When is a ship undersold?

[triple7tahoe]

They must have assigned a bunch of Balcony and better rooms on this April 23 sailing as I only can see about 26 available now. I am still unassigned in my OV guarantee.

 

Terry

I would agree with your thoughts about assigned Balcony and better. IS was listed as guarantee yesterday and today there look to be 15 available. I found 37 Balconies yesterday and 11 today. Slight drop in OV from yesterday 13-9.

Certainly looks like they are setting up to have a "flash sale" for inside cabins. Let's see what the next few days bring-This is almost as fun as planning the cruise:p

[lw4484]

All the Carnival Corp companies - Princess included - have a policy that ALL cabins must be sold before a cruise begins. They do this successfully on nearly every sailing.

 

The average passenger cabin on every mass market cruise is sold 8 times before the actual occupant arrives.

If your ship has 1,200 cabins, they actually have to sell 9,600 cabins before every cruise begins.

Consider that the cruise lines are marketing to the entire world, those unsold cabins you mentioned could all be sold before you finish reading this post.

 

Huh? I'm sorry, totally don't get it lol Can you dumb it down for me?

 

 

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[skf]

I looked recently at the Royal TA in April and it is very open.

This might be misleading, as there are three versions of this TA...15, 18, & 21 days. Some versions have been sold out & others not. I have no idea how they figure it.

BTW, we're on the 18-day. Come on, April!

Steve

[Loonbeam]

Between people changing cabins, guarantees, cancellations, move over offers, upgrades, etc, cabins can change passengers quite a bit before people board. Before a guarantee is finally issued for example, that pax record may be assigned to multiple cabins as the yield system works.

 

They don't have to actually book 9600 cabins to do that, but just like airlines they DO book more than capacity, assuming a certain number of cancellations (and when those don't appear is when you get move over offers).

 

The GTYs represent those overbooks.

 

Huh? I'm sorry, totally don't get it lol Can you dumb it down for me?

 

 

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[Faith77]

Last year I booked a gty on the Grand from SF-Hawaii-SF solo for the Christmas/New Years holiday in April. Over the next few months I got 4 cabin assignments ending up with a balcony.

 

This was my first big upgrade and I was thrilled. People on my roll call commented that our cruise wasn't selling well and that there were lots of available balconies a few months before the cruise. I know I got lucky. The only negative about all this is that on my next cruise I go back to an inside or outside cabin. Faith

[AE_Collector]

Last year I booked a gty on the Grand from SF-Hawaii-SF

 

Booked a guarantee what?

 

Terry

[Faith77]

I booked an obstructed ov cabin and the 4th cabin assignment was a Baja deck balcony. I feel I just got lucky because the cruise wasn't selling all that well.

Faith

[avcruz]

Gotcha, I know some look at missing nametags while onboard and figure those cabins are unoccupied. There are many now that don't like their names displayed.

Never though to count the cabins on the website. ;)

 

He isn't ON the cruise right now but will be on April 23. I too will be on it and keep using the Princess web site to view available rooms and as of a couple of days ago there were still 65 or so balcony and better rooms showing as available but less than 10 OV and Obstructed OV rooms available. I have an OV Guarantee and will be on the two cruises before this April 23 sailing as well. I don't know how the Princess site allows for the guarantee rooms when it shows available rooms. My guess is that it doesn't other than ensuring that they don't allow too many specific rooms to be booked so that they can still satisfy the guarantees.

 

The April 23 cruise is the one we make it to Elite on so an upgrade of some sort for that cruise would be perfect!

 

Terry

 

Yes, that's exactly what I did, counted the unsold cabins on the website, deck by deck, category by category. That's where I got my count. I'm not sure how they account for Guarantee cabins either??? We booked an Obstructed OV and are now in a Cat BE Balcony :) and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we may be gifted again!!! I read in another forum that the best upgrades happen within 20 days of departure (???) so I'm still hopeful.

 

P.S. He's a she :D

 

Adrienne

[Kmkub]

Our trip in January on the Crown didn't seem full and some staff members told us it was not full.

 

We rarely saw any activity on the Dolphin deck balconies on the starboard side - most of the furniture out there didn't move the entire cruise (they were just folded and stacked against the divider wall.)

 

Near empty theaters too. We walked in for one show with < 5 minutes to spare and got really good seats. Even getting a table for 8 in MDR was not really a problem. Our longest "25 minute" wait time was < 5 minutes.

 

The only very busy place was Crooners while the new entertainer was there.

[Posaune]

Of our 11 cruises, 10 have been sold out. the only exception, the 4 day Caribbean this year.

