Cruise Liners Long for Glory Days as Lame, Non-Experience for Old People

Written by Carnie Val Monday, 13 February 2012

Rocked by the negative press of a cruise ship that wrecked off the coast of Italy and other recent "unpleasantries," the Cruise Line Association of the Pacific (The CLAP) launched a massive PR campaign to persuade potential passengers that sailing on a cruise ship is neither dangerous nor life-altering in any way.Hoping to stem a dropoff in passenger numbers due to recent cruise ship "mishaps" (left), the industry is fighting back with a PR campaign focused on reminding potential passengers that a cruise ship vacation is just as safe and bland as they expect it to be (right).

"Sailing on a beautiful, over-engineered cruise ship is just as safe and bland as a walk through a shopping mall," noted Carrie Beann, spokesperson for The CLAP. "You have a much higher chance of being killed driving to your local, corporate coffee shop. You also would have a better chance of seeing something authentic about the area you are visiting. As long as the captain isn't a drunken weasel of a man, cruise vacations are still the best way to gorge yourself on prime rib and tiramisu buffets in between brief stops at tourist traps from Anchorage to New Zealand."

The CLAP's new ad campaign features several commercials highlighting the safe, slumbering pastimes once synonymous with cruise-line travel, including images of seniors mildly exercising in games of shuffleboard and waterobics. The 90-second spots, which started to air during Super Bowl weekend, also highlight the industry's famed and generic tiny cabins, fruity drinks with umbrellas that get in the way and two-hour "booze cruise" excursions to non-representative island destinations that paid "good money" to get the cruise to visit their mediocre bars and restaurants.

"We're moving away from the recent marketing toward adventure-seekers, whose youth and craving for real experiences was conflicting with the industry's proud heritage of taking passengers near the real world, without actually experiencing any of the hassles and grittiness that show the unpleasant side of peoples' lives who can't afford to ride on cruise ships," added Beann. "We're going back to appealing to a crowd looking for warm weather, watered-down cocktails and a t-shirt saying they were sort of someplace exotic-sounding. And that's what you'll find on cruise ships. They're safe. They float. And you don't have to interact with any poor people if you don't want to."