I Thought Celebrity's Changes Were Driven By Changing Demographics - Not True

[RDC1]

6 hours ago, Wiltonian said:

 

But the raw population figures ignore:

1. The time which people have to spend on cruising and other vacations. My impression is that vacation time for people in employment in the US is worse than in the UK and the rest of Europe, so they'll fill 7 day Caribbean cruises with millennials, but not the longer ones.

2. The disposable income of the different generations. Certainly in the UK, the baby-boomers have retired much earlier and with much better pensions than their children can expect.

 

Stuart

The storage on Edge and in the mock ups of cabin remodels on older ships are certainly limited and would seem to work for 7 day or shorter, but less practical for longer cruises.  Celebrity tends to have fewer longer cruises than Princess and HAL.

Edited January 8, 2019 by RDC1

[Stateroom_Sailor]

3 hours ago, TeeRick said:

We speak about Millennials, Gen-X'rs, Baby Boomers, etc as if these entire age classes of multi-millions of people each act with one mind set and all want the same thing.  We as a society love to put ourselves in certain classes but it pretty much means next to nothing as individuals make their own choices with their own preferences.

 

Absolutely, but multibillion-dollar industries follow trends, or at least sub-groups within, to develop a successful niche.  That's why you wouldn't want to develop a cruise line with 50's party food, Charlie Chaplin silent film marathons, mixed with giant ball pits and fog machines in the atrium.  Any individual from any generation could love the concept, but it won't work as a whole.

[RDC1]

From the designs it appears that Celebrity is moving even more to an adults only focus.  While children are not banned, the cabins are certainly not set up for more than 2 per cabin.  Clearly the holding company is making it clear with ship designs that Royal Caribbean is for families, Celebrity is for adults. 

 

 

Keep in mind that there is a lot of churn in the cruise industry.

 

33% of the US population has cruised atleast once

Each year about 4% of the population cruise of which 2.5% have cruised before

 

Now during that year 38% of cruisers are new to cruising (not just to a given line but new to cruising) and 62% are repeats.

If you apply that to the 33% population that has cruised that means that people that have cruised average 1 cruise every 13.2 years.  Now clearly many cruise multiple times so that means that there is a pretty high percentage of people that cruise 1 time and then never again. Have not been able to find any published statistics for the 1 and done folks but the percentage is pretty high. So there is room not only for attracting the never cruised segment, but also to try and attract back the 1 and done crowd (a more difficult task)

[americandream]

Oops quoted the wrong response...

Edited January 9, 2019 by americandream

[americandream]

On 1/8/2019 at 2:46 AM, villauk said:

Why cares about Millionials?  What about ME, my generation, you know Gen Xer's, what about us?  After Boomers die off, we will be the top earners!  Why does nobody ever care about us?  F' millionals, we the true X, should matter: we have more money than their generation will ever have, we have class, and respect for past societal norms.  Why not build ships for us??

 

Amen! I couldn’t have said it better!

[hcat]

How about no "pigeon holers" , demographic projections,   and bean counters..Just a cruise line dedicated to great ships,  food, wine, music, gym, spa, lounges/ bars---some quiet , some party  and  a nice socially/ age  diverse  program.?  Upscale and classy...but more casual most days/ nights.

 

Oh wait, Celebrity has done that over the years,..but for some reason  management now thinks that's not good enough.  Royalizing X   or worse, may   ruin a great thing!

[ABoatNerd]

1 hour ago, hcat said:

How about no "pigeon holers" , demographic projections,   and bean counters..Just a cruise line dedicated to great ships,  food, wine, music, gym, spa, lounges/ bars---some quiet , some party  and  a nice socially/ age  diverse  program.?  Upscale and classy...but more casual most days/ nights.

 

Oh wait, Celebrity has done that over the years,..but for some reason  management now thinks that's not good enough.  Royalizing X   or worse, may   ruin a great thing!

 

HCAT, precisely said.

 

Celebrity used to be a high standard mass cruise line that was distinctly higher in quality than HAL, Princess.

I called it urban class way back in the 1990's. Upper middle class as it were. A tad more sophisticated than HAL, Princess. Remember the marketing slogan "Simply The Best". It was clear though you were on a ship.

 

Then the cheapening started in 2012 or so to the point that fake creamer was served on my breakfast trays.

 

Now Celebrity is a more adult version of RCL and designed to sail right into Vegas and park on the strip. Since Vegas is popular I guess the new Celebrity will be. It is also clear that being a ship in practice is not a priority.

 

What I see is this from viewing the many boards on CC - HAL and Princess are on a rush to the bottom in terms of product quality (food decline on Princess is a recent focus). This creates an opening for Celebrity to return to the former position of top of the mass lines.

