2008 Cruise Prices Falling??

Cruises out of N.Y. & N.J. are costing more because they figure people
do not have to pay air fare,but beware if you have to drive a couple
hundred miles,and then pay to park all the while you are on your
cruise.Does not make sense,but then the cruises are cheaper from
fla,etc,but the airfare kills you.


cruise lover

The train to Florida is not an option. We only have a couple (2) people
who refuse to fly. Getting them on a train to Fla. was just not going
to happen. NY was our best option.

The cost factor was limited to a few couples. 1 couple just bought a new
house and have two kids. So for them it was going to price out at
around $6000 for a low end balcony. Same 8 day cruise out of Florida
would only cost about $2800 - $3100 for the 4. Now if we were able to
book group space that $6000 for a family of 4 would have been way less.
We were also going to take the free passage (8+ cabins) and divide it up
so everyone had an additional savings.

Looking into other ports Ie. Boston, Balt.was suggested last night by
another family member. We have 2 members of the family getting married
this year. 1 in April and 1 in May. The couple getting married in May
wanted to use the family cruise in July as their Honeymoon. We just
blew it by waiting too long (actually not thinking about it until too
late). That is what got me into this discussion in the first place. IF
in December Group space was sold out and remaining space was so limited
it seemed like NY was in demand yet so few ships and sailings. Didn't
really understand that. Still don't. All available NY Passenger
Cruise Ship dock space is not utilized 100%.

How about Philly? Anything like the Nordic Empress sailing to Bermuda from
Philly?


"RICK DAVIS" wrote in message
...
The train to Florida is not an option. We only have a couple (2) people
who refuse to fly. Getting them on a train to Fla. was just not going
to happen. NY was our best option.

The cost factor was limited to a few couples. 1 couple just bought a new
house and have two kids. So for them it was going to price out at
around $6000 for a low end balcony. Same 8 day cruise out of Florida
would only cost about $2800 - $3100 for the 4. Now if we were able to
book group space that $6000 for a family of 4 would have been way less.
We were also going to take the free passage (8+ cabins) and divide it up
so everyone had an additional savings.

Looking into other ports Ie. Boston, Balt.was suggested last night by
another family member. We have 2 members of the family getting married
this year. 1 in April and 1 in May. The couple getting married in May
wanted to use the family cruise in July as their Honeymoon. We just
blew it by waiting too long (actually not thinking about it until too
late). That is what got me into this discussion in the first place. IF
in December Group space was sold out and remaining space was so limited
it seemed like NY was in demand yet so few ships and sailings. Didn't
really understand that. Still don't. All available NY Passenger
Cruise Ship dock space is not utilized 100%.

Tom K wrote:
How about Philly? Anything like the Nordic Empress sailing to Bermuda from
Philly?


"RICK DAVIS" wrote in message
...
The train to Florida is not an option. We only have a couple (2) people
who refuse to fly. Getting them on a train to Fla. was just not going
to happen. NY was our best option.

The cost factor was limited to a few couples. 1 couple just bought a new
house and have two kids. So for them it was going to price out at
around $6000 for a low end balcony. Same 8 day cruise out of Florida
would only cost about $2800 - $3100 for the 4. Now if we were able to
book group space that $6000 for a family of 4 would have been way less.
We were also going to take the free passage (8+ cabins) and divide it up
so everyone had an additional savings.

Looking into other ports Ie. Boston, Balt.was suggested last night by
another family member. We have 2 members of the family getting married
this year. 1 in April and 1 in May. The couple getting married in May
wanted to use the family cruise in July as their Honeymoon. We just
blew it by waiting too long (actually not thinking about it until too
late). That is what got me into this discussion in the first place. IF
in December Group space was sold out and remaining space was so limited
it seemed like NY was in demand yet so few ships and sailings. Didn't
really understand that. Still don't. All available NY Passenger
Cruise Ship dock space is not utilized 100%.



Doesn't look like anything sailing from Philly until 8/30/08
http://www.cruisephilly.com/PDF/CPSched.pdf

Bill

--
Visit my Caribbean Princess website:
www.cruisingthecaribbeanprincess.com

Every ship is priced according to what the cruise line can get for it.
They study supply & demand for every port to the nth degree. That is
exactly why there will be more ships in Europe this year than ever
before, because it is the cruise lines highest profit center. To wit:
NCL moves a ship OUT of the Hawaii market due to over-saturation and
inability to raise fares and reposits the same ship in Europe for
Summer 2008. Carnival will have a ship in the Baltic for the first
time this summer (+ one in the Med). Costa is building new ships
faster than most US-based lines. Ironically - while tourism to the
United States is dismally low, we are managing to export our tourism
in the form of U.S. cruise companies sailing overseas. "Our" cruise
ships are being filled with Europeans (and Americans) in Europe. And
as they become more familiar with the cruise product, they book more
cruises.

As far as NY goes, there is such a significant population there that
can arrive by train or bus (not to mention car) from NJ, CT, PA that
it becomes cost effective for them to leave from NYC. Even ships
sailing from Philly & Baltimore are not the bargains they used to be.

A big part of it is the price of gasoline. Parking is also a factor.
However, as gasoline becomes more expensive we find even the Caribbean
cruise prices are firming up because family car trips to land
destinations are getting more expensive.

Right now ships are sold out because people have been booking pretty
far out in advance for the last couple years, but as the elections
draw nearer, (so we focus more on messages of perceived loss of wealth
and higher cost of living), the housing market tumbles further, the
dollar continues to drop, etc... then I would not be surprised to see
a softening, most likely towards the end of summer. The biggest danger
would be a crash in consumer confidence (recession) that would stop
people from taking vacations. They tend to say leisure in America is
valued highly enough that it is recession-proof, but I also tend to
think the cruise lines are always stretching capacity to to the point
where they are lucky if they don't have to lower prices to fill ships.
But right now things are strong in the industry, feeding off of
cruises booked up to a year ago.

