Carnival makes moves that could change two key aspects of the cruise experience
Carnival Cruise Line has announced the end of its Fun Times printed daily planner across the fleet, while also creating separate non-smoking casino areas on at least three of its ships. Carnival’s end to the print version of the Fun Times is an environmentally friendly move to save paper, while the non-smoking areas in the casinos are based on passenger feedback.
According to John Heald, the cruise line’s Ambassador, the Fun Times will no longer be delivered to passengers’ cabins due to the amount of paper waste. The daily planner will still be created each evening, but guests will only be able to access it using the Carnival HUB App.
A slimmed-back one-sheet version of the Fun Times will be made for print, which will be available at Guest Relations.
This single sheet will be just the times of activities, times when venues open and close, and the port of call times. “This is a chance for us to save on paper waste, which happened on every ship, every day when cabin stewards would find the Fun Times discarded, on the floor or in the bin,” said Heald. While better for the environment, paging through the daily planner to see what events and activities are available around the ship the following day is a key part of the overall cruise experience for many passengers.In a move that is likely to be universally welcomed, Carnival Cruise Line appears to be introducing non-smoking areas in its casinos.
The non-smoking casinos exist as entirely separate venues aboard Carnival Breeze, Carnival Dream, and Carnival Magic. The casino across much of the mainstream cruise fleet remains the last bastion of the smoking crowd. However, because many passengers don’t like the smell of smoke, and because many casino patrons are non-smokers, Carnival has created separate casinos for them. The changes to Breeze, Dream and Magic are reportedly the beginning of a fleetwide casino revamp.
On the three ships where the change has been made so far, the non-smoking casino is located inside the former convention room on deck four. There’s no bar, but drinks service is available. These changes to the printed daily planner and casinos have only been made by Carnival Cruise Line for now, but Carnival is the flagship cruise line of Carnival Corporation, which controls around 45% of the global cruise market.
What Carnival Cruise Line does is therefore indicative is broad trends that might be adopted by other major cruise lines, especially those also owned by Carnival Corporation, such as Costa, Princess, P& O, Holland America Line, AIDA, Cunard Line and Seabourn.
