Refurbished Ships
As you're reading through cruise line websites or brochures, you may see reference made to the term “refurbished.” It's one of the most over-used, yet misunderstood terms in the industry.
Cruise ships, by nature, are surrounded by salt water and salt air just about all the time. If you've ever lived in a beach area, you know what that can do to your car. Ships are also made of steel, and are subject to the same sort of deterioration and weather-blasting your car can take. The interior areas of a ship are under constant wear and tear as well. Carpets, plumbing, air conditioning and every public area on a vessel is in constant use year-round. When you get off a ship the final morning of your cruise, the onboard personnel have just a couple of hours to clean, press, change and shine every inch of that ship before a new set of passengers starts to embark that afternoon!
The cruise lines will take each of their ships, generally once a year, into what's known as a drydock or wetdock situation for a couple of weeks. Drydock means they actually pull the vessel out of the water in a giant hangar-type area, where everything is steam-cleaned, scraped and repainted. Carpeting, bed linens, and any broken or damaged items on board are replaced or repaired. Engines and internal mechanisms are updated, repaired, replaced, and revamped.
Wetdock is the same procedure to a lesser degree, where the ship remains in the water while being serviced. Obviously you can't do as much in a wetdock scenario as a complete drydocking, where the underside and propellers are exposed. Sometimes the cruise line may take an area of the ship, such as an obsolete bar, and turn it into a library or something similar. Maybe a former disco becomes a caviar bar. Times and priorities change.
No cruise lines like to admit when their ships start to age a bit, so they'll let you know the ship was refurbished. It's sort of a trade secret that refurbishment and routine maintenance are one-in-the-same, for all intents and purposes. When you see a ship with 20, 30, 40, even 50 years of service under its belt, you have to ask yourself how much refurbishment can be done? That is not to say that all ships with age are run down or noncompetitive! In fact, some of the most elegant vessels afloat are vintage liners that have been extremely well maintained, almost floating museums. If a classic liner has been maintained with hands-on love and affection, it can be a truly great experience. On the other side of that coin, however, there are lots of older, smaller ships in the world marketplace, many of which were retired from previous usage in another part of the world. Maybe they could no longer maintain their health and safety records in one part of the world, but found a home elsewhere, where laws are not so stringent. Maybe they simply couldn't compete next to the new, glistening mega-ships.
Usually the price of a cruise will tell you if it's a classic or on its last legs. When you see a much older ship that is half the price of anything else in the market, and the best thing they can say about it is that she's been refurbished, you have found a ship that very well may be on its last legs. So do your research, use common sense, and remember that with cruising, the old saying "you get what you pay for" is the greatest truth of all.