Where to determine if cruise is selling well?

[giltedge]

:):DI am booked on the 28 day Panama Canal cruise in November out of San Diego. What website can I look at to determine how sold out this cruise is?

[califgary]

one way is to go the the HAL website and pretend to book a cabin on your cruise and see how many categories are still available. Kind of labor intensive but it would give you an idea as to how many cabins are still available by category.

[Cruzman]

:):DI am booked on the 28 day Panama Canal cruise in November out of San Diego. What website can I look at to determine how sold out this cruise is?

 

Such information is not available to the public.

[Randyk47]

Good luck with that. A few years ago a former CC'er really tried to find a reliable and accurate way to determine the status of sales on a cruise. About the same time the travel agencies started only listing a few, like five or so, cabins in any given category. It became obvious that HAL and the most probably the agencies withheld the actual number of cabins available so gathering information from several different suppliers, including HAL by the way, was pretty fruitless. You can venture any guess you wish for that though my take is that they want to create demand and limiting the visible supply is one way to do that.

[peaches from georgia]

Is there are reason to know or care if you are already booked?

[happyglobetrotter]

Is there are reason to know or care if you are already booked?

 

 

When you booked a cabin on guarantee, it makes a big difference...

 

More chances to be upgraded on a ship that is not full !:D

[fann1sh]

Everyone replied while I was still typing!

 

The websites I check for this information are all online travel agencies. But CruiseCritic doesn't allow us to "name names" for travel agencies - against board rules.

 

So...I could tell you, but then we'd both have our hands slapped. With enough hand slaps, you get thrown off CC.

 

However, as already pointed out, there's really nowhere you can check and find out for certain how close the ship is to "sold out". Proprietary info, very closely guarded.

 

If you go to HAL's own website, you can query for each and every cabin, one by one, and see if they're booked. However given the slow speed of the HAL site, when you're done your ship will already have sailed!

 

I visited an online travel agency, and checked a bunch of categories for you. Statendam November 28, right? For some inside categories, they're only selling guarantees. Many oceanview and balcony cabins are still wide open though.

 

Another problem with "guessing" how full a ship is by online cabins available is people just like you, holding guarantees, are completely invisible. I've seen a ship go from apparently half full to sold out, overnight.

[giltedge]

Thanks for all the input. I do have a guarantee cabin and was just curious how well this cruise was selling.

[Jemima]

When you booked a cabin on guarantee, it makes a big difference...

 

More chances to be upgraded on a ship that is not full !:D

 

Not sure that is true. We always book guarantees and have not found that to be so. Ships typically sail either full or with very few empty cabins. We've also been on sailings where it looks like there are lots of unsold cabins, but the ship sails full.

[luvcruisn']

I find that with the online agencies, for categories having the most unsold cabins the agencies will list 6 actual cabin numbers and a guarantee in that category. There is no way to tell how many guarantees will be sold. As the cabins with numbers attached sell out, there are fewer actual cabin numbers showing as available, until only the guarantees are left. At some point, the guarantees vanish also in that category and you won't see the category listed, or it will be much more expensive. However, right after final payment date, which can vary depending on HAL's date and the online agencies' date, more cabins in categories may open up again.

[mythica]

I also always thought you can see how many rooms are available using the Holland America website...

But I just recently booked a cruise through Holland America over the phone and got a room that was not listed on the website. I then realized there are other rooms available other than the ones listed.

[bob brown]

I have played this 'game' for the past few years, and I can tell you this for certain....bookings this year are way up compared to last two years.

The last two years, I have seen price drops several times after final payment date, the last of which was just two weeks prior to sailing.

This year, the prices have actually risen a couple of times after final payment date, or maybe even sold out.

So that is one way to see how full the partcular cruise may be.

[dond3131]

Such information is not available to the public.

 

There is a public site that not only tells you how much of the ship is sold out but how much the cabin prices are fluctuating and what the current price is.Not allowed to give sites on here but think of what this board is about and put something that swims on the end of it and you will find your site.

