Holland America Blog
Safety Officer
Holland America Blog Has Just Posted the Following:
We had a real full port today. When we arrived at 09.00 hrs. (Official arrival time was 10.00 hrs.) The Amsterdam was already in docked at the Cruise terminal, the Ruby Princess was at the A.J dock and we had the Golden Princess at anchor and later on the Grand Princess would arrive, scheduled for the Franklin dock. Together with a few smaller (charter) ships it was a real full house today.* Nobody in Juneau can complain that cruising is not good for the local economy with over 10,000 eager explorers milling around. What hit me was the fact all the ships in port today belonged to one company, or better said one group. The HAL group; which was put together about a year ago when Andrew Donald the leader of Carnival Corp. started a complete review and revamp of the whole company.* Brands were re-aligned and a refocus was ordered to ensure that Carnival remained the biggest force in the Cruise Industry.* The secret of Carnival Corp. is to respect the integrity of its brands but that does not mean that you cannot tweak around the operational side: as a steak is a steak and a lifeboat is a lifeboat. How a steak is served is a different story. Leader of the HAL Group is Stein Kruse, who moved up from just looking after Holland America Line and his place was taken by Orlando Ashford, who came in from the outside. So it was found desirable to bring 4 brands together which could thrive on each other’s success while not interfering at the same time.* Hence, Princess, HAL, Seabourn and P&O Australia were put together in the HAL group.* Best experiences are being shared and operational there is integration at office level. We went through such a happening before with the Alaska Overland Tours when the Alaska shore side operations of HAL and Princess merged. These two were the biggest operators and went head to head in competition while both owned by the same company.* That did not make much sense and the operation was aligned into one service […]
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We had a real full port today. When we arrived at 09.00 hrs. (Official arrival time was 10.00 hrs.) The Amsterdam was already in docked at the Cruise terminal, the Ruby Princess was at the A.J dock and we had the Golden Princess at anchor and later on the Grand Princess would arrive, scheduled for the Franklin dock. Together with a few smaller (charter) ships it was a real full house today.* Nobody in Juneau can complain that cruising is not good for the local economy with over 10,000 eager explorers milling around. What hit me was the fact all the ships in port today belonged to one company, or better said one group. The HAL group; which was put together about a year ago when Andrew Donald the leader of Carnival Corp. started a complete review and revamp of the whole company.* Brands were re-aligned and a refocus was ordered to ensure that Carnival remained the biggest force in the Cruise Industry.* The secret of Carnival Corp. is to respect the integrity of its brands but that does not mean that you cannot tweak around the operational side: as a steak is a steak and a lifeboat is a lifeboat. How a steak is served is a different story. Leader of the HAL Group is Stein Kruse, who moved up from just looking after Holland America Line and his place was taken by Orlando Ashford, who came in from the outside. So it was found desirable to bring 4 brands together which could thrive on each other’s success while not interfering at the same time.* Hence, Princess, HAL, Seabourn and P&O Australia were put together in the HAL group.* Best experiences are being shared and operational there is integration at office level. We went through such a happening before with the Alaska Overland Tours when the Alaska shore side operations of HAL and Princess merged. These two were the biggest operators and went head to head in competition while both owned by the same company.* That did not make much sense and the operation was aligned into one service […]
Click here to view the article.
