Royal Caribbean pricing policy updates?

Has anyone had any experience since August regarding the new pricing
policy. I read the whole thread of messages regarding the issue, but
have not seen any recent messages. I am wondering if anyone has had
any problems booking their cruise under the new policy.

This week, I booked a cruise with my TA. This particular RCI cruise
was not posted or advertised on my traditional favorite sites. While
I was trying to check this particular cruise, I noticed that some of
my bookmarked cruise sites are no longer there. Other cruise sites
posted that this particular cruise was "not available" on their site.
I thought that this was rather strange because I have never
encountered this before. I am aware of the new pricing policy for RCI
but I am not able to get any updated information on this. My own TA
did not have the cruise posted on his site either. I told him that I
had checked on the RCI site and they have it posted but only a few
cabins in my category available. He checked and found that there were
more cabins available than what I was able to see on my screen. We
discussed the new pricing policy and he told me what the TA's could
and couldn't do etc. I didn't think too much about it because it did
not influence my plan one way or another. However, I wanted a
particular cabin. He told me that the cabin was not available. I am
booking this cruise 14 months in advance and he is telling me that the
cruise is almost "Sold Out". I did not quite believe him until I
started putting the pieces together and coming to a conclusion as to
what this pricing policy is doing.

The next morning I called RCI and spoke to a Crown and Anchor
representative.
I told her that I wanted a particular cabin on this cruise and she
checked and found that the cabin was "not available". I asked her if
it had a deposit on it, and she said that she couldn't tell. I asked
her why only 3 cabins were showing as "available" on the RCI site when
I knew in fact that there were many more available. She again didn't
know. She switched me over to another "clerk" who couldn't answer the
question either. I started to research other cruise sites and found
that some of the major sites had many cabins available in my D1
category choice. It did not make sense to me.

I spent a couple of days researching sites and making calls to my TA
and to RCI to get information. I would get pieces of info from both.
Finally, I wanted to wait list the cabin that I wanted. RCI told me
to contact my TA.
I called my TA and he told me that he couldn't do it that "All balcony
cabins were closed to booking". I called RCI back and asked them again
to wait list my cabin. She told me that my TA would have to do it. I
told her that my TA "Couldn't do it!" She brought up the screen and
said that all bookings were closed on the cruise. This happened in a
matter of 10 minutes or so that all the cabins were closed to booking.
In the time that it took for me to call my TA after I hung up with
RCI, they closed all bookings. It is now the next day and bookings
are still closed. The only cabins available are inside cabins and
outside cabins. No balcony's, suites, jr. suits, royal suite, owner
suite -- nothing!

Here are my conclusions as to what might be happening due to all the
price fixing. Please give me some feedback if my thoughts are wrong.

1) TA's are not going to advertise the cheaper cruises
because it is not worth their while.
2) Royal Caribbean is not equipped to handle all the
bookings themselves.
3) The mega travel agencies are buying up all the available
cabins in advance of public notice of the cruise. From what I
understand, each agency is allowed a block of 50 cabins. If an agency
has many branches, I am assuming each branch could also buy blocks or
50 cabins each, and all the cabins would go to one major agency. Each
cabin requires a $25.00 deposit on it to block it, so a 50 cabin block
would require a cost a travel agancy $1,250 per block for a deposit.
There are about 500 veranda cabins (10 blocks). If each passenger
pays an average of $1,000 for fare and there are 2 passengers per
cabin, then that grosses $1,000,000 for those 500 cabins. According
to all your postings and what I glean from that, a TA gets 10-16%
commision. Plus the cruise line can reward the agency further for
their effort. So, a major travel agency can make a minimum of
$160,000 + extra fringes from the cruise line for l cruise.
4) The passenger must deposit $900 on these "special
cruises". 14 months in advance so it would take 14 deposits to pay
for the original $25.00 cabin deposit that a travel agent had to pay.