[happy cruzer]

I usually judge by the prices. Going up, well booked. Going down, needs more bookings.

 

There are some great HAL deals out of Fort Lauderdale for the fall. Eurodam especially. I'm guessing those are really not selling well.

[Randyk47]

There is a public site that not only tells you how much of the ship is sold out but how much the cabin prices are fluctuating and what the current price is.Not allowed to give sites on here but think of what this board is about and put something that swims on the end of it and you will find your site.

 

Actually that site, by its own admission, is no more aware of availability than we are. In fact, they say that only the cruise lines themselves have this information and they don't share it with travel agents or agencies. Of course it doesn't help that they don't track HAL.

 

As to sales being higher this year than last....well, that may be true but not locally for the biggest agency in San Antonio. Their cruise sales are down 30% plus or minus and they're concerned over all the recent talk of the second cycle of recession. This is a bit surprising as this area has weathered the downturn rather well but we're not a boom or bust kind of economy here, never smoking hot nor freezing cold since the biggest industries here are tourism and the military. A good friend who is one of their leading agents, we do not book through her she's just a friend, says that they've been visited more by the regional cruise lines reps this past few months than since after the 9/11 cruise crash. She and I were chatting at dinner just Friday about this and I was remarking I hadn't seen much change in far future prices (i.e., next winter and summer) but had received some pretty substantial offers for near term fall and early winter cruises with sailing dates through December. She said that was their experience and the cruise line reps were pushing mostly cruises with sailing dates in the next 120-180 days.

[bob brown]

Okay, maybe not all cruise markets are up. But the two that I booked or tried to book, Alaska and New England/Canada, especially the latter since I waited too long and missed out on a deal, are up.

[IRL_Joanie]

There is a public site that not only tells you how much of the ship is sold out but how much the cabin prices are fluctuating and what the current price is.Not allowed to give sites on here but think of what this board is about and put something that swims on the end of it and you will find your site.

 

I found the site, Thank You! But, unfortunately, they do not have HAL as one of their monitored cruise lines:(...Heck, I'd even be willing t pay their $1.00 for their unlimited oitoring... Oh Well, good site to bookmark, if I ever go on one of their 5 monitored lines...

Joanie

[Randyk47]

Okay, maybe not all cruise markets are up. But the two that I booked or tried to book, Alaska and New England/Canada, especially the latter since I waited too long and missed out on a deal, are up.

 

It's so hard to tell. I'd imagine, even in a down economy, there are still prized itineraries that attract a lot of interest. I'm in the watch-the-fare mode with our booked cruise which is still seven months off. It hasn't move up or down since I booked it but that was only five or six weeks ago. Naturally I'd be thrilled if it went down but I'm not wishing for a second recession just so I can save a few bucks on a cruise. :)

[califgary]

I just checked that website and my upcoming Mex Riv cruise has incorrect pricing and it says it updated prices a couple days ago so not sure how accurate that site is anyway.

[petlover]

Interesting discussion here....curious if Spring Transatlantic cruises normally sell out ? I know some people can't handle so many sea days while others love them.

 

Your experiences ???

[BruceMuzz]

Interesting discussion here....curious if Spring Transatlantic cruises normally sell out ? I know some people can't handle so many sea days while others love them.

 

Your experiences ???

 

Transatlantic repositioning cruises rarely sell out, despite heavy discounting.

But don't get your hopes too high for an easy upgrade on one.

Cruise lines regularly close down several blocks of cabins for spring cleaning on the TAs.

[Jemima]

Transatlantic repositioning cruises rarely sell out, despite heavy discounting.

But don't get your hopes too high for an easy upgrade on one.

Cruise lines regularly close down several blocks of cabins for spring cleaning on the TAs.

 

Is this transats in general or HAL transats? I've done two eastbound HAL transatlantics and both times the ship seemed full. One was an April Tampa to Venice and the other a July New York to Copenhagen.

Actually only one of my thirteen HAL cruises has sailed with noticeably empty cabins - that was a 2006 Fort Lauderdale to Montreal on the Maasdam and they added some passengers at other ports.