| CLIA Cruise News & Views – 30 June 16

As Good as New:
Newbuilds get all the publicity, they
are featured in the latest brand’s
marketing campaigns, and are
now numerous enough to have
changed the industry’s business
model, with innovative features
accommodating and entertaining
new cruisers that occupy all those
additional cabins.
Yet where does that leave older
vessels in a brand’s fleet?
Refurbishment projects are bigger
than ever – it’s not just the carpet
and drape alteration we once
imagined. Ships from the 90’s are
ripe for conversion work that will
not only boost capacity on average
5-6%, but more importantly, meet
the expectations of today’s cruisers
with new innovative features
including digital connectivity.
Dig deeper and you will realize
that more restaurants means
more galleys and everything that
goes with them – new ventilation,
additional fire doors, enhanced
fire safety systems, more
automation, new escape routes
– all of which require significant
structural work, along with the
ship’s overall electrical systems,
technical specifications, and SOLAS
compliance verifications. Even
ducktail structures are added to
a ship’s stern, a necessity when
renovations add weight as well as
height to the ship, which has less
to do with an effect on a vessel’s
speed-to-power performance but
rather it typically means better
stability than when it was new.
You can’t judge a ship by its built
date anymore!

CONTRIBUTOR: Peter Kollar, CLIA Australasia