Cruise Companies Come Up with New Ways to Battle Fuel Prices

The effects of record-high fuel costs are trickling down from cruise lines to their ports and passengers, and those costs continue to surge.

Cruise lines say they are taking pains to ensure that the passenger experience is not affected by slight changes in itineraries, embarkation and arrival times and slower cruising speeds, all meant to take the edge off fuel costs.

In addition to freshening a 5-year-old itinerary, Carnival Cruise Lines said part of the reason it eliminated Aruba from the Carnival Destiny´s 2007 route was to save on fuel.

Carnival said that the forward curve for fuel for the remainder of the year is approximately $372 per metric ton.

At Celebrity Cruises, President Dan Hanrahan said the company was looking at everything that affected fuel consumption, but the line would rather rearrange stops on its routes than eliminate or substitute them.

Other cruise lines are slowing their roll. Michael Sheehan, a Royal Caribbean Cruises spokesman, said Royal Caribbean International was making “slight alterations in arrival or departure times ... and is altering the speed of ships while at sea to gain the greatest fuel efficiency.”

Earlier departure times mean the ship can cruise more slowly and burn less fuel. Sheehan said there were other ways the line was saving fuel, including using fewer lights or different types of bulbs (LEDs rather than halogens) and turning off air-conditioning in unoccupied areas of the ship.

Cruise lines such as EasyCruise and Oceania are less susceptible to fuel cost increases because they don´t spend as much time cruising as other lines do.