Ships capacity

[tommy]

What are the current capacity ships are sailing with.

TOM&DEB

[Miaminice]

They are pemitted to sail with around 50%. Currently it sounds like some are sailing with less than 30%.
Apex had 344 passengers on one of the last sailings.

[tommy]

Wow we were on Edge in July on a b2b and had around 1300 passengers  each week.

TOM

[wrk2cruise]

I think it varies.  I believe the US departures have had the highest capacities.  On the 7/3 Edge cruise we had 1660 people which is in excess of 50%.   Suites have been almost always booked 100% even on sailings with very low occupancy.   I don't think in the US the capacity is limited by the cruise lines and they will increase them when they have the bookings and feel they can do it without causing damage to the business.

[Jeremiah1212]

There is no strict capacity limit. They have closed certain cabin categories and closed a handful of sailings early due to bookings exceeding 50% but there are a few Edge and Equinox cruises in the near future booked around the 60% mark. As far as I know they have not limited Retreat booking because lets be honest...that's where the money is. 

 

Bookings for the holidays, particularly around Thanksgiving, are apparently at near 80% right now. Of course that could change substantially with late cancelations. I posted a few days ago, but I've yet to hear of anyone on any sailing being asked to move sail dates to accommodate capacity limits. What you're seeing now is mostly just the natural low demand for these cruises. 

[TeeRick]

@tommy Assuming you are asking about Celebrity ships.  US departure?  Or Europe?  Or UK?  The US ships have been at 50-60% generally.  Not sure if/when that gets increased.

[taylortime05]

9 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

There is no strict capacity limit. They have closed certain cabin categories and closed a handful of sailings early due to bookings exceeding 50% but there are a few Edge and Equinox cruises in the near future booked around the 60% mark. As far as I know they have not limited Retreat booking because lets be honest...that's where the money is. 

 

Bookings for the holidays, particularly around Thanksgiving, are apparently at near 80% right now. Of course that could change substantially with late cancelations. I posted a few days ago, but I've yet to hear of anyone on any sailing being asked to move sail dates to accommodate capacity limits. What you're seeing now is mostly just the natural low demand for these cruises. 

We're on the 9/17 Equinox.  Do you know what it's booked at?  

[Jeremiah1212]

21 minutes ago, taylortime05 said:

We're on the 9/17 Equinox.  Do you know what it's booked at?  

 

They have not been releasing the figures except informally on a few of the first sailings. What is being reported here is coming from what people have heard onboard. 

[CruisinBanka]

We are currently on the Edge for first leg of a B2B. Cruise Director told us there are 1,083 passengers and no children under the age of 12 on this 8/28 sailing. There are no unvaccinated passengers. She said it was a first for them. Concierge has told us that the Suites are fully booked. Next week’s 9/4 sailing they are expecting less passengers. 

[Esprit]

Capacity on our August Silhouette sailing wasn't just limited for Covid safety. Crew numbers were down so it was  not possible to have a full ship even if the demand was there. 

[FLCruiser97]

1 hour ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

There is no strict capacity limit. They have closed certain cabin categories and closed a handful of sailings early due to bookings exceeding 50% but there are a few Edge and Equinox cruises in the near future booked around the 60% mark. As far as I know they have not limited Retreat booking because lets be honest...that's where the money is. 

 

Bookings for the holidays, particularly around Thanksgiving, are apparently at near 80% right now. Of course that could change substantially with late cancelations. I posted a few days ago, but I've yet to hear of anyone on any sailing being asked to move sail dates to accommodate capacity limits. What you're seeing now is mostly just the natural low demand for these cruises. 

We have a Thanksgiving cruise on Millie and when I went to check in online the only available time was 3pm. This was only a day after check in opened. I check everyday to see if it can be changed. So maybe they are sailing at higher capacity.

