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NCL now charging for infants


mcohen73

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Carnival charges for 6 months and up. I thought (well, sort of assumed) NCL did the same. They didn't :confused: Or are you saying they only charge the port taxes?

 

Out of curiousity I looked at NCL's FAQ section. It just says they offer reduced rates for 3rd+ passenger in cabin and that they don't allow infants under 6 months to sail at all. I didn't know that, our youngest being 36.

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Carnival charges for 6 months and up. I thought (well, sort of assumed) NCL did the same. They didn't :confused: Or are you saying they only charge the port taxes?

 

As far as I know, On NCL a child under the age of 2 paid taxes, govt fees and port charges only.

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The first time I traveled with my son on NCL, he was under 2 and I only paid Taxes and Fees. Did not have to pay the cruise fare.

 

OP, are you saying that now ALL children will pay the fare and the taxes?

 

If this is the case, I find it a bit interesting that NCL is making changes that involve the Under 3 age group. This would be the second major change affecting this age group. They recently changed the kids program and beginning in Jan 2013, the drop off kids program increases to age 3 from 2.

 

Now I love NCL and in all honesty because I've loved the age grouping and flexibility of their childrens program. My son has sailed on 10 NCL cruises. I'm fortunately not affect by this any longer as my son is past that age, but if when my son was between 2-3 and I was not able to drop him off, I wonder if I would have stuck with NCL as long as I have as maybe I might have picked another cruiseline to take him on and may have liked it better.

 

It just seems to me that NCL is discouraging parents of children under 3 from booking and bringing this age group of child aboard. Am I just reading a lot into these 2 changes with this age group in the last 6 months or so.

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My 4 year old and 1 year old will now be charged the same. When I was looking at prices yesterday, the 4 year old was charged $499 + port and taxes and my 1 year old would only pay port and taxes. Now the 1 year old is $499 + port and taxes.

 

I called NCL and they said all children are charged the same amount.

 

We were on the Epic with my then less than 2 year old and we only paid port and taxes.

 

I guess I should have booked yesterday.

 

The first time I traveled with my son on NCL, he was under 2 and I only paid Taxes and Fees. Did not have to pay the cruise fare.

 

OP, are you saying that now ALL children will pay the fare and the taxes?

 

If this is the case, I find it a bit interesting that NCL is making changes that involve the Under 3 age group. This would be the second major change affecting this age group. They recently changed the kids program and beginning in Jan 2013, the drop off kids program increases to age 3 from 2.

 

Now I love NCL and in all honesty because I've loved the age grouping and flexibility of their childrens program. My son has sailed on 10 NCL cruises. I'm fortunately not affect by this any longer as my son is past that age, but if when my son was between 2-3 and I was not able to drop him off, I wonder if I would have stuck with NCL as long as I have as maybe I might have picked another cruiseline to take him on and may have liked it better.

 

It just seems to me that NCL is discouraging parents of children under 3 from booking and bringing this age group of child aboard. Am I just reading a lot into these 2 changes with this age group in the last 6 months or so.

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Maybe so many families are cruising with infants and toddlers that the ships are reaching full occupancy before all rooms are sold??? Just a thought.

 

Good thought, If an infant or toddler is taking up lifeboat space and not actually filling another room with the possibility of extra income (drinks, specialty dining, etc) I guess I get it. Just need a little nudge to understand things sometimes

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As of today NCL is charging for infants the same as any child.

 

It was just port charges and taxes.

 

It wasn't just port charges and taxes

 

We've had an NCL cruise booked since January. They did charge us for our 15 month infant, but it was a reduced rate. Our infant's rate is $235 + $171 taxes. Our 3 year old son's rate is $445 + $171 taxes.

 

I did price out our cruise again just now to see what the rates are today, and indeed, NCL is now charging the same for our infant and for our 3 year old.

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Carnival and RCCL have been doing it for a while. NCL just jumped on the band wagon. Okay by me, but I don't have kids.

 

RCCL raped us last year with what they charged for our son when we sailed on the Allure of the Seas. Their 3rd passenger rate was more than what the 1st/2nd rate was on the Carnival Dream! (But it was worth it!)