 

Oceania just announced new builds. They are obviously looking to take guests from Celebrity, HAL, Princess. They are already successful in this as my Oceania cruise in Oct 2018 had an amazing number of former Celebrity patrons who had moved up to acquire what Celebrity used to provide.

 

But lurking along side this is increased concern about the decline in product quality combined with price increases. Also the effort to travel is more complex than before. Add in costs, currency concerns, Brexit, stock market and other pressures, it is unknown yet what will happen to the cruising industry.

 

Cruising is an expensive industry so making a mistake has big consequences.

[bkbarrym]

Agree that Celebrity carved out a niche. We are Boomers and appreciate the balanced cruise experience that X has provided and X has been our go to cruise line. We are now Elite members and appreciate the perks that come along with it further cementing our loyalty. However we are concerned with the changes coming throughout the line. We are retired with a fixed income and annual (reasonable) travel budget. We will never be able to afford a suite and it would also be a stretch to move to Oceania or Azamara. We would also prefer not to step back to Princess or RCL. We fear that we may get lost in the shuffle or may have to cut back on the frequency of our cruising.

 

I hope that management is not relying to heavily on "book smarts" vs. "street smarts" in their analysis and decision making. Time will tell whether this is a brilliant marketing strategy or epic fail.

[RDC1]

4 hours ago, ABoatNerd said:

 

HCAT, precisely said.

 

Celebrity used to be a high standard mass cruise line that was distinctly higher in quality than HAL, Princess.

I called it urban class way back in the 1990's. Upper middle class as it were. A tad more sophisticated than HAL, Princess. Remember the marketing slogan "Simply The Best". It was clear though you were on a ship.

 

Then the cheapening started in 2012 or so to the point that fake creamer was served on my breakfast trays.

 

Now Celebrity is a more adult version of RCL and designed to sail right into Vegas and park on the strip. Since Vegas is popular I guess the new Celebrity will be. It is also clear that being a ship in practice is not a priority.

 

What I see is this from viewing the many boards on CC - HAL and Princess are on a rush to the bottom in terms of product quality (food decline on Princess is a recent focus). This creates an opening for Celebrity to return to the former position of top of the mass lines.

 

Oceania just announced new builds. They are obviously looking to take guests from Celebrity, HAL, Princess. They are already successful in this as my Oceania cruise in Oct 2018 had an amazing number of former Celebrity patrons who had moved up to acquire what Celebrity used to provide.

 

But lurking along side this is increased concern about the decline in product quality combined with price increases. Also the effort to travel is more complex than before. Add in costs, currency concerns, Brexit, stock market and other pressures, it is unknown yet what will happen to the cruising industry.

 

Cruising is an expensive industry so making a mistake has big consequences.

I sail on Royal, Celebrity, Princess and Hal and have sailed on all fairly recently (HAL and Princess within the past 6 months, Royal and Celebrity within the past 18 months) Food quality seemed pretty much the same in the MDRs.  Celebrity seems to positioning itself as a more adult version of Royal, but with fairly similar food quality.  Selection on Royal a bit reduced compared to the others, but quality pretty similar.

 

If I was really searching for a difference it would be that the Princess menu is pretty much the same anywhere in the world.  Celebrity will sometimes have a few local dishes, such as kangaroo on their Australia to New Zealand cruises.

 

Cannot comment about the Suite dining, only the MDRs.

Edited January 9, 2019 by RDC1

[kwokpot]

On 1/8/2019 at 1:29 PM, RDC1 said:

The storage on Edge and in the mock ups of cabin remodels on older ships are certainly limited and would seem to work for 7 day or shorter, but less practical for longer cruises.  Celebrity tends to have fewer longer cruises than Princess and HAL.

I would have to disagree. Storage in an IV on the Edge is MORE than a veranda cabin on a M or S- Class ship. Have you sailed on the Edge? I have and also on a Veranda on both M & S Class ships, so I know what I'm talking about.

[CruisinRoxy]

Wait........(baby boomers) were dying off????    Wait, that's ME and DH!   Nobody told me anything about dying off yet! We're  60 something and love to cruise, hopefully a long time.  My kids are Millenials and they love to cruise, too!  We can all be happy! But I do find my kids are more interested lately in the Air BNB trend, bless their hearts!

 

 

[hcat]

3 hours ago, kwokpot said:

I would have to disagree. Storage in an IV on the Edge is MORE than a veranda cabin on a M or S- Class ship. Have you sailed on the Edge? I have and also on a Veranda on both M & S Class ships, so I know what I'm talking about.

We,ll be on  in a few weeks so Ill let you know how it works for us.. No jackets and ties ,  but we do change into nicer  clothes each evening..esp chic night

 

 

Seems workable for 7 days....but when we do our 9 nighter in Nov..we may have to pare back.

 

Bathroom looks very good space abd storage wise..