Singles/Fares

[calliopecruiser]

On 3/12/2023 at 2:08 PM, Cheddar Biscuit said:

So if you were shut out previously, and were not already on a wait-listed, you need to keep checking!

Thanks for the reminder - I got a single cabin for the December 2024 trip I'd been wait-listed for. 

[Liv4cruzin]

I realize these single cabins are not in the ideal location for most people. I personally like to feel the motion of the ocean; so forward deck seven appeals to me. I was just thinking back 8-10 years ago, when I was having a conversation with the south Florida DSM for CRYSTAL at a travel expo. I mentioned that I would be tickled pink if there were solo cabins on CRYSTAL ships. Her reply was, "that will never happen".   I don’t know whether I was more disappointed or offended. Obviously, they were having no problem with single bookings with the quite favorable supplement at that time.  I have received a couple of quotes for those cabins; and I am very pleased with the rates they’re offering. 

[Keith1010]

2 hours ago, Liv4cruzin said:

I realize these single cabins are not in the ideal location for most people. I personally like to feel the motion of the ocean; so forward deck seven appeals to me. I was just thinking back 8-10 years ago, when I was having a conversation with the south Florida DSM for CRYSTAL at a travel expo. I mentioned that I would be tickled pink if there were solo cabins on CRYSTAL ships. Her reply was, "that will never happen".   I don’t know whether I was more disappointed or offended. Obviously, they were having no problem with single bookings with the quite favorable supplement at that time.  I have received a couple of quotes for those cabins; and I am very pleased with the rates they’re offering. 

Becky, I am glad to hear that you have found rates that are appealing.  This is a reminder that the devil is in the detail when it comes to most things including the rates.  Good suggestion on your part several years ago about the solo rooms and while they don't have verandah's which I realize some prefer, over the years we know many singles who went on Deck 7 as did couples too.

 

As Ashley mentioned, I am glad to see you posting.

 

Best to you.

 

Keith 

[Stickman1990]

22 minutes ago, Cheddar Biscuit said:

Updated wait-list stats, but throwing you a bone and dispensing with the old tiresome graphics and counts.

 

These are the percentage of trips wait-listed in categories where there is a wait list:

 

Serenity: SGR 19.23%, DGRV 1.92%, AQMV 1.92%, CP jr 11.54% and CP 34.62%

 

Symphony: SGR 18.60% and CP 6.98%

 

And don't forget to spay or .... no wait ... totally unnecessary. But don't forget that Cruise Critic is changing over to log in by email address instead of member name. You may not see that warning because you always auto-login. They don't say when it will happen, but  it will happen.

Thanks for the great analysis - not too many wait lists it seems - nothing like a bit of hard data to crystallise thinking 

 

Here’s the notice on emails - it’s been out there for quite a while 

 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Stickman1990

[Keith1010]

13 hours ago, Cheddar Biscuit said:

Updated wait-list stats, but throwing you a bone and dispensing with the old tiresome graphics and counts.

 

These are the percentage of trips wait-listed in categories where there is a wait list:

 

Serenity: SGR 19.23%, DGRV 1.92%, AQMV 1.92%, CP jr 11.54% and CP 34.62%

 

Symphony: SGR 18.60% and CP 6.98%

 

And don't forget to spay or .... no wait ... totally unnecessary. But don't forget that Cruise Critic is changing over to log in by email address instead of member name. You may not see that warning because you always auto-login. They don't say when it will happen, but  it will happen.

 

How do you put this together?

 

Is this all voyages?

 

No sure what it means though.

 

It doesn't show what the overall occupancy is given that inventory is not on the web site.

 

And in the end, if you want to book a specific itinerary and your go to category is not available then that is something you care about or if you want a specific room.

 

For example, we just booked a cruise and the category we really wanted is wait listed. It doesn't alter to us if every other category has rooms.  

With that said, another category didn't show a waitlist but when our TA checked it was a guaranty and we do not want a guaranty.

 

And this changes dynamically as on the cruise we just booked I've been looking at it and one day it shows a category open and laster on waitlist. People book everyday. People cancel everyday.  

 

Do you run a program to figure this out or do it manually?

 

 

[May B]

Do you run a program for this or do it manually? I look forward to the answer to this 😉.

 

 

[Keith1010]

18 hours ago, Cheddar Biscuit said:

 

I am just a data retriever, posting on a message board, begging you for "likes."

