Good Morning everyone.
A few days ago a blogger had requested more information about how the six North American companies interact between each other and what programs, if any, were in place to allow guests rewards for sailing on each of our families cruise lines. Well, I decided to ask a wonderful chap who I knew could tell us about our six sisters and how under a very special and deserved title, we are………….one family.
Here therefore is an interview with Mr. Jack Andersen, executive director for the World’s Leading Cruise Lines, the marketing association for Carnival Corporation & plc’s six North American brands.
1. Sir, you have been involved in this great industry for some time I understand. Please can you tell us about your distinguished career?
I began as a tour guide in Alaska and the Canadian Rockies for a company called Westours while in college. Afterwards, I was fortunate to join the company full-time as a reservations agent. Later Westours merged with Holland America Line in Seattle.
Progressively I advanced through various positions and responsibilities including group sales, inventory management, operations, sales, public relations, and marketing. In 1999, my wife and I relocated to Miami and I began my role as Executive Director – World’s Leading Cruise Lines for the parent organization, Carnival Corporation & plc. It has been an extraordinary and rewarding journey with a continually growing and evolving organization.
2. For those readers who have not heard of WLCL please can you tell us what it is all about and what your position within the organization entails?
World’s Leading Cruise Lines is the marketing association and signature for our six North American cruise lines: Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, Cunard Line, Costa Cruises, and The Yachts of Seabourn. My role now is to consult and assist our cruise lines with their sales and marketing programs including our VIP – Vacation Interchange Privileges initiative.
3. Now, each line has its own loyalty program and I am asked many times on my blog about inter line loyalty and rewards. Please can you tell us what loyalty programs are in place at this current time?
John, you are correct. Each cruise line has their own unique guest loyalty program; and they are all quite different. Our World’s Leading Cruise Lines’ VIP program is the only loyalty initiative in the cruise industry that recognizes and rewards our guests – across our six North American brands. Each of our lines has committed to offer certain of their own past guest benefits to our valued customers that have sailed on any of our other cruise lines.
4. How would you like to see this reward program grow in the future?
I hope the VIP program will continuously evolve to provide additional recognition and benefits to our guests. Next, I would like to see a special recognition for guests that have sailed on all six cruise lines.
5. If a guest would like to know more about these rewards and advantages what should they do.
Certainly, they should visit www.worldsleadingcruiselines.com to get an overview of our distinguished cruise lines if they are not already familiar with each brand, and also to learn more about our VIP program. Because our cruise lines’ past guests offers do change frequently, I would recommend that guests ask their travel agent or the cruise line of interest for their next cruise vacation if there is a currently applicable VIP offer when considering and making their reservations.
6. Each line within the family as we have said has their own identities. Is there though in your mind a common denominator that makes each line the best at what they do.
From the unpretentious fun of Carnival, to the ultra-luxury of the Yachts of Seabourn, I believe what each of lines shares is a passion to please each guest.
7. Finally, as we are taking about the words “best” and “leading” can you fill in the blanks for your leading and best…………THREE OF EACH PLEASE
John, one of the things that makes life so interesting and exciting is peoples’ individual preferences and tastes. That is why World’s Leading Cruise Lines is truly unique and extraordinary with six very distinct lines offering different styles and ambiances for our guests. Having said that, my personal choices are:
WORLDS LEADING CARS: Maserati, Jaguar, Mercedes
WORLDS LEADING MOVIE ACTORS Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman
WORLDS LEADING TV SHOWS: House, 24, 2 and 1/2 Men
WORLDS LEADING NEWSPAPERS Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times
WORLDS LEADING POLITICIANS: stumped me
WORLDS LEADING SINGERS: Al Jarreau, Nat King Cole, Andrea Bocelli
John – thank you for your interest, and all you do for Carnival and our guests.
Thank you so very much Mr. Andersen and I too hope that one day a reward program can be in place for guests who sail with each of the sisters. Are we a family………yes we are ……….do we do enough to help promote and help each other………I don’t know to be honest but I hope that we do and if this blog can help in anyway………..well I will be very happy to oblige…………after all we don’t want you vacationing anywhere else……….except on one of the World’s Leading Cruise Lines…..six sisters and one very proud family.
Goodnight
Your friends
John and Heidi
Filed under: Catherine Zeta Jones, Tales from the Ship | Tagged: Splendor Godmother, Tales from the Ship
John I think it’s realy six sisters and their BIG brother JOHN. You have made Carnival the place to be. The cruise to be on. You have made “THE FUN SHIPS” just that, the fun ships.
You haven’t given us a slap count lately.
Heidi be nice to John he has tried every thing to get the wine off the couch. Hope you got some nice pictures of your trip home for us. Welcome home and looking for a SMALL blog from you. Nothing to take time away from your vacation just a small one.
“BIG” ED
See you both in 61 days
Hi John,
Excellent interview with Mr. Anderson.
Thank you for taking the time to get his take on the various reward programs.
I didn’t realize he had been involved in the industry so long.