[Jeremiah1212]

Just now, FLCruiser97 said:

We have a Thanksgiving cruise on Millie and when I went to check in online the only available time was 3pm. This was only a day after check in opened. I check everyday to see if it can be changed. So maybe they are sailing at higher capacity.

 

That's apparently an issue with check-in. Many people have reported the same thing but then going back in and getting earlier times closer to the sail date. 

[FLCruiser97]

Just now, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

That's apparently an issue with check-in. Many people have reported the same thing but then going back in and getting earlier times closer to the sail date. 

Thanks for that info. I'll definately keep checking.

[Ipeeinthepools]

4 hours ago, wrk2cruise said:

I think it varies.  I believe the US departures have had the highest capacities.  On the 7/3 Edge cruise we had 1660 people which is in excess of 50%.   Suites have been almost always booked 100% even on sailings with very low occupancy.   I don't think in the US the capacity is limited by the cruise lines and they will increase them when they have the bookings and feel they can do it without causing damage to the business.

 

I think you're correct, passenger loads are currently limited by passenger desire to cruise.   I'm not sure that I see this increasing significantly anytime soon.  It's going to be interesting in a few months when many ships return to the Caribbean if they continue to sail more ships at 30 - 40% capacity or if they delay returning some ships to service and ship passengers to the ships currently operating. 

[Jeremiah1212]

10 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

I think you're correct, passenger loads are currently limited by passenger desire to cruise.   I'm not sure that I see this increasing significantly anytime soon.  It's going to be interesting in a few months when many ships return to the Caribbean if they continue to sail more ships at 30 - 40% capacity or if they delay returning some ships to service and ship passengers to the ships currently operating. 

 

In barely 2 months time they go from 2 ships in the Caribbean to 8. I know the message relayed so far is all things are a go, but that just seems extreme under the current circumstances. I hope they can fill all those ships to have successful cruises, but......

 

Last I heard Edge would need 300ish more crew to be fully staffed. Not sure about Equinox, but there is no way they are staffed for cruises at close to 100% capacity either. 

[canderson]

31 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

Not sure about Equinox, but there is no way they are staffed for cruises at close to 100% capacity either. 

Apart from what you can glean from the webinars, I would think you would have pretty good insight into open cabin count, even if that doesn't represent for any reason of capacity control (due to COVID or staffing issues) actual available inventory.  Or am I overestimating the quality of that crystal ball?  You have a different perspective available vs we without your nifty tools!

[hotzej]

3 hours ago, CruisinBanka said:

We are currently on the Edge for first leg of a B2B. Cruise Director told us there are 1,083 passengers and no children under the age of 12 on this 8/28 sailing. There are no unvaccinated passengers. She said it was a first for them. Concierge has told us that the Suites are fully booked. Next week’s 9/4 sailing they are expecting less passengers. 

We are on the 9/4 sailing.  Would you please tell us who the Cruise Director is.  Sounds like we will almost have the ship to ourselves.

Bill/Jane

[D C]

7 hours ago, Miaminice said:

They are pemitted to sail with around 50%. Currently it sounds like some are sailing with less than 30%.
Apex had 344 passengers on one of the last sailings.

Permitted by what authority?

 

My November Reflection is about 55% rooms booked right now.

My DS's Oct Equinox looks to be more full than that based on low room availability. 

[Ipeeinthepools]

3 hours ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

In barely 2 months time they go from 2 ships in the Caribbean to 8. I know the message relayed so far is all things are a go, but that just seems extreme under the current circumstances. I hope they can fill all those ships to have successful cruises, but......

 

Last I heard Edge would need 300ish more crew to be fully staffed. Not sure about Equinox, but there is no way they are staffed for cruises at close to 100% capacity either. 

