holidaymakers of all ages. But its cruise ambition has gone beyond this source market. As a key member of MedCruise, the Canary Islands as a whole is benefiting from the association’s unrelenting marketing drives in Asia and North America. Via Madrid, it has 14 daily air links – and many more via other European cities - with North America, thus accessing the biggest cruise market. Currently the regional government of Tenerife is working hard to introduce direct flights to and from the USA. Canary Islands can therefore source passengers from all three major source markets – Europe, North America and Asia year round.

As it becomes one of the most forward looking cruise destinations in the world, the port authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife is working tirelessly in attracting cruise traffics, as well as promoting and developing the other five cruise ports in the Canary Islands chain under its management. Its facility upgrades and development are unrelenting. This year, Santa Cruz de Tenerife will be among the first cruise ports in the world to introduce LNG bunkering services. By 2019, the berthing line in Santa Cruz de la Palma will be lengthened to accommodate larger ships. Plans are being drawn to develop the port of La Estaca, on El Hierro, into a special expedition port on account of the island’s outstanding features and its UNESCO Geopark status.

Tenerife is often a port of call for many transatlantic voyages. “As we are situated in the middle of the Atlantic,” Airam Diaz, Commercial Manager of Tenerife Port Authority, told us, “we are easily connected with North America East Coast, the Caribbean, and Brazil with Europe for positioning calls. In addition, we are the gateway to circumnavigate Africa from Europe.” The port of San Sebastian on the island of La Gomera was the last port of call made by Christopher Columbus before crossing the ocean towards the Americas.

On the whole, the temperate Canary Islands archipelago of “Eternal Spring” – with year-round temperatures fluctuating between 16oC and 21oC – not only attracts holidaymakers, but also the attention of the international scientific community, which has based one of its most important astrophysics observatories of the Northern Hemisphere here because of its unique climatic pattern, clean air, and clear sky.

Among its many attractions is the “silbo gomero” of La Gomera Island, the whistling language communicating though ravines; a most touching and enchanting remnants of human culture found nowhere else. Next to the island of El Hierro, a newborn volcano has risen from beneath the waves, populated by an ancient species of lizards, closely related to dinosaurs. The UNESCO World Heritage listed volcano mountain of El Teide on the island of Tenerife is Spain’s highest peak, commanding a spectacular view over the Canary Islands.

Tenerife, and its sister islands, is more than just a winter escape; it is a perfect year round cruise destination.

Hong Kong is Asia's world city

Kai Tai Cruise Terminal - Double Berthing photo 1 1000px

By John Roberts

Hong Kong is Asia's world city. It's also on pace to become the city that serves as the most important cruise hub in growing the industry. That's what a report from the Hong Kong Tourism Board anticipates.

Results from two studies on the Asian cruise market were revealed at a luncheon event March 16 at Cruise Shipping Miami. Anthony Lau, executive director of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, summarized the findings from the "Asia Cruise Potential and Passenger Behaviour Study" and the "Asia Cruise Port Development Study."

The passenger behavior study looks at the potential market for cruisers in Greater China, which is the largest source of cruisers in Asia and eight-largest in the world. Greater China is home to a potential 83 million cruise passengers throughout seven source markets (large regions of China) that the study covered.

Hong Kong Kai Tai Cruise Terminal 1000px

This means that the total of those people who fit the demographic of likely cruisers in the Greater China market is already nearly four times the number of cruise passengers worldwide (22 million in 2014). The study also shows that the makeup of the typical cruiser from China is likely to be younger and more family oriented than those from traditional source markets like Europe and the United States. About 69 percent of respondents who were members of families with children younger than 16 said they planned to cruise. Also, about 51 percent of respondents between 20 and 29 said they want to cruise.

"Chinese see a cruise trip as a high-quality, hassle-free way to enjoy time with family," Lau said.

He also pointed out that that the average Chinese cruiser considers Wi-Fi connectivity important, strives to try new foods and finds a six- or seven-day sailing the ideal length.

Over the next 10-plus years, "Asia is expected to be a key growth driver in cruising," Lau said.

A Cruise Line International Association study released March 17 on Asia cruise trends backs this up. Cruise lines had nearly 1.4 million Asian passengers onboard in 2014, representing a 34 percent jump since 2012, the CLIA report shows.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board's port development study focuses on the work being done on ports in Hong Kong and neighboring areas. With Hong Kong as the home-port destination, the study outlines 21 ports within six to seven cruise days that have in place plans to upgrade existing cruise infrastructure – like berths and port facilities – as and expand tourism offerings for visitors once they come ashore. The study identifies Sanya, Xiamen, Zhoushan, Qingdao and Yantai in China and Keelung, Hualien, Kaohsiung, Anping, Taiching, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu in Taiwan. It also includes Miyakojima and Takamatsu in Japan; Mokpo and Yeosu in South Korea; Hon La, Vietnam; and Manila, Boracay and Puerto Princesa in the Philippines.

Half of these ports will be able to serve ships of at least 100,000 gross tons within five years, the study says.

"Hong Kong, being Asia's cruise hub at the heart of Asia, is the perfect location to tap into the growing cruise potential in the region," Lau said. The first-of-their kind studies were conducted by the School of Hotel and Tourism Management of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.