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#11
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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 |
#12
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
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%. |
#13
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
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%. |
#14
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
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 |
#15
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
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. |
#16
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
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 |
#17
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
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#18
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
"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? |
#19
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
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. |
#20
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2008 Cruise Prices Falling??
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 |
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