 

I think the only reasonable conclusions someone can make from the stats, as I presented them here, are things we already knew intuitively. One, that demand relative to supply is much greater for the single cabins and for the top penthouses. And two, that demand for Serenity is much greater than for Symphony.

 

Starting yesterday, I am saving the stats in a spreadsheet. So next week, I can add a new column, and then each week thereafter, and see if there are any trends. But as I wrote previously, stats are mostly crap. Did anyone really think that, after starting 13-0, the Tampa Bay Rays were going to finish the season undefeated?

How long does it take you to do this?  Isn't it a manual process?

 

While your conclusions are interesting since all you are looking at is if a category is wait listed or not that doesn't mean that one ship has a higher occupancy percent than the other nor does it tell you how sales are going other than if the ship is sold our or not.

 

 

[History&Wine]

The problem with statistics....garbage in, garbage out.  Here we rely on the Crystal website for the input.  I don't think the website presents a true picture of the wait list.  Take a look at the world cruise.  Every category is listed as "request a quote" yet numerous segments show categories as wait listed. 

[Texas Tillie]

26 minutes ago, History&Wine said:

The problem with statistics....garbage in, garbage out.  Here we rely on the Crystal website for the input.  I don't think the website presents a true picture of the wait list.  Take a look at the world cruise.  Every category is listed as "request a quote" yet numerous segments show categories as wait listed. 

 

The situation with the World Cruise is not unusual. All cruise lines hold a certain number of cabins in all categories hoping that they will get more bookings for the full World Cruise. At a certain point they will release those cabins to be booked by segment.

 

Patty

[History&Wine]

2 hours ago, Texas Tillie said:

 

The situation with the World Cruise is not unusual. All cruise lines hold a certain number of cabins in all categories hoping that they will get more bookings for the full World Cruise. At a certain point they will release those cabins to be booked by segment.

 

Patty

While generally true, one can easily tell that the stats are somewhat skewed just by looking at the Crystal Penthouse Suite.  There are only four on the Serenity, and all segments of the world cruise are shown as wait listed, while the full world cruises are shown as request a quote.  I doubt Crystal is holding one of these. 

[Keith1010]

40 minutes ago, History&Wine said:

While generally true, one can easily tell that the stats are somewhat skewed just by looking at the Crystal Penthouse Suite.  There are only four on the Serenity, and all segments of the world cruise are shown as wait listed, while the full world cruises are shown as request a quote.  I doubt Crystal is holding one of these. 

What I do know for sure is traditionally on the World Cruise they won't sell the CP for individual segments until much closer to the start of the World Cruise in case someone wants to book the CP for the whole Cruise.  So they way they show that right now makes sense to me which is request a quote for the CP for the full but waitlist for a segment.  I know this because for the 2022 World Cruise we wanted to book a segment of the World Cruise and they did have a CP available as back then you could see the inventory but they wouldn't let us book it until much closer to the cruise. 

 

I still don't understand how anyone can draw any conclusions by all of this. Yes if someone wants to say x categories are waitlisted they can do that but just because other categories are not waitlisted doesn't mean that they are selling well or not selling well. The only inference one can make is on the same cruise from day to day a category goes from request a quote to wait list back to request a quote which could mean only one room available in that category. I am actually looking at one of the cruises where that happens. Other than all or most categories being wait listed since you can't see inventory it really tells nothing IMHO.

However, if it makes someone happy to do this great for them but it really doesn't provide much in the way of how the cruises are selling.

 

Keith

[May B]

3 hours ago, Cheddar Biscuit said:

In my post #119, I mentioned two things we knew intuitively, but I should add a third, which is that demand is higher for world cruises than for all cruises in general. A fourth is that demand is higher for holiday cruises.

 

And as flawed as the statistics I can observe are, they all four of those intuitive points are validated.

 

This probably explains why demand relative to supply for Serenity is greater than Symphony. On Monday, just for grins, I'll leave out all the segments of the world cruise, test only, and see if they are now about the same.

 

CB, I don’t understand how “this probably explains” about Serenity vs Symphony. Which part explains it? I feel like I must be missing something obvious.

 

 

[Keith1010]

8 minutes ago, Cheddar Biscuit said:

 

FYI, today I noticed that the Crystal Penthouses on the world cruise web pages now reflect wait-list status.

 

Miami to Miami:

https://crystalcruises.com/cruises/none-cse-013-240105

 

 

 

 

Not sure how often you look but the CP on the World Cruise has shown a wait list for I believe two weeks. Maybe more.