[AE_Collector]

We booked an Obstructed OV and are now in a Cat BE Balcony :) and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we may be gifted again!!!

 

P.S. He's a she :D

 

Adrienne

 

Oh sorry Adrienne. You hadn't signed your real name in post #12 that I was indirectly responding to.

 

I mis-spoke previously we also booked an Obstructed OV rather than OV cabin. We are still unassigned on all three of our B2B's.

 

Out of curiosity since we booked the same cabin type. Did you book a long time ago? We only put this together in late December. Outside of the Final Payment date but not by much.

 

Did you get the assignment to a balcony in mid February when this sailing suddenly dropped from 60+ unassigned balcony and better rooms down to about 20?

 

With three B2B's and our first small ship cruise I am sort of hoping we get assigned to some different cabins even though moving is a bit of a pain. If we don't get moved up at all it would be nice to try a "Port Hole" cabin on three, one of the Obstructed OV's on 6 where the life boats are and maybe a regular OV room somewhere else on the ship. (Assuming we don't get a balcony for our 16th cruise!)

 

Terry

[Psychedout]

How do you know 40 cabins were empty?

If you are going by missing name tags that is not accurate at all.

 

How does one find out how many cabins are booked or not?

 

Thanks,

 

Hugh :)

[CRUISEFOUR]

We are on the Royal in 12 days and I am counting close to 400 total cabins available on their website with 75 being mini suites. Is it possible that there would be close to 400 GTYs?

[caribill]

How does one find out how many cabins are booked or not?

 

 

 

Go the the Princess web site and go through the process of looking to book a cabin.

 

You need to look at every category on every deck on each section of the ship and count the ones not booked. Need to do this for 2, 3 and 4 passengers as looking for just 2 passengers will not show the cabins that can accomodate more.

 

It is quicker to do when most of the ship is sold out as you can quickly skip over many sections for some of the categories.

[Rosethorn40]

All the Carnival Corp companies - Princess included - have a policy that ALL cabins must be sold before a cruise begins. They do this successfully on nearly every sailing.

 

The average passenger cabin on every mass market cruise is sold 8 times before the actual occupant arrives.

If your ship has 1,200 cabins, they actually have to sell 9,600 cabins before every cruise begins.

Consider that the cruise lines are marketing to the entire world, those unsold cabins you mentioned could all be sold before you finish reading this post.

 

Do you mean that on a ship that has 1200 cabins, 8400 sets of PAX will book a particular cruise, only to cancel before final payment? I am not doubting your figures, I just find it amazing that so many will book a cruise, only to cancel at a later date.

[chengkp75]

Do you mean that on a ship that has 1200 cabins, 8400 sets of PAX will book a particular cruise, only to cancel before final payment? I am not doubting your figures, I just find it amazing that so many will book a cruise, only to cancel at a later date.

 

I think what Bruce is saying is that you book a cabin. You get an upgrade, so your original cabin goes back into inventory, and is sold to someone else, and so on.

 

I also think Bruce is talking about closed loop cruises as being maintained as full, as opposed to TA's or repos. These are looked at by the lines as mandatory (getting from one seasonal market to the next, or getting to drydock), and a fixed cost of doing shipping business. Filling the cabins with paying customers is just gravy. As others have said, the one way airfare for a repo is often a deciding factor against someone taking one. The lines will also frequently take cabins out of inventory on repos for contractors they are taking to the shipyard, or to start working on refurbishments, or to have the cabins available for refurbishing. Maybe they want to redo one of the main dining rooms, they would cut the number of guests down to allow them to only have one open, for example.

[Colo Cruiser]

Do you mean that on a ship that has 1200 cabins, 8400 sets of PAX will book a particular cruise, only to cancel before final payment? I am not doubting your figures, I just find it amazing that so many will book a cruise, only to cancel at a later date.

 

 

Giving away company secrets, oh the shame. :eek:

[avcruz]

Oh sorry Adrienne. You hadn't signed your real name in post #12 that I was indirectly responding to.

 

I mis-spoke previously we also booked an Obstructed OV rather than OV cabin. We are still unassigned on all three of our B2B's.

 

Out of curiosity since we booked the same cabin type. Did you book a long time ago? We only put this together in late December. Outside of the Final Payment date but not by much.

 

Did you get the assignment to a balcony in mid February when this sailing suddenly dropped from 60+ unassigned balcony and better rooms down to about 20?

 

With three B2B's and our first small ship cruise I am sort of hoping we get assigned to some different cabins even though moving is a bit of a pain. If we don't get moved up at all it would be nice to try a "Port Hole" cabin on three, one of the Obstructed OV's on 6 where the life boats are and maybe a regular OV room somewhere else on the ship. (Assuming we don't get a balcony for our 16th cruise!)