10 blocks @ $1250 per block = $12500 to block all veranda
cabins.
14 deposits = $12,600 to recover the original investment.
5) All bookings have to be done through this mega TA because
they own all the cabins.
6) All cabins have to be sold at a fixed price.
7) The cruise is a guaranteed sellout because the price is
advertised by the cruise line cheap.
8) The cruise line doesn't have to be bothered by bookings.
They offer a few cabins to cover themselves.
9) The cruise line benefits because they don't have to deal
with many TA's, they only have to deal with 1 or 2 "Big Ones". No
hassles with a lot of questions, brochure mailings, etc. The cruise
line is guaranteed their money and the TA is guaranteed a specific
amount of commission + bonus. It looks to me like the RCI is
sub-contracting the major travel agencies without the actual contract.

The advantages are all to the cruise line and major travel agency(s).
There is no incentive, benefit, or bonus to the passenger or the
smaller travel agancy.
The cruise line can stay very competitive in pricing because they have
cut their administrative costs drastically. If cruise bookings are
down, they can throw a bone to the public by offering a "can't say no"
cruise price and immediately pick up revenues, and they don't have to
project revenues - they will know what the revenue is going to be far
in advance. The free insurance or free land tour that the cruise line
is allowing the travel agencies to offer for incentives to their
passengers, costs the cruise line "0"

My personal forcast for our future cruising is that it is coming to an
end. I like to cruise, but you can only go to a few of the same
islands over and over.
The itenary doesn't vary that much for a 7 day cruise and I've had my
fill over the years, cruising in circles and visiting impoverished
islands. It gets a little repetitious. Our next two cruises are
booked with RCI but after that I think we will be doing other types of
vacations. With the high taxes, port charges, air flight, travel
insurance, $5.00 drinks, $20 a head restaurant fees, $4.00 ice cream
cones, $200 tip for cabin steward & waiters, Additional 15% of
beverages, wine corkage fee, $50 shore excursions, baggage handlers
tips at the airport, cruise dock, and taxi service. Transportation
fees from airport to cruise terminal + tips, shore excursion tips, and
the list goes on, the cruise "value" is diminishing rapidly. Now with
fixed pricing on RCI cruises, there won't even be a temptation to look
at or inquire about them because there will be no offers - just prices
- and by the looks of next years prices they are HIGH. I can do much
better at an all inclusive resort.

I may be far off the beam in my theory of what is happening with RCI,
but I do believe that it is very possible that they are trying to
eliminate all of the clutter and costs by dealing with a few major
booking/travel agencies that they can control by making and breaking
the rules at their discretion, no contracts, volume commissions, and
controlled profit. It's a pretty good deal for RCI.

There are a lot more details of the conversations with RCI and my
travel agent
that led me to this conclusion, but it got really involved and I
cannot remember the sequence of events accurately enough to describe
it. This would never have even happened if I had not insisted on
being wait listed for a particular cabin. I would have ordinarily
just taken a D1 category cabin somewhere midship and never thought
another thing about it. I am booked for a cabin but I never dreamed
that I could have stirred up a hornets nest by trying to wait list a
cabin. If anyone has had any experience with this new system in the
past few months, I would love to read about it.
Thanks so much,
Jan
Jan

A 2 Oct 2004 02:19:54 -0700,
) escribió:
The advantages are all to the cruise line and major travel agency(s).
There is no incentive, benefit, or bonus to the passenger

Except, of course, a wonderful cruise.


--
bicker®
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/D...ry_040602.html

*bicker* wrote in message ...
A 2 Oct 2004 02:19:54 -0700,
) escribió:
The advantages are all to the cruise line and major travel agency(s).
There is no incentive, benefit, or bonus to the passenger

Except, of course, a wonderful cruise.

