best app for monitoring cruise prices? (drops for sure)

[njsonja]

If anyone has an app that does this instead of me monitoring it manually every day or my TA doing it every day, please lmk.  Many thanks in advance.

 

Sonja

[Hlitner]

Terrific question.  While there are some excellent web sites/data bases owned/operated by a few major cruise agencies, we have never seen an App that does a competent job monitoring cruise line price cuts.  And the reality is that "price cuts" have become very complicated and usually involve more than simple price cuts.  We are in a ear of "smoke and mirrors" promotions.  So just consider a cruise line that has a "Sale" that includes various amenities (tips, drinks, etc) at a certain price.  A week later then end the promotion and offer a major drop in the price of the cruise, but while you are paying less, you are also getting a lot less.  

 

One of our favorite cruise agencies has a booking engine where one can look at a specific cruise and actually see multiple deals (all on the same cruise) at different prices.  Even that data base may not show all the options.  

 

To further complicate things, the cruise lines will often over value their perks and use that value as part of the price.  So, for example, you might have a cruise line that "includes" a drink package that is valued at $130 per person/day!  Very few cruisers will ever spend $130 a day on drinks over an entire cruise.  We think that the valuation of drink packages has become the biggest "con" in the cruise world.  Several years ago when all these drink packages started becoming the new norm, I went back and looked at more than a dozen of our prior cruises to find out just how much DW and I spent on drinks (we like adult beverages).  I discovered that our average was about $70 per day (total for the two of us) which was much less than I had expected.  Why?  We took advantage of Happy Hours, free drink perks (because of our status), and the amount spent on drinks during long port days was actually pretty minimal.   The cruise lines also did their own research, and for a while would not sell drink packages on Transatlantic cruises (because they knew that passengers would drink a lot more on all those sea days).

 

So, before even designing a data base to track price drops one would first need to clarify what constitutes a price drop.

 

Hank

[njsonja]

4 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Terrific question.  While there are some excellent web sites/data bases owned/operated by a few major cruise agencies, we have never seen an App that does a competent job monitoring cruise line price cuts.  And the reality is that "price cuts" have become very complicated and usually involve more than simple price cuts.  We are in a ear of "smoke and mirrors" promotions.  So just consider a cruise line that has a "Sale" that includes various amenities (tips, drinks, etc) at a certain price.  A week later then end the promotion and offer a major drop in the price of the cruise, but while you are paying less, you are also getting a lot less.  

 

One of our favorite cruise agencies has a booking engine where one can look at a specific cruise and actually see multiple deals (all on the same cruise) at different prices.  Even that data base may not show all the options.  

 

To further complicate things, the cruise lines will often over value their perks and use that value as part of the price.  So, for example, you might have a cruise line that "includes" a drink package that is valued at $130 per person/day!  Very few cruisers will ever spend $130 a day on drinks over an entire cruise.  We think that the valuation of drink packages has become the biggest "con" in the cruise world.  Several years ago when all these drink packages started becoming the new norm, I went back and looked at more than a dozen of our prior cruises to find out just how much DW and I spent on drinks (we like adult beverages).  I discovered that our average was about $70 per day (total for the two of us) which was much less than I had expected.  Why?  We took advantage of Happy Hours, free drink perks (because of our status), and the amount spent on drinks during long port days was actually pretty minimal.   The cruise lines also did their own research, and for a while would not sell drink packages on Transatlantic cruises (because they knew that passengers would drink a lot more on all those sea days).

 

So, before even designing a data base to track price drops one would first need to clarify what constitutes a price drop.

 

Hank

@Hlitner can you possibly share that or email me?  my email is petdaycare@  aol   .  Many thanks...