Thanks again,
David
Good afternoon John,
If I’m correct Heidi should be coming home or be home about now. Certainly hope so for you
Interesting interview. I love the loyalty program and it would be nice to be recognized over all the Carnival brands. Jack and I have 11 cruises, 9 Carnival, 1 Princess and 1 “Other” :0 I think, because of the different demographics involved with each individual brand, it would be a nightmare. Good luck!
By the way you are right the Heat is having a rough time of it. I am really surprised and I do hope they turn their season around. Pistons are doing pretty well so far. Had a rocky road trip but I kind of expected that. Go Pistons, Go Heat. I would love to see a match up in the conference with them.
Did you by chance get the package from me? I hope so.
Take care and see you soon.
Joan
John,
The interview with Mr. Jackson is very nice, but I would be interested to know which of the sister ships gets the most repeat passengers. Also, Mr. Jackson needs to know that you are, by far, THE BEST CRUISE DIRECTOR ON ANY OF THE SHIPS IN THE FLEET OF SISTERS!!! I would be willing to make a guess that it is either Carnival or Princess that has the most repeaters.
Heidi,
WELCOME HOME!! Looking forward to hearing about your visit with you mum. Did you get a new hat yet for the big shindig with the Royal Family?
When is the big event anyway?
Sheryl
A a former marketing team member for an fortuen 50 company, I always find interviews with other marketing folks as fascinating, especially those in other industries.
Thanks for sharing this interview with us, John.
Hope things are well with you and your sweet wife. See you in about 61 days!
)
P.S. I opened a tin of spotted dick for breakfast this morning. YUM!
Thanks John for that interview with Mr. Andersen from World’s Leading Cruise Lines. My husband and I are planning on a cruise in 2008 with Princess for our 40th anniversary, because they have a round trip cruise to Hawaii. I have always enjoyed Carnival, and plan on cruising with them many more times but they do not have a round trip cruises at this time. Why?
Anyway maybe I can get credit for being a 6 time past cruiser. I have loved reading your blog since it’s conception. You always keep us well entertained and informed what not to do while cruising. Best wishes and prayers to Alan.
John,
Thank you so much for the interview with Mr. Jack Andersen. You truly do listen and take action when the ‘blogger faithful’ ask a question. How refreshing to have such a good man as you creating this blog.
I have only sailed on CCL, but I’m anxious to try one of the sisters in the future. I don’t think the pampering and fun can be improved over CCL, but it sounds like each has their own ways and traditions.
I have been home sick and was reading through your past postings. I’ll be on the Ecstasy in Feb and wonder if Goose is still the CD. Your interview with him tells me it will be a great cruise! I appreciated his tips for excursions, too! Of course, shopping is a great excursion, too… The whole crew sounds like a huge heart! Their charity and giving of themselves is such a great example for all of us to read! Both, their giving to the orphanage and the children and their sharing of themselves with us, the passengers!
Welcome home Heidi!! I hope John has everything around home in order!!
Best Regards,
Kirsten
Won’t take up too much of your time today John. I know you have time to make up for with Heidi. Great interview, John and welcome home Heidi!
Don’t have Norman’s number… will Bev have it? Setting sail on QV 6th Jan… excited and scared!!! How long are you in Essex for? I’m meeting up with John and Davena on Friday for a meal at Tomassis (yeah… scrummy ice-creams)… I’ll pass on your best wishes.
Great interview with Mr. Anderson. Always interested in the various perspectives of people involved in the cruise business.
Thanks
John:
Hope Heidi is back home by now and not to upset over the wine that attacked the couch. It is so hard to find well behaved wine these days.
Your interview was very interesting. For the past year, I have been on a campaign for Carnival to add a Black (Elite) card to those cruisers with 25 or more Carnival cruises. One of the benefits we have asked for is reciprocating “perks” with our sister cruise lines like “some of the smaller cruise corporations” do. We felt this would benefit both Carnival cruise line and Carnival Corp.
Carnival Cruise Line would benefit because people would sail with them to achieve this level. Carnival Corporation would benefit, because long time Carnival cruisers would give their more expensive sister cruise lines a try.
We hope Mr. Andersen will give this some consideration.
I have also solved the “chair hog” problem. All Carnival needs is a beach towel that is blue on one side and “I am not a chair hog…I will be back in 15 minutes”… on the other. When someone needs to leave their chair unattended for a few minutes, they simply display the “I am not a chair hog” side!!
Thanks for allowing us to “pitch” our ideas to make our next cruise an even better one!
I just returned from the Freedom debut sailing from Miami. One of the cabin tv channels ran a continuous commercial for the six sisters. It showed each cruise line separately and described what cruising on each line was like. I thought this was a great idea. It gave Carnival passengers an overview of what other cruise experiences are available to them.
John,
Just need some clarifying. Is the rewards program on CCL just for CCL or for all of the
WLCL? If not, are there certain benefits for those who have solely sailed on CCL and not any of the other WLCL? Just curious, maybe looking to do some spring break cruises in the next few years to blow off some steam from classes.
I’m with BIG ED lets get a hit count.
That’s all I have to say for now.