 

[History&Wine]

The CP just recently became wait listed for the world cruise.  Just check my post number 128 and Keith's post 129 just a week ago. 

[History&Wine]

As I look at pricing, I find it striking the small difference between a room on deck seven on Serenity and a Veranda room.  Ten day cruise, only $200 more per person for the Veranda room.  
 

It seems to me that the deck seven rooms are either overpriced relative to Veranda rooms, or that Veranda rooms are underpriced relative to those on deck seven.   

[bitob]

37 minutes ago, Cheddar Biscuit said:

 

As with old Crystal, I think all the up to 215 square feet cabins are a good deal to get to cruise on a luxury line.

 

What I don't understand now is paying for a larger suite on new Crystal at a price that could get you into a beautifully designed new cabin on a beautiful new ship like RSSC's three new ships!

 

But that's just me. To each his own.

 

Agree wholeheartedly

[History&Wine]

1 hour ago, Cheddar Biscuit said:

 

As with old Crystal, I think all the up to 215 square feet cabins are a good deal to get to cruise on a luxury line.

 

What I don't understand now is paying for a larger suite on new Crystal at a price that could get you into a beautifully designed new cabin on a beautiful new ship like RSSC's three new ships!

 

But that's just me. To each his own.

 

I agree with CB.  The price really jumps from the Veranda rooms to the suites. 

[Roland4]

1 hour ago, Cheddar Biscuit said:

What I don't understand now is paying for a larger suite on new Crystal at a price that could get you into a beautifully designed new cabin on a beautiful new ship like RSSC's three new ships!

 

Admittely we will not sail on NC until they have many cruises "under their belt", but I will offer some thoughts on this.

 

Since September we have sailed on Seaborne Quest, Regent Splendor and Silver Moon, all in PH rooms. Our last three cruises on OC, including the 2020 World Cruise, were in a PS Suite. Yes, the others were "on a beautiful ship", but we found the rooms to be cookie-cutter, poorly laid out and a little uncomfortable when compared to the PS on OC. We are also not a fan of the "rooms to the front/everything else to the back" ship design. We much prefer the "traditional" layout of the Crystal ships, but each to their own!!

[bitob]

5 hours ago, Roland4 said:

Admittely we will not sail on NC until they have many cruises "under their belt", but I will offer some thoughts on this.

 

Since September we have sailed on Seaborne Quest, Regent Splendor and Silver Moon, all in PH rooms. Our last three cruises on OC, including the 2020 World Cruise, were in a PS Suite. Yes, the others were "on a beautiful ship", but we found the rooms to be cookie-cutter, poorly laid out and a little uncomfortable when compared to the PS on OC. We are also not a fan of the "rooms to the front/everything else to the back" ship design. We much prefer the "traditional" layout of the Crystal ships, but each to their own!!

We have sailed the same lines but in the larger suites. Eg splendor suite, silver suite etc which are not the top top suites and equivalent to a tiny phs on oc (which we always booked). We found the phs anything but comfortable. Couldn’t  even dine in room comfortably. We laughed that we would trip over one another 

 

The suites we booked on regent  and silversea were anything but cookie cutter.  We keep rebooking them. Large and comfy 

 

the layout of the ship irrelevant to us

we prefer the large choice of dining options offered on many of the newer ships 

[Keith1010]

My experience is that people have different reasons for why they book a cruise line and they how they value it.

 

If this was as simple as make your decision solely on the suite then it would be a no brainer. Find the cruises across all luxury lines and take price divided by days to get the per diem price and go with whomever has the lowest price.

 

Thankfully, all cruise lines are not created equally and they each have one or more things they excel in.

 

I keep coming back to the fact that the only opinion that matters is our own and laugh when some people seem to think that others should have the same opinion and values.

 

In our case, we sailed another luxury line twice and had large accommodations than we would find for a similar category on old Crystal Cruises.  While some people like that cruise line we were never more bored on that line than the second of the two cruises.  

 

Also if one is solely driven by price it makes the decision easy.

 

For us I've never been able to do an apples to apples comparison because there are so many variables in terms of what is included in the pricing and how we value and what our opinion is of each of them. Most of  it is truly subjective.

 

The same goes for other things such as automobiles and hotels but I can provide a very long list of other items where this holds true.

 

Our favorite line is Crystal but I don't have to try to convince anyone else who values other lines to like it as much as I do. I am just glad enough people feel the same way as I do and that is reflected in many people who have said they have booked with new Crystal.  I see this often on various social platforms.

