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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 |
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*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 |
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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 |
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*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? |
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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 |
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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 |
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