Carnival has announced that in 2014 they are canceling Europe trips citing expensive flights.
"We anticipate that airfares to Europe will remain high, and we believe our North American passengers will continue to prefer more affordable vacation options closer to home as we move into next year," Carnival said in a statement sent to USA Today. "Therefore we have decided to keep ships in North America during this period rather than place capacity in Europe in 2014."
USA Today reported that the majority of Carnival customers are from North America and airfares to Europe could reach an excess of $1,000 this summer to reach the ship's lines in Europe.
"Carnival has two of its 24 ships in Europe this summer. The 2,124-passenger Carnival Legend is sailing from Dover, England and Barcelona, Spain through September, while the 3,006-passenger Carnival Sunshine is sailing out of Barcelona and Venice, Italy through October," reported USA Today.
The high summer airfares to Europe has made it difficult to fill the ships, causing the cruise line to offer discounts to fill them. "Some Carnival cruises in Europe this summer are selling for as little as $539 per person for nine nights, or about $60 a night," reported USA Today.
Carnival has had a number of issues since The Carnival Triumph disaster which left passengers stranded in unsanitary conditions for days. There was also a number of explosions in April At least that occured on the Mobile River in Alabama which forced people on a Carnival Cruise Lines ship nearby to be evacuated. The New York Times reported that two fuel barges on the Mobile River have caught on fire due to the explosions on the barges. The Carnival ship was undergoing repairs nearby.
" At least one of the barges was being cleaned at the time while docked near Mobile, Ala., and the injuries occurred to members of the cleaning crew, said Lt. Mike Clausen of the United States Coast Guard," reported The New York Times.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