Certain things always help - we had a very mild hurricane season and
we are having a cold winter. Tomorrow being the first non-holiday week
in January, I would normally expect to see all kinds of stories about
wave season starting and how this is the time of year the cruise lines
really jump on marketing. Well, things have changed and wave season
doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to. It has hardly even been
mentioned this year. I take that to be a sign that the cruise lines
are comfortable with how things are going currently, and they don't
feel the need to have a "make or break" wave season that they used to
have.

Ship's homeport decisions also depend on what they can make from the
destinations they go to. A ship will spend three days in St
Petersburg, RU, because there are at least three days worth of
expensive tours to sell to each cruiser on board in that port. The
Caribbean is now full of ships that specialize in onboard revenue -
tropical tours are not the money maker they used to be. Why is Grand
Cayman losing popularity? Everyone has been to sting ray bay, the cost
of tendering and the inconvenience of it is a negative to passengers,
and they can substitute Jamaica which is a lousy island to see on your
own, so a tour is practically required.

Cozumel has remained popular, but remember that Costa Maya was wiped
out by a hurricane last year. I predict it will be the next port to
lose favor.

In article
,
cruisemates wrote:

Every ship is priced according to what the cruise line can get for it.
They study supply & demand for every port to the nth degree. That is
exactly why there will be more ships in Europe this year than ever
before, because it is the cruise lines highest profit center. To wit:
NCL moves a ship OUT of the Hawaii market due to over-saturation and
inability to raise fares and reposits the same ship in Europe for
Summer 2008. Carnival will have a ship in the Baltic for the first

For brevity's sake I just snipped a few lines from your post. I found
your take on the subject very interesting. Thank you for posting it.

--
Charles

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 09:29:32 -0500, (RICK DAVIS)
wrote:

The train to Florida is not an option. We only have a couple (2) people
who refuse to fly. Getting them on a train to Fla. was just not going
to happen. NY was our best option.

The cost factor was limited to a few couples. 1 couple just bought a new
house and have two kids. So for them it was going to price out at
around $6000 for a low end balcony. Same 8 day cruise out of Florida
would only cost about $2800 - $3100 for the 4. Now if we were able to
book group space that $6000 for a family of 4 would have been way less.
We were also going to take the free passage (8+ cabins) and divide it up
so everyone had an additional savings.

Looking into other ports Ie. Boston, Balt.was suggested last night by
another family member. We have 2 members of the family getting married
this year. 1 in April and 1 in May. The couple getting married in May
wanted to use the family cruise in July as their Honeymoon. We just
blew it by waiting too long (actually not thinking about it until too
late). That is what got me into this discussion in the first place. IF
in December Group space was sold out and remaining space was so limited
it seemed like NY was in demand yet so few ships and sailings. Didn't
really understand that. Still don't. All available NY Passenger
Cruise Ship dock space is not utilized 100%.

You have my sympathies. It sounds like you are trying to herd cats.

Even if you can arrange a cruise, have you thought about what happens
with shore excursions, etc.?

"cruisemates" wrote in message
...




Cozumel has remained popular, but remember that Costa Maya was wiped
out by a hurricane last year. I predict it will be the next port to
lose favor.


What's the situation with Cozumel docking? We haven't been there in a number
of years & the last thing I remember is that there was damage to the pier
from a storm. Is it all repaired?

Brian, Shore excursions and spending money are not an issue for anyone.
Besides we don't do ships excursions. We do them on our own on our time
schedule at a fraction of the cost of the ships tours. The issue is
the spending of an extra $3,000 for a family of 4. I can't think of too
many folks who wouldn't have an issue with that. We have done this
kind of trip before just a few years ago. Just not at these prices with
such limited space. I guess last time we planned this more in advance
so it was never an issue with limited space. But, we were able to find
an interim solution for this year. Not exactly what we wanted but
better than no cruise at all. We will do better in planning for 2009.

RICK DAVIS wrote:
Charles, the point of sailing from NYC or NJ was because some members of
the family will not fly. That and because we live so close. We lived
thru 911 first hand up close. Everyone we know lost someone (family or
close friend) that day. Thats a scar that will never go away and
frightened a lot of people on flying. It bothered me for a long time
but I got over it. Otherwise we would have selected Florida as a
departure point. I understand NYC in July (and Aug) is peak time. That
didn't even need to be mentioned. We looked at July for the exact
reason you mentioned - Kids are out of school. Peak time is Late June
thru late Aug. - when kids are out of school. Prices for each week
during that time don't differ by much. We didn't expect that. With
the addition of Brooklyn, NJ & NY there is now more docking space than
ever. Each line: Carnival, Princess, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, HAL
and even NCL was very limited with sailings. In fact one of these lines
had nothing during the summer months. The other lines only had 1 ship
sailing R/T form NY/NJ. We fully expected to pay more sailing out of
NYC. Just not more than double the price of sailing out of Florida and
having such limited availability 7 - 8 months in advance. It is
because of that that I don't understand why more ships are not added if
they sell out so quickly. Especially with the additional space now
available in the NY area.

BTW, I was not pointing you out for your comment about prices falling
and available cabins. I was being sarcastic to make the point about the
prices and availability. Sorry if that offended you. It wasn't meant
to.


I think the prices sailing out of Florida are as low as they can
go....go look at what you're paying to sail out of NY vs. an Alaska
cruise or Canada, etc. It's in the same realm. It's a simple supply
and demand issue and nothing more. There's not the supply sailing out
of NY and there's a very good demand, hence the prices are high.

Jeff