Profits Are Sinking For Cruise Lines

      What the heck!?  Seriously, what the heck is wrong with the cruise lines?  They have ships that are breaking down at sea, backing up their plumbing, and bursting into flames.  We've seen their captains breaking down at sea too, and when they saw what they had done, their plumbing backed up too, and were probably ready to burst into flames (or tears, or both). 
      Within a very short time there have been either three or four cruise ships that had their engines quit running out in the middle of the ocean.  Maybe they should have paid closer attention to their "Check Engine" light.  

      Two of the cruise ships that broke down had small fires in the process of their breakdowns.  And there was a cruise ship in Norway caught on fire in a fjord, killing two people.  Another cruise ship just caught fire on a trip through the Bahamas yesterday.  Nobody was hurt, and they were all returned to Baltimore.  Passengers were refunded, and given free air flights home.  

  The Ship that ran aground, tipped over, then sank (it sounds like a Monty Python Skit)

                                           The Burning Ship in Norway

                                       The Ship that Burned Yesterday  

                                             Some Other Burning  Ship

      Most of the cruise ship mishaps have been with ships belonging to the Carnival Line.  Yesterday's fire though, was a ship belonging to Royal Caribbean.  I was pondering this today, and couldn't help but consider that these companies are having just about as much good fortune with their ships as the White Star Line, and the Cunard Line.  
      The Cunard line was the line withe all the huge ocean liners around 1911 - 1920.  They all had names that ended in "-ic", and most of them sunk with great loss of life.  They had the Titanic, the Britannic, the Oceanic, and so forth.  
      The White Star Line began as a rival to Cunard, and their disasters rivaled the Cunard Line too.  Their huge ocean liners had names ending in "-tania," such as the Aquitania, Mauritania, and the Lusitania.  

      Some people would say these cruise line companies, especially Carnival are having a real string of bad luck.  The people who believe in karma would insist that they must have done something bad - real, real bad - either here and now, or as they suggest, in a past life.  

      As I wanted to look up a few things about the Cunard Line, and the White Star Line if I was going to make crass comparisons between them and the Carnival line, I was mildly surprised by my findings.  I was also amused in a very ironic sort of way.  Back in the latter 1800's the Cunard line was the big company, but then along came their huge competition, the White Star Line.  It was at this point that their board of executives made a series of bad decisions, either that or they held a seance to summon the dark one.  It was at this time that to some they appeared cursed.  The designs they chose for their ships were about 93% flawless, but it's that 7% of flaw that will kill you.  One by one their not quite exactly flawless ships sunk to the bottom of the sea.  
      Since that didn't work they chose "Option Two" next.  "Option Two" was simply to buy the White Star Line, and create a merged company called the Cunard White Star Line.  During this reign of terror is when they created the whole ill fated "-tania" line of ships.  After all the "-tania" disasters, they did okay for several decades, until the 1950's.  That was when the Andrea Doria tipped over and sank right in the harbor.  
      Then came "Option Three," which I call the ironic option.  This is when the Cunard White Star Line along with all their apparent curses changed their name to....... wait for it....... Carnival.  Yep.  And it seems that their curses are still with them today.