Yes, I agree, cruising used to be a wonderful experience, RCI was my
favorite cruise line, but things are changing. I would like to know
what kind of experience that I am in for before I go. I am not a
discriminating person, however, I would like to know if there is a
particular "theme" to a cruise before I plunk down my hard earned
vacation $$$. I am not particularly interested in a "jazz" theme
cruise or a "mystery" themed cruise or any other kind of specialty
cruises. I want to KNOW what I am booking for, and I don't want any
surprises when I get there. My husband and I are going to be locked
into a floating hotel for a week or 10 days and we cannot just leave
our accommodations if we don't care for the atmosphere. It would
prove out to be a very uncomfortable situation. We do not cruise on
school vacation weeks during the winter and spring, nor do we do
spring breaks in Florida with the college kids. We do not vacation
during the summer because we chose not to vacation with kids or teens.
We choose our vacations around these times. Everyone has choices and
everyone has the right to make their choices. If I don't like a kid's
theme or atmosphere, I stay away from it rather than try to change it.
For example, we don't do Disney cruises because that is not our idea
of an ideal cruise. For a lot of people it is exactly their idea of a
perfect cruise. I certainly want to know in advance what style of
cruise it is before I make a deposit.

Royal Caribbean seems to be the #1 choice for parties booking theme
cruises.
We choose to be able to select our style of cruise before we board the
ship.
For a good example of what I am saying go to www.atlantistravel.com.
and check out their calendar of cruise events. Thanks and have a
great day!
Happy Cruising!!!
Jan

A 3 Oct 2004 06:44:44 -0700,
) escribió:
I would like to know
what kind of experience that I am in for before I go.

snip

Sounds to me that you're saying that you don't like the fact
that you have to cruise with gay people, now. Did I miss
your point?


--
bicker®
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/D...ry_040602.html

This is an excellent post, Jan; can't wait to see the responses.

MM

================================================== =======================

On 2 Oct 2004 02:19:54 -0700, wrote:

Has anyone had any experience since August regarding the new pricing
policy. I read the whole thread of messages regarding the issue, but
have not seen any recent messages. I am wondering if anyone has had
any problems booking their cruise under the new policy.

This week, I booked a cruise with my TA. This particular RCI cruise
was not posted or advertised on my traditional favorite sites. While
I was trying to check this particular cruise, I noticed that some of
my bookmarked cruise sites are no longer there. Other cruise sites
posted that this particular cruise was "not available" on their site.
I thought that this was rather strange because I have never
encountered this before. I am aware of the new pricing policy for RCI
but I am not able to get any updated information on this. My own TA
did not have the cruise posted on his site either. I told him that I
had checked on the RCI site and they have it posted but only a few
cabins in my category available. He checked and found that there were
more cabins available than what I was able to see on my screen. We
discussed the new pricing policy and he told me what the TA's could
and couldn't do etc. I didn't think too much about it because it did
not influence my plan one way or another. However, I wanted a
particular cabin. He told me that the cabin was not available. I am
booking this cruise 14 months in advance and he is telling me that the
cruise is almost "Sold Out". I did not quite believe him until I
started putting the pieces together and coming to a conclusion as to
what this pricing policy is doing.

The next morning I called RCI and spoke to a Crown and Anchor
representative.
I told her that I wanted a particular cabin on this cruise and she
checked and found that the cabin was "not available". I asked her if
it had a deposit on it, and she said that she couldn't tell. I asked
her why only 3 cabins were showing as "available" on the RCI site when
I knew in fact that there were many more available. She again didn't
know. She switched me over to another "clerk" who couldn't answer the
question either. I started to research other cruise sites and found
that some of the major sites had many cabins available in my D1
category choice. It did not make sense to me.

I spent a couple of days researching sites and making calls to my TA
and to RCI to get information. I would get pieces of info from both.
Finally, I wanted to wait list the cabin that I wanted. RCI told me
to contact my TA.
I called my TA and he told me that he couldn't do it that "All balcony
cabins were closed to booking". I called RCI back and asked them again
to wait list my cabin. She told me that my TA would have to do it. I
told her that my TA "Couldn't do it!" She brought up the screen and
said that all bookings were closed on the cruise. This happened in a
matter of 10 minutes or so that all the cabins were closed to booking.
In the time that it took for me to call my TA after I hung up with
RCI, they closed all bookings. It is now the next day and bookings
are still closed. The only cabins available are inside cabins and
outside cabins. No balcony's, suites, jr. suits, royal suite, owner
suite -- nothing!

