D Ball wrote:
Thank you, Roland, Lloyd & Marsha L, for providing feedback on your MSC
Opera cruise. It sounds like y'all liked the cruise product, plus had great
big fun with the GGC gang.

I like what I'm hearing and am thinking MSC will be a strong candidate for
us when they start cruising out of NYC.

Diana Ball
near Houston, TX

Hi Diana,

MSC is a good, stong product, and a different product then the main
U.S. lines. They need to market themselves as an Italian Cruis line,
something different then the run of the mill cruise line, and do away
with some of the "Americanized Food" at lunch and dinner. Keep the
"Americanized Breakfast" in the dinning room, and get a few more of the
wait staff to do a little better English.

Some people are going to argue with this statement. I think that most
the mass market cruise lines in the U.S. are pretty much the same
product. They have a few differences, but they all do things the same
way. They attrack the same market share, and go to the same ports.
There is not anybody really doing something different. Years ago, we
sailed on a Ukrainian flagged ship because it was different, and went
to Belize and Honduras. A few years later, the mainstream cruise lines
started calling at Belize and Honduras. Now, MSC is calling at the
Dominican Republic, and has an Italian themed cruise ship, which is
different. Not the run of the mill cruise.

Now, the Polka group out of I think New York likes MSC. They are going
to be using this cruise line for a while.

I think there is a market for non mainsteam cruise lines, if they
market themselves properly.
Some of us are a bit tired of the same old hat!

roland