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Wow. Was there an announcement about it? Thought for sure you all had to be wrong, but nope -- just looked at our April 2012 cruise and realized that DS fare would go up about $150 if we booked now. Will have to be careful when watching for price drops. Kind of frustrating that they increased the fare without actually increasing any benefit. To my knowledge, no one has come back and said there was actually anything new for the Under 3s in Splash Academy.

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No extra benefits, just making sure there is payment for taking up a space that could be sold to a full fare. Infants count against total number of passengers allowed on the ship. It was long overdue I think. Other cruise lines were already doing it.

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I prefer they pay their fair share so I don't have to supplement them in my fare.

 

Care to explain how you are supplementing my infant? He's in a room I have paid for that has plenty of space left for him, and he eats the food I bring for him.

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Personally I'm glad to hear this. Maybe it will mean there are fewer rowdy children on board the ship.

 

Haven't run into too many "rowdy" infants anywhere (and I work with infants and children all day every day). The fare difference is only for the "under 2 age range."

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Haven't run into too many "rowdy" infants anywhere (and I work with infants and children all day every day). The fare difference is only for the "under 2 age range."

 

What I meant was that perhaps families with many children (including an infant) may be unlikely to book. Although you work with children, remember that not everyone enjoys (or wants) children around during their vacation.

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Care to explain how you are supplementing my infant? He's in a room I have paid for that has plenty of space left for him, and he eats the food I bring for him.

 

I'm just guessing here and can't know for sure what cruzsnooze meant, but, the way I think about it is like this:

 

Cruise ships have a total passenger capacity (that's somewhere above double occupancy and below 3rd/4th passengers in every room). Cruise lines are a business and need to make money to stay in business, thus, ideally, they want to maximize the amount of revenue/profit each sailing generates. If they allow infants to sail free, that infant counts as a person against that ship's total passenger capacity but does not generate any revenue. So, in order to recoup the loss of revenue due to the non-paying infant (multiplied by however many other non-paying, but capacity-reducing infants are on board), theoretically, the cruise line would need to charge a higher fare to the paying passengers in order to achieve the desired maximum revenue, and presumably the maximum profit, from the sailing.

 

All that being said, there are, of course, other variables and considerations involved (like the fact that, I imagine, most ships don't sail at 100% capacity every week, plus the need to balance whether the ship will ultimately lose more revenue without the promotional children/infant pricing - i.e., what if families won't/can't sail at the higher prices, and also the fact that infants don't eat the same amounts of food or take up deck chairs, so the cost the line has to spend on them is less, etc.). I'm not an economist nor an accountant, so I'm sure there are plenty of other things wrong or not considered with this explanation.... it's just what came to mind as a possible answer to your question.

 

In the end, any extra charge to each paying passengers that could be attributable to free infants' effect on lost revenue from passenger caps is probably quite small, would seem to vary from cruise to cruise, and given how crazy and constantly changing cruise pricing is, I think it would be tough to ever really know exactly what that increase is. So, maybe charging infants something, but not the full fare, would be a reasonable or good compromise? I bet NCL is simply experimenting with different price structures to find the right balance.

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Care to explain how you are supplementing my infant? He's in a room I have paid for that has plenty of space left for him, and he eats the food I bring for him.

 

I can't speak for cruzsnooze. But here is where their statement would make sense to me.

 

If we assume Donna is correct "Maybe so many families are cruising with infants and toddlers that the ships are reaching full occupancy before all rooms are sold"

 

Let's use rounded easy numbers for an example

 

Lets also assume that the ships capacity is 2000 passengers and 10% of them are infants. Let's use an average of $500 per passenger not including any port fees or taxes.

 

A ship with 100% occupancy 2000 passengers x $500 pp = $1,000,000

 

A ship at 100% occupancy with 10% of those as infants 2000 passengers - 200 infants = $900,000

 

In order for NCL to make the same amount of money as 100% full passenger occupancy those non-infant passengers would have to pay extra to make up the $10,000 difference.

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