Here are my conclusions as to what might be happening due to all the
price fixing. Please give me some feedback if my thoughts are wrong.

1) TA's are not going to advertise the cheaper cruises
because it is not worth their while.
2) Royal Caribbean is not equipped to handle all the
bookings themselves.
3) The mega travel agencies are buying up all the available
cabins in advance of public notice of the cruise. From what I
understand, each agency is allowed a block of 50 cabins. If an agency
has many branches, I am assuming each branch could also buy blocks or
50 cabins each, and all the cabins would go to one major agency. Each
cabin requires a $25.00 deposit on it to block it, so a 50 cabin block
would require a cost a travel agancy $1,250 per block for a deposit.
There are about 500 veranda cabins (10 blocks). If each passenger
pays an average of $1,000 for fare and there are 2 passengers per
cabin, then that grosses $1,000,000 for those 500 cabins. According
to all your postings and what I glean from that, a TA gets 10-16%
commision. Plus the cruise line can reward the agency further for
their effort. So, a major travel agency can make a minimum of
$160,000 + extra fringes from the cruise line for l cruise.
4) The passenger must deposit $900 on these "special
cruises". 14 months in advance so it would take 14 deposits to pay
for the original $25.00 cabin deposit that a travel agent had to pay.

10 blocks @ $1250 per block = $12500 to block all veranda
cabins.
14 deposits = $12,600 to recover the original investment.
5) All bookings have to be done through this mega TA because
they own all the cabins.
6) All cabins have to be sold at a fixed price.
7) The cruise is a guaranteed sellout because the price is
advertised by the cruise line cheap.
8) The cruise line doesn't have to be bothered by bookings.
They offer a few cabins to cover themselves.
9) The cruise line benefits because they don't have to deal
with many TA's, they only have to deal with 1 or 2 "Big Ones". No
hassles with a lot of questions, brochure mailings, etc. The cruise
line is guaranteed their money and the TA is guaranteed a specific
amount of commission + bonus. It looks to me like the RCI is
sub-contracting the major travel agencies without the actual contract.

The advantages are all to the cruise line and major travel agency(s).
There is no incentive, benefit, or bonus to the passenger or the
smaller travel agancy.
The cruise line can stay very competitive in pricing because they have
cut their administrative costs drastically. If cruise bookings are
down, they can throw a bone to the public by offering a "can't say no"
cruise price and immediately pick up revenues, and they don't have to
project revenues - they will know what the revenue is going to be far
in advance. The free insurance or free land tour that the cruise line
is allowing the travel agencies to offer for incentives to their
passengers, costs the cruise line "0"

My personal forcast for our future cruising is that it is coming to an
end. I like to cruise, but you can only go to a few of the same
islands over and over.
The itenary doesn't vary that much for a 7 day cruise and I've had my
fill over the years, cruising in circles and visiting impoverished
islands. It gets a little repetitious. Our next two cruises are
booked with RCI but after that I think we will be doing other types of
vacations. With the high taxes, port charges, air flight, travel
insurance, $5.00 drinks, $20 a head restaurant fees, $4.00 ice cream
cones, $200 tip for cabin steward & waiters, Additional 15% of
beverages, wine corkage fee, $50 shore excursions, baggage handlers
tips at the airport, cruise dock, and taxi service. Transportation
fees from airport to cruise terminal + tips, shore excursion tips, and
the list goes on, the cruise "value" is diminishing rapidly. Now with
fixed pricing on RCI cruises, there won't even be a temptation to look
at or inquire about them because there will be no offers - just prices
- and by the looks of next years prices they are HIGH. I can do much
better at an all inclusive resort.

I may be far off the beam in my theory of what is happening with RCI,
but I do believe that it is very possible that they are trying to
eliminate all of the clutter and costs by dealing with a few major
booking/travel agencies that they can control by making and breaking
the rules at their discretion, no contracts, volume commissions, and
controlled profit. It's a pretty good deal for RCI.