 

Terry

 

 

Here's how it went for us. I originally booked in early Sept, then my TA told me in Oct that the Obs OV cabin had dropped $100 per person if I didn't mind the deposit becoming non-refundable, I said go ahead, then later in Oct they upgraded us to a Premium OV cabin 6005. I declined it as it's too far forward for us and asked her to mark our reservation "Meta Upgrade only".

 

In Jan they dropped the price another $100 per person and added another $100 OBC which thrilled me, then in Feb we received our current assignment to a Cat BE balcony cabin, which thrilled me even more! I guess I shouldn't be greedy - I'm totally happy with what we got for the price we paid, but I still keep hoping some day for that elusive suite upgrade that I've heard about. :-)

 

Keep in mind, we're only on the last leg. I think they'll probably save the big upgrades for the B2B and B2B2B passengers.

I was on another cruise forum and the pundits there seemed to have done some research and say that the best upgrades happen within 20 days of departure. Given that you're on the April 1st departure, that should be soon for you. Keeping my fingers crossed for you...

 

 

 

 

 

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[AE_Collector]

Thanks for all the info Adrienne. You did book quite awhile before us then. Will see what happens, the April 1 sailing is quite full so not expecting anything more than we pad for. I am hoping they don't therefore think that we are unwilling to move during the three segments of the cruise and leave us in the same room! I wouldn't mind seeing some different rooms on the three portions of our trip.

 

Terry

Edited March 21, 2014 by AE_Collector

[avcruz]

Thanks for all the info Adrienne. You did book quite awhile before us then. Will see what happens, the April 1 sailing is quite full so not expecting anything more than we pad for. I am hoping they don't therefore think that we are unwilling to move during the three segments of the cruise and leave us in the same room! I wouldn't mind seeing some different rooms on the three portions of our trip.

 

Terry

 

We've done one B2B and booked the same cabin for both legs and marked it "no upgrade". It was a 14 day Trans-Atlantic followed by 12 day Med. Our turn-around port was Civitavecchia/Rome and as I'd never been before and given the distance & limited amount of time I was glad we didn't have to mess around changing cabins that day.

 

For these cruises, given that there's much more time in the ports on turn-around day and given that the locales are smaller & closer, I'd agree with you - I wouldn't mind being moved to try out different cabins- OV, Balcony, Mini-suite since I read on these boards that the cabins on the Pacific & Ocean Princesses are overall larger than other ships, eg: a standard OV cabin on the Pacific Princess is larger the same category cabin on the Crown, Ruby, et al.

 

Heck, as we speak there are still 4 full suites available for the HNL-YVR leg :)

[AE_Collector]

I think they'll probably save the big upgrades for the B2B and B2B2B passengers.

 

.....and say that the best upgrades happen within 20 days of departure. Given that you're on the April 1st departure, that should be soon for you. Keeping my fingers crossed for you...

 

It didn't work for us this time. Only six days before part 1 of our cruise we were assigned cabins for all three portions of the cruise today. We got exactly what we paid for, an Obstructed Ocean View. I suspect they thought we would value not having to move cabins throughout our trip and they do have us in one cabin start to finish.

 

Maybe I should have made more effort to have comments put on that we were willing to change cabins if upgraded for any single portion of the cruise. We are a little disappointed considering the number of better cabins that still show as empty so close to sailing date BUT, that's how booking Guarantees works.

 

We aren't on the ship yet though!

 

Terry

Edited March 27, 2014 by AE_Collector

[avcruz]

It didn't work for us this time. Only six days before part 1 of our cruise we were assigned cabins for all three portions of the cruise today. We got exactly what we paid for, an Obstructed Ocean View. I suspect they thought we would value not having to move cabins throughout our trip and they do have us in one cabin start to finish.

 

Maybe I should have made more effort to have comments put on that we were willing to change cabins if upgraded for any single portion of the cruise. We are a little disappointed considering the number of better cabins that still show as empty so close to sailing date BUT, that's how booking Guarantees works.

 

We aren't on the ship yet though!

 

Terry

 

 

Sorry to hear that Terry. But you never know, I've heard of people being upgraded at the pier. Hey, you're cruising the South Pacific, so it's all good!

 

 

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[AE_Collector]

We will be happy with our room, considering price, that is why we booked an obstructed and stretched the cruise out to three back to backs with what we saved.

 

We were upgraded from OV to balcony on the pier a couple of years ago and an obstructed OV to full ocean view last year. Best was an obstructed OV to a mini suite on a 17 day Panama Canal cruise.

 

Terry