Have a good one,
BigMike
People!
Just came back from Old San Juan seeing the Freedom for the first time in PR If you want to know what happened and some pictures go to my blog.
http://nanetteali.wordpress.com/
It rain…… a lot! John’s fault LOL
Love you John….
Hi John and Welcome Home Heidi!
We enjoyed the blog today, it’s quite interesting. I went to the WLCL website and that was very interesting as well.
Heidi, we hope you had a nice time with your Mum and the rest of your family. And we hope John cleaned things up a little before you got home.
61 days and counting!
Barb & Carl
Hi John and Hedi,
I hope you both have a wonderful time catching up with each other….Hedi, try not to put John in the dog house to much. I hope you got a new coat and the perfect hat.
Very interesting interview with Mr. Anderson. I never knew Carnival was one of six cruise lines.
Susan B
Hi John & Heidi,
Today is my 39th birthday (well, a few more than that really LOL) and I was so glad to see a blog posted today. Heidi, I hope you had a wonderful time with your mom. I spent Saturday with my mom who treated me to lunch as I had to work today. I received lots of phone calls from friends and family today, and birthday cards via email and snail mail. I had a wonderful day and reading your blog always makes my day.
John,
Once again great interview, And Welcome home Heidi!!!!
I think Carnival does a great job with VIP, the only place the fall short is if your say a elite on princess and take a cruise on carnival you start at the bottom. That needs to change I’m sure you would see much more line interchanges between cruisers if I could sail any of the 6 lines as a platinum because i took 3 here and 2 there and so on. But yes they do honor your past guest discounts.
Kevin
WELCOME HOME HEIDI!!!! I bet John is so happy to have you home.
Thanks for the great interview.
Jennifer and Danny
Good morning John, and welcome back Heidi,
I hope all is well with your mum and you enjoyed your time together.
John, thanks for the interview with Mr. Andersen – it answers some questions.
And I second the motion about the “I am not a chair hog” beach towel – great idea.
It looks like I’m being outnumbered for when to have the second bloggers’ cruise, so whatever is decided is fine.
I’m looking forward to your interview about the Imagination’s new look. Any special message you want me to give to George?
I’ll look later to see if you’ve posted again, so for now, Adios (and Slinky says Mew – she doesn’t talk much. The other monster, Tribble, does talk all the time, so his greeting is MEOW, MEOW, MEOW, etc.)
Hugs,
Carol
Hi John,
I took a look at the WLCL website and liked being able to check out the top cruise lines. After watching all the videos, I’m pretty sure that we picked the best cruise line for us. We are not the “elite” people and like to be relaxed on our vacations. I have a feeling that Carnival is going to give us that! A couple of the other cruise lines seemed too “rich” for our taste. I think we would really feel out of place on those ships. We are already talking about doing an Alaska cruise. But, have to wait until our daughter’s wedding is done. That is going to take our fun money first. HA!!
Hi John,
A comment for your guest of the day. I recognize the benefits of “past guest” pricing for the cruise lines within WLCL, however they might want to consider offering their “platinum” guests with one cruise line (i.e. Carnival) the same perks with another line such as Princess. I will be a platinum member as of my January cruise and because of the benefits offered through it, I won’t cruise another line and have to start all over. Hopefully, this makes sense. Once again welcome back!!
Hi John,
Great interview as usual!
Welcome home Heidi! Hope to have a blog from you soon.
Enjoy your quiet time together!
elaine
Hi John and welcome home Heidi!
Great interview as usual, John.
Heidi, John tried SO very hard to remove the stain from the sofa. I am SURE there were lots of “Bugger Me’s” and such uttered during the mishap. Just look at it this way, it’s a prime opportunity to buy a chic new sofa, on John’s credit card, of course!
Looking forward to seeing you both soon. Like “Big Ed” said, small blogs. Enjoy your time at home and just TURN OFF your
Raspberry/Blueberry/Strawberry thingy and spend some quality time together!
Greetings John – -
My wife, Carol, and I have recently booked the October 5, 2008 sailing of Carnival Splendor and were wondering if you plan to be the CD on that cruise. If such is your plan, it would be a “GIANT PLUS” for us. In any event we hope to shake your hand on the Bloggers’ Cruise in January. There will be eight of us “Carsons” on that sailing. It is OK for us to book two CCL cruises next year, right? We so enjoy the “Carnival experience” but don’t want to piggish about it.
TO Linda (Mom of DJ)
Then what do you do after 15 minutes? That’s what they do now just put a towel or something on a chair and don’t come back till the suns up. Your still going to need somebody with a stop-watch.
“BIG” ED
Hi John & Heidi,
Well, since we haven’t had a new blog in a while…..I guess John & Heidi are getting reacquainted – GOOD FOR YOU. Enjoy.
So since the powers that be in my office have granted us permission to leave early today, I just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. (and work off all that food by shopping???).
John, I saw the pictures of the lit-up Regent Street this morning – very nice.
Catch up with you on Monday.
Happy Thanksgiving Roberto.
Regards,
Carol