There are a lot more details of the conversations with RCI and my
travel agent
that led me to this conclusion, but it got really involved and I
cannot remember the sequence of events accurately enough to describe
it. This would never have even happened if I had not insisted on
being wait listed for a particular cabin. I would have ordinarily
just taken a D1 category cabin somewhere midship and never thought
another thing about it. I am booked for a cabin but I never dreamed
that I could have stirred up a hornets nest by trying to wait list a
cabin. If anyone has had any experience with this new system in the
past few months, I would love to read about it.
Thanks so much,
Jan
Jan

On Sun, 03 Oct 2004 16:43:16 -0400, *bicker*
wrote:

A 3 Oct 2004 06:44:44 -0700,
) escribió:
I would like to know
what kind of experience that I am in for before I go.

snip

Sounds to me that you're saying that you don't like the fact
that you have to cruise with gay people, now. Did I miss
your point?


Yes, that post was kind of freaky. It was like "imagine if we got
stuck cruising with those kind of people" without direcly mentioning
who those people were.

andrew.

Carnival Tropicale 1982
NCL Dawn 2004
HAL Noordam 2004

*bicker* wrote in message ...
A 3 Oct 2004 06:44:44 -0700,
) escribió:
I would like to know
what kind of experience that I am in for before I go.

snip

Sounds to me that you're saying that you don't like the fact
that you have to cruise with gay people, now. Did I miss
your point?

No, you did not miss my point. I do not have a problem with gay
people, however, my husband does. He is not particularly thrilled
with seeing men holding hands and walking with their arms around one
another and being publicly romantic. A cruise is, and is promoted as
a fun and romantic experience. As gay people chose their option to be
gay, we chose our preference as not to place ourselves in an
atmosphere where we are constantly exposed to viewing gay romantic
people. I would not book a 12 day vacation at Provincetown, MA. I
don't care what gay people do, I chose not to be in the atmosphere.
There are a lot of things that I don't care for. For instance, I
don't like drag races. My husband loves the races. He goes - I
don't. He can have a much better time without me tagging along. I'm
not into violent movies - he likes them - I don't watch, I find
something else that I like to do. Thats all.

We cruised on the RCI explorer last year. There were many gay people
aboard.
It appears that some have an overwhelming desire to display their
affection for each other publicly. One of our dearest friends is gay,
however, I don't have any desire to attend any of his gay parties. I
don't think that I would like to go on vacation for a week with him
and all his friends to a gay resort.
I wouldn't like to spend a week at a nudist resort either. To each
his own.

Back to the original issue, I mistakenly was checking out cabin
availability on a particular RCI cruise for 2005. Most websites are
directly linked to the Royal Caribbean website which shows what the
cabin availability is for each cruise. I thought it was strange that
there were on 3 cabin choices in my selected category available. As I
stated in my original message, I was looking for a particular cabin.
This particular cruise is 14 months away.
A lot of travel agency sites did not have this particular cruise
listed at all.
This aroused my curiosity even more, so I continued to look for sites
until I stumbled across the Atlantis site. I didn't notice that it
was a gay men's travel site, I just saw a whole mess of cabins in my
category available. I called my TA and asked him why different sites
had different cabins available other than what he was offering. He
didn't know the answer. I called RCI and they told me what they had
available. The cabins were different than what Atlantis and another
site (I don't know what the other site was, I didn't write down the
site, I only wrote the cabin numbers). Atlantis I did make note
because they had tons of cabins available, and I was using them as an
example. My TA didn't know (or he wasn't letting on if he did know).
I called RCI and they didn't know why either. Anyway, I asked to be
waitlisted at RCI for the cabin that I wanted. I told the
representative that in 14 months til the cruise there is a pretty good
chance that it could become available and I would like to know if it
does. She told me to call my TA. I called back my TA and he told me
he "couldn't do it because all the bookings were closed". I didn't
believe that all those cabins were sold out in the matter of 5 minutes
that I was talking to RCI and my TA. By this time, I'm getting pretty
frustrated. I called back RCI and I told the rep that my TA couldn't
waitlist me. She started to develop a frustrated tone and told me
that she couldn't do it either because everything for that cruise is
"closed".