 

We sailed on the Equinox last week and we were told that they were staffed at about 40%.  After talking to several staff members, I got the impression that they were operating at a very lean staffing levels.  Initially Celebrity wasn't letting the crew off the ships in ports because they are trying to protect the crew from contracting Covid.  Most of the crew hasn't left the  ship in months.  The crew has embraced these restrictions because they understand the impact if any crew does get sick.  Toward the end of our cruise they allowed 30 crew members to lave the ship on bubble shore excursions because there were openings.  It wasn't clear how often they would provide this opportunity for the crew.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Ipeeinthepools

[Ipeeinthepools]

55 minutes ago, D C said:

Permitted by what authority?

 

My November Reflection is about 55% rooms booked right now.

My DS's Oct Equinox looks to be more full than that based on low room availability. 

 

The crew on the Equinox all have single rooms at this time.  Much of deck 6 is allocated for crew quarters.  The corridor of rooms next to Guest Services was blocked off during the last cruise.  I'm not sure if this was for crew quarters or it was being reserved as to be part of a quarantine area.  I think it's difficult to determine actual passenger load based on room availability shown on-line.

 

For your Reflection cruise I wonder how much of that 55% is reserved for crew or medical facilities. 

 

Another observation was that it seemed like there were a lot of the people on casino comped cruises.  I'm not sure how much that helps in returning the ships to profitability.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Ipeeinthepools

[CruisinBanka]

2 hours ago, hotzej said:

We are on the 9/4 sailing.  Would you please tell us who the Cruise Director is.  Sounds like we will almost have the ship to ourselves.

Bill/Jane

Lauren Vaitkus is Cruise Director. Ship feels pretty empty now and will probably be 20% less next week. I’m thinking about 900 passengers. You will love the ship and service attention! 

[cangelmd]

8 hours ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

There is no strict capacity limit. They have closed certain cabin categories and closed a handful of sailings early due to bookings exceeding 50% but there are a few Edge and Equinox cruises in the near future booked around the 60% mark. As far as I know they have not limited Retreat booking because lets be honest...that's where the money is. 

 

Bookings for the holidays, particularly around Thanksgiving, are apparently at near 80% right now. Of course that could change substantially with late cancelations. I posted a few days ago, but I've yet to hear of anyone on any sailing being asked to move sail dates to accommodate capacity limits. What you're seeing now is mostly just the natural low demand for these cruises. 

Out of curiosity, Jeremiah, what was typical for August cruises before Covid. We’ve sailed a couple of times in August, and then this past Aug 1 at about 45% capacity. Ship was rarely “crowded” and often seemed empty.

[cangelmd]

1 hour ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

We sailed on the Equinox last week and we were told that they were staffed at about 40%.  After talking to several staff members, I got the impression that they were operating at a very lean staffing levels.  Initially Celebrity wasn't letting the crew off the ships in ports because they are trying to protect the crew from contracting Covid.  Most of the crew hasn't left the  ship in months.  The crew has embraced these restrictions because they understand the impact if any crew does get sick.  Toward the end of our cruise they allowed 30 crew members to lave the ship on bubble shore excursions because there were openings.  It wasn't clear how often they would provide this opportunity for the crew.

We spoke at length with the Retreat concierges, they said independently that there was no shore leave for 2 months, but did not say exactly what would happen then. I don’t think they were considering joining an excursion as shore leave, they meant being able to go shop and contact family. They also said that crew was given internet time on board, so they could contact their families.

 

 

 

of shore leave 

[wrk2cruise]

We've sailed Equinox first week in Sept multiple years and the ship has been pretty full.  They would price aggressively to fill the empty berths.   I don't think we will be seeing any softening of prices for some time now.

[Ipeeinthepools]

2 minutes ago, cangelmd said:

We spoke at length with the Retreat concierges, they said independently that there was no shore leave for 2 months, but did not say exactly what would happen then. I don’t think they were considering joining an excursion as shore leave, they meant being able to go shop and contact family. They also said that crew was given internet time on board, so they could contact their families.

 

 

 

of shore leave 

 

Last week I spoke to the bartender in the Sky Lounge and he was heading off to the beach on an excursion.