RCCL / P&O Princess Merger?

[Brian]

What are your thoughts?

Brian

[Brian]

What are your thoughts?

Brian

[Oggy Boy]

Brian, this is a hard one. I am running a poll in the general cruise chat area to gain opinions on this issue and so far about half want RCI to win the merger and then other half want P & O to remain independent. There has only been one vote for Carnival.

I think the issue becomes one that will define the cruise industry into the future as if Carnival wins P & O it will not only give them virtually every product category they would need to fully represent all segments of the cruise product but it would also give Carnival almost 50% of the entire berth inventory of those ships marketing in the U.S..

There is no question that this would be a positive for Carnival shareholders...how about the cruising public or travel agents

[Karen Knowlton]

I'm torn on this one. I would prefer Princess (P&O) to remain a separate entity, but it seems inevitable they will be gobbled up by someone. If so I lean slightly toward RCCL, if only because of the competition factor. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[Sheila B Hyman, ctc]

I am a stock holder of both and would love to see Princess remain independent. Do not want them to become part of the Carnival family. I have not had the opportunity to vote on eiter proposal as yet.

[PEB]

I would prefer P&O an Princess to remain as a seperate company but believe it will merge with someone. If they are to merge with someone I would prefer it to be with RCCL compared to Carnival. IMHO Carnival would be to large and have to much control over cruising if they merged with P&O Princess.

[dcd]

Oh my gosh, I would have to vote that if a merger is a must, that Princess will merge with RCC and bring the best of both lines together.

Carnival has such a reputation for sloppiness, party ship, poor food, roudy crowds.

We loved the Grand Princess ship last summer and were happy with the Rhapsody this summer, but wished our group would have traveled on Voyager.
RCC still has the best food, but the kids were disappointed in the fact that the food in the Windjammer was not open 24hrs a day, which was a novelty for our teens last year on Grand Princess.

That's my two cents.

dcd