By the end of the week I was determined to find out what was going on
with the new pricing policy and the new rules. It (to me) was quite
complicated as you can see in the original post of this thread. I
still don't understand it so that is why I appealed to this newsgroup
for feedback. This is what I'm getting and please correct me if I'm
wrong.

l) a huge agency such as Orbitz (who sponsors the Atlantis
website), Travelocity, (who sponsors the Lesbian website "Olivia") or
another grand scale travel seller can buy up a cruise ship the minute
the general public cruise becomes available. RSVP is another gay
travel website and I didn't check to see who sponsors it, (probably
expedia or another big one). Once these cabins are deposited for the
$25.00 each, they can advertise the available cabins that they have
booked on their own sites. If you read the Atlantis web site promos
on their cruises, they refer to "OUR ships" are always the best and
newest in the fleets, state of the art, etc. etc. All their chartered
cruises are on RCI ships, so it only stands to reason that RCI is the
#l pick for straight cruises also. I went to orbitz to see if this
cruise was listed and it told me that this cruise was "not available".
On the RCI site, there are still inside and outside cabins (no
balconies or above) available. This leads me to believe that this
cruise is a "straight" cruise but will be predominantly gay's. The
RCI cruise rep told me that RCI doesn't know which agencies have
booked what cabins and that leads me to believe that
she is either lying to me or that RCI has a SERIOUS SECURITY problem.

2) under the new pricing policy, agents are absolutely forbidden to
undersell the RCI posted price. How come the SKY Auction web site can
undersell them? You can bid on a cruise or "BUY it NOW" for below the
RCI posted rate. Granted, a lot of these cruises are close to sailing
date but could it be that RCI wants to dump all of its unsold cabins
no matter what their policy is? It seems to me that an unsold cabin
should remain posted at the RCI stated price no matter what. If the
cabin remains unsold at the posted price, then the cabin should sail
empty. RCI does not want that to happen either.

Anyway, this is our vacation and we want to pick what we want to do.
Visiting the gay travel websites was an invaluable experience to me.
There are many hotels, all inclusive resorts and vacation packages
that are targeted toward gay men or women. I personally like to know
if I am choosing a family resort, a nudist resort, a gay resort, or a
golf resort. None of these exclude the general population, they are
merely informing us of the style of vacation that they are offering.
My husband or I don't know anything about golf, so I don't anticipate
booking any vacations at a golf resort in the future. I am somewhat
ignorant to gay's too. I would like to know up front if I am booking
a vacation at a gay resort that's all! I was once told that I
couldn't book a hotel room that I wanted because there was a dentist
convention going on that week and the hotel was full. I could have
waitlisted the room but I chose not to spend my vacation with that
type of group. Does that make me an ignorant or bad person?

A 4 Oct 2004 06:12:56 -0700,
) escribió:
*bicker* wrote in message ...
A 3 Oct 2004 06:44:44 -0700,
) escribió:
I would like to know
what kind of experience that I am in for before I go.
Sounds to me that you're saying that you don't like the fact
that you have to cruise with gay people, now. Did I miss
your point?
No, you did not miss my point.

Good, I suppose.

As gay people chose their option to be
gay, we chose our preference as not to place ourselves in an
atmosphere where we are constantly exposed to viewing gay romantic
people.

Since there are no cruises require proof of sexuality, the
only option that meets your need is to book cruises on
private yachts.

I thought it was strange that
there were on 3 cabin choices in my selected category available.

It is common practice across the entirety of the hospitality
industry to prevent your competitors from having direct
access to your current inventory levels, and other
proprietary information.

The cabins were different than what Atlantis and another
site (I don't know what the other site was, I didn't write down the
site, I only wrote the cabin numbers).