 

Keith

 

 

[Keith1010]

On 4/27/2023 at 6:54 PM, Cheddar Biscuit said:

 

As with old Crystal, I think all the up to 215 square feet cabins are a good deal to get to cruise on a luxury line.

 

What I don't understand now is paying for a larger suite on new Crystal at a price that could get you into a beautifully designed new cabin on a beautiful new ship like RSSC's three new ships!

 

But that's just me. To each his own.

 

To each his (her too) own is key.

 

I suppose if all one cares about is the size of the room they would simply go with the lowest price.

 

But often people book cruises for one, more than one, or several reasons so for those people (I am one of them) there are many other factors to consider when choosing the line. (enrichment, entertainment, other activities, food, public areas, outdoor and indoor activities, service levels, size of the ship, and the list goes on and on.)

 

If it came down to just the size of the room I suspect there would be far less cruise lines in business.

 

Choice is good.

 

Keith

[tryber]

On 4/28/2023 at 1:24 AM, Keith1010 said:

My experience is that people have different reasons for why they book a cruise line and they how they value it.

 

If this was as simple as make your decision solely on the suite then it would be a no brainer. Find the cruises across all luxury lines and take price divided by days to get the per diem price and go with whomever has the lowest price.

 

Thankfully, all cruise lines are not created equally and they each have one or more things they excel in.

 

I keep coming back to the fact that the only opinion that matters is our own and laugh when some people seem to think that others should have the same opinion and values.

 

In our case, we sailed another luxury line twice and had large accommodations than we would find for a similar category on old Crystal Cruises.  While some people like that cruise line we were never more bored on that line than the second of the two cruises.  

 

Also if one is solely driven by price it makes the decision easy.

 

For us I've never been able to do an apples to apples comparison because there are so many variables in terms of what is included in the pricing and how we value and what our opinion is of each of them. Most of  it is truly subjective.

 

The same goes for other things such as automobiles and hotels but I can provide a very long list of other items where this holds true.

 

Our favorite line is Crystal but I don't have to try to convince anyone else who values other lines to like it as much as I do. I am just glad enough people feel the same way as I do and that is reflected in many people who have said they have booked with new Crystal.  I see this often on various social platforms.

 

Keith

 

 

 

I completely agree.  We went on our first Seabourne cruise last year and the only thing we preferred over our prior Crystal cruises was the cabin (the TK Grill and the caviar parties on deck were also pretty nice). The food, common areas, shows and lectures are more important to us than the cabin size.  I also realized that the ability to walk around the entire ship is really important to me; I saw no advantage to the smaller Seabourne ship size.  And if you want more cabin space, the Aquamarine room gives the option of having a cabin similarly sized for not much more than the regular Seabourne verandah room.  

 

We have booked a 2024 cruise on Crystal, even though we have a significant credit on Seabourne (my wife got Covid halfway through the cruise, so we have half a cruise credit).   We don't have any credits on Crystal, as we got full refunds for our cancelled Crystal cruises.  We are taking a chance that the things we loved about the old Crystal will remain, but I am hopeful.  

 

As for getting a bigger cabin on the bigger cruise lines, that's just not an option for us.  We tried it, and did not like it at all.  We would go back to Seabourne over that option.   

 

 

[bitob]

Cabin size is one element. Not the only element. But if I can get a large suite and everything else I want then size matters. Silversea and regent give me the great cabin along with great food service entertainment and enrichment. I can have it all 

[Keith1010]

Like all things everyone know what is important to them and which cruise lines deliver that. If everyone felt the same as everyone else about other cruise lines there would be far fewer ones in the industry and the same goes for all products sold. But that is not the case as we all know from reading Cruise Critic. One person thinks a cruise line is great and another does not. One thinks food is great on a cruise line and another says no way.

 

Keith

[May B]

3 hours ago, Keith1010 said:

Like all things everyone know what is important to them and which cruise lines deliver that. If everyone felt the same as everyone else about other cruise lines there would be far fewer ones in the industry and the same goes for all products sold. But that is not the case as we all know from reading Cruise Critic. One person thinks a cruise line is great and another does not. One thinks food is great on a cruise line and another says no way.

 

Keith

This reminds me of the Blind Men and the Elephant.

 

Actually, we also know every once in a while there’s a one-off on a cruise line we usually love. Frustrating, but not the end of the world, thankfully. Sometimes even worth laughing about … later, anyway.