Cartagena, Spain

CARTAGENA, SPAIN, 16 April 11

Well, another lovely day in another lovely port.  Cartagena is on the south coast of Spain, Mediterranean side.  Old is the word here, dating back to the Carthaginians conquest.  But the real joy for me here was the fact that Holland America’s newest build, Nieuw Amsterdam would be sharing the dock with us.  All Amsterdam passengers were allowed to tour the Nieuw Amsterdam in the morning.  An incredibly beautiful ship with all the new ship bells and whistles.  While many of our fellow guests considered her “too big”, it’s obvious that nobody in the mass market cruise lines will be building any 65,000 ton ships like the Amsterdam anytime in the future.  Holland’s fleet is aging, the Prinsendam being the oldest but in a special category.  The Statendam class ships debuted in 1993, making them close to twenty years old.  Holland’s core market is the senior citizen and they don’t like the ships any larger than what they are now accustomed to.  I’m not sure how this is going to play out over the next ten years but Holland has some serious thinking to do regarding their core customers.

Great pleasure was mine when while onboard the Nieuw Amsterdam I ran into an old friend, Mike Feeney.  He was the Royal Caribbean sales rep back in 1989 when I was with Admiral Cruise Center.  After several cruise line changes he became my district sales manager for Holland until he made an extreme career decision and became an onboard future booking consultant.  This means he and his wife live on Holland ships 8 months a year.  They’ve leased their home in New Hampshire and for all intents and purposes are world vagabonds.  He looks hale and fit and seems to be enjoying his new life style.  

Cartagena itself is a tourist’s dream.  Traffic-free streets, plenty of shopping, sidewalk cafes and street performers.  The streets are paved in marble, the buildings look like a set for some movie about the crusades and prices are affordable.  We went off the beaten track a little bit, as we are wont to do, and found a small grocery store where we purchased a 2 litre bottle of Cola light without caffeine for .40 Euro.  A 750 ml bottle of red table wine, not too bad either, was 1 Euro.  A great day in a very enjoyable port.

Joe Wagg