TAs and others can get allocated a set of cabins as part of
a group booking.

She told me to call my TA. I called back my TA and he told me
he "couldn't do it because all the bookings were closed".

I think it was more likely that the TA didn't want to do it.
It is a lot of work, from what I understand.

By the end of the week I was determined to find out what was going on
with the new pricing policy and the new rules.

Which, incidently, probably has nothing to do with your
experience. The situations you describe are common across
the hospitality industry, so likely have nothing to do with
the pricing policy change.

l) a huge agency ... can buy up a cruise ship the minute
the general public cruise becomes available.

In essence, I believe that is correct. Again, homosexuality
has no relevance to this, so I'm not sure why you keep
bringing it up. (Of course, I know what Freud would say
with respect to why you keep bringing it up, but whatever.)

RCI cruise rep told me that RCI doesn't know which agencies have
booked what cabins and that leads me to believe that
she is either lying to me or that RCI has a SERIOUS SECURITY problem.

Or that she isn't at liberty to share that information with
you. Or, in your frusration and confusion, you confused the
RCI rep. There are many possible explanations, and without
the RCI rep here to defend her service to you, it is all
idle speculation.

2) under the new pricing policy, agents are absolutely forbidden to
undersell the RCI posted price.

I think you would be better off undestanding the policy
first. The policy is that agents aren't allowed to
undersell RCI *authorized* prices, not "posted" prices.
Where'd you get that idea from anyway?

It seems to me that an unsold cabin
should remain posted at the RCI stated price no matter what.

Then you'd be mistaken. Companies are allowed to sell their
products as they wish, within the confines of the law and
what is deemed fair and reasonable by the market.

Anyway, this is our vacation and we want to pick what we want to do.

Understandable, to a point. You are surely entitled to use
whatever resources you have available to research your
vacation choices to the extent the information you're
looking for is made available for public consumption. You
are not, however, entitled to any more information than the
supplier is willing to provide you. There is no obligation,
expressed or implied, that a supplier should reveal any
information about other patrons.


--
bicker®
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/D...ry_040602.html

A 4 Oct 2004 06:12:56 -0700,
) escribió:
*bicker* wrote in message ...
A 3 Oct 2004 06:44:44 -0700,
) escribió:
I would like to know
what kind of experience that I am in for before I go.
Sounds to me that you're saying that you don't like the fact
that you have to cruise with gay people, now. Did I miss
your point?
No, you did not miss my point.

Good, I suppose.

As gay people chose their option to be
gay, we chose our preference as not to place ourselves in an
atmosphere where we are constantly exposed to viewing gay romantic
people.

Since there are no cruises require proof of sexuality, the
only option that meets your need is to book cruises on
private yachts.

I thought it was strange that
there were on 3 cabin choices in my selected category available.

It is common practice across the entirety of the hospitality
industry to prevent your competitors from having direct
access to your current inventory levels, and other
proprietary information.

The cabins were different than what Atlantis and another
site (I don't know what the other site was, I didn't write down the
site, I only wrote the cabin numbers).

TAs and others can get allocated a set of cabins as part of
a group booking.

She told me to call my TA. I called back my TA and he told me
he "couldn't do it because all the bookings were closed".

I think it was more likely that the TA didn't want to do it.
It is a lot of work, from what I understand.

By the end of the week I was determined to find out what was going on
with the new pricing policy and the new rules.

Which, incidently, probably has nothing to do with your
experience. The situations you describe are common across
the hospitality industry, so likely have nothing to do with
the pricing policy change.

l) a huge agency ... can buy up a cruise ship the minute
the general public cruise becomes available.

In essence, I believe that is correct. Again, homosexuality
has no relevance to this, so I'm not sure why you keep
bringing it up. (Of course, I know what Freud would say
with respect to why you keep bringing it up, but whatever.)

RCI cruise rep told me that RCI doesn't know which agencies have
booked what cabins and that leads me to believe that
she is either lying to me or that RCI has a SERIOUS SECURITY problem.

Or that she isn't at liberty to share that information with
you. Or, in your frusration and confusion, you confused the
RCI rep. There are many possible explanations, and without
the RCI rep here to defend her service to you, it is all
idle speculation.

2) under the new pricing policy, agents are absolutely forbidden to
undersell the RCI posted price.

I think you would be better off undestanding the policy
first. The policy is that agents aren't allowed to
undersell RCI *authorized* prices, not "posted" prices.
Where'd you get that idea from anyway?

It seems to me that an unsold cabin
should remain posted at the RCI stated price no matter what.

Then you'd be mistaken. Companies are allowed to sell their
products as they wish, within the confines of the law and
what is deemed fair and reasonable by the market.

Anyway, this is our vacation and we want to pick what we want to do.

Understandable, to a point. You are surely entitled to use
whatever resources you have available to research your
vacation choices to the extent the information you're
looking for is made available for public consumption. You
are not, however, entitled to any more information than the
supplier is willing to provide you. There is no obligation,
expressed or implied, that a supplier should reveal any
information about other patrons.


--
bicker®
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/D...ry_040602.html

On 4 Oct 2004 06:12:56 -0700, wrote:

No, you did not miss my point. I do not have a problem with gay
people, however, my husband does. He is not particularly thrilled
with seeing men holding hands and walking with their arms around one
another and being publicly romantic.

Bet it makes his skin crawl, right?

A cruise is, and is promoted as
a fun and romantic experience. As gay people chose their option to be
gay, we chose our preference as not to place ourselves in an
atmosphere where we are constantly exposed to viewing gay romantic
people. I would not book a 12 day vacation at Provincetown, MA. I
don't care what gay people do, I chose not to be in the atmosphere.

Fair enough. It's *your* disposable income to spend. Disose of it as you
wish.

We cruised on the RCI explorer last year. There were many gay people
aboard.
It appears that some have an overwhelming desire to display their
affection for each other publicly.

Yes, I would agree that appears to be the case but I'm not so certain,
statistically, it is. Heterosexual teenagers do the same thing. I think
your husband notices it more b/c it makes his skin crawl.

One of our dearest friends is gay,

I have a Negro and a Jew for close friends!

however, I don't have any desire to attend any of his gay parties. I
don't think that I would like to go on vacation for a week with him
and all his friends to a gay resort.
I wouldn't like to spend a week at a nudist resort either. To each
his own.

I like homosexual parties myself so I can pop one of them in the mouth when
she grabs my bootie.

Back to the original issue, I mistakenly was checking out cabin
availability on a particular RCI cruise for 2005. Most websites are
directly linked to the Royal Caribbean website which shows what the
cabin availability is for each cruise. I thought it was strange that
there were on 3 cabin choices in my selected category available. As I
stated in my original message, I was looking for a particular cabin.
This particular cruise is 14 months away.
A lot of travel agency sites did not have this particular cruise
listed at all.

This whole RCI thing is *odd*. I am still waiting for our RTC TA's (Berlin,
Leppla, Googleberg, etc where are youoooooooooo?) to answer. I have a few
theories myself.

snipped really good post

Anyway, this is our vacation and we want to pick what we want to do.
Visiting the gay travel websites was an invaluable experience to me.
There are many hotels, all inclusive resorts and vacation packages
that are targeted toward gay men or women. I personally like to know
if I am choosing a family resort, a nudist resort, a gay resort, or a
golf resort. None of these exclude the general population, they are
merely informing us of the style of vacation that they are offering.
My husband or I don't know anything about golf, so I don't anticipate
booking any vacations at a golf resort in the future. I am somewhat
ignorant to gay's too. I would like to know up front if I am booking
a vacation at a gay resort that's all! I was once told that I
couldn't book a hotel room that I wanted because there was a dentist
convention going on that week and the hotel was full. I could have
waitlisted the room but I chose not to spend my vacation with that
type of group. Does that make me an ignorant or bad person?

Not at all. It makes you a wary consumer.