El Cheapo Cruises Thread

[MicCanberra]

Nice one.

[amatuercruiser]

What price does a cruise have to be in Australian dollars to be considered a El Cheapo cruise deal ...deal!!!

 

From reading the last 3 pages of this Forum my feeling is $80 per night per person.

 

The Australian prices appear to be inclusive of Gratuities and all taxes and charges.

[SinbadThePorter]

1 hour ago, amatuercruiser said:

What price does a cruise have to be in Australian dollars to be considered a El Cheapo cruise deal

 

Everybody has their own opinion on this, but for me $80 pp for a Princess Inside cabin is not just El Cheapo, it's El Stealo.

 

To me El Cheapo for an Inside per day is:

$100 for Carnival and P&O Oz

$120 for Princess, HAL and RCI

$140 for Celebrity and Cunard

 

Of course, recent prices have blown all that out of the water. 😁

 

1 hour ago, amatuercruiser said:

The Australian prices appear to be inclusive of Gratuities and all taxes and charges.

 

Yes they are.

[amatuercruiser]

12 minutes ago, SinbadThePorter said:

 

Everybody has their own opinion on this, but for me $80 pp for a Princess Inside cabin is not just El Cheapo, it's El Stealo.

 

To me El Cheapo for an Inside per day is:

$100 for Carnival and P&O Oz

$120 for Princess, HAL and RCI

$140 for Celebrity and Cunard

 

Of course, recent prices have blown all that out of the water. 😁

 

 

Yes they are.

Thanks for the qualification.

 

My plan is to buy Carnival shares and get the shareholder OBC on any Carnival cruises i take.

 

HAL

P&O

Carnival

Princes

Costa

 

I plan to in the beginning of my cruise travels to just go on the cheapest next cruise irrespective of Cruise line until i have tried them all.

 

I heard MSC has been offering the best bare bones value for money cruises.

[Belmont Babe]

3 hours ago, amatuercruiser said:

Thanks for the qualification.

 

My plan is to buy Carnival shares and get the shareholder OBC on any Carnival cruises i take.

 

HAL

P&O

Carnival

Princes

Costa

 

I plan to in the beginning of my cruise travels to just go on the cheapest next cruise irrespective of Cruise line until i have tried them all.

 

I heard MSC has been offering the best bare bones value for money cruises.

 

With regard to buying shares in Carnival to get the shareholder OBC, keep in mind that the granting of this is renewed every year at the AGM of Carnival. It is not set in stone, and if Carnival takes a hit financially, as I think they will, it may be revoked.

[Kiwi Kruzer]

7 hours ago, amatuercruiser said:

Thanks for the qualification.

 

My plan is to buy Carnival shares and get the shareholder OBC on any Carnival cruises i take.

 

HAL

P&O

Carnival

Princes

Costa

 

I plan to in the beginning of my cruise travels to just go on the cheapest next cruise irrespective of Cruise line until i have tried them all.

 

I heard MSC has been offering the best bare bones value for money cruises.

Good luck.

The granting of the shareholder OBC does rely on Carnival making a profit , and if you book these real bargains you would do far better than any OBC  , without having to outlay thousands of dollars on shares that could plummet in value if ships have to be laid up ,or they are run at a loss .

 

 

[MicCanberra]

I agree, only buy them if you

A) can afford too, and

B) want to invest as a long term investment that provides a good yield each year as well as possibly providing the OBC perk.

That said, now is a fairly good time to buy them, the price has dropped to low $40s..

[queenslander]

I just booked on a Queen Elizabeth 6 day cruise to Tasmania. It was a nice surprise to get a Princess Grill suite to myself for only $1689! 

[The_Big_M]

5 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

I agree, only buy them if you

A) can afford too, and

B) want to invest as a long term investment that provides a good yield each year as well as possibly providing the OBC perk.

That said, now is a fairly good time to buy them, the price has dropped to low $40s..

 

Though keep in mind last downturn they fell to about $15.00 You could lose a lot more than you gain in OBC...

[MicCanberra]

3 minutes ago, The_Big_M said:

 

Though keep in mind last downturn they fell to about $15.00 You could lose a lot more than you gain in OBC...

Good point, although that all depends on when you sell.

[mum and son]

47 minutes ago, queenslander said:

I just booked on a Queen Elizabeth 6 day cruise to Tasmania. It was a nice surprise to get a Princess Grill suite to myself for only $1689! 

Congratulations! I've booked my parents on the same cruise but can't find any mention of a cabin number anywhere in their personaliser. I know it was only booked as a guarantee but I can't even see where cabin number is supposed to appear. Is it just on the Booking Summary page where the voyage details appear? There are so many broken links/images on the page that it's hard to follow. This is our first time dealing with Cunard.

[mum and son]

56 minutes ago, queenslander said:

 

Sorry, duplicate post...

Edited February 24, 2020 by mum and son

[amatuercruiser]

Do cruise ships or cruise ship travel agents do heavily discounted last minute cruise deals or is it a waist of time in that it just gets too rushed and complicated?

 

When is the cheapest time to get a bargain cruise. I really don't care where I go.

[LittleFish1976]

6 minutes ago, mum and son said:

Congratulations! I've booked my parents on the same cruise but can't find any mention of a cabin number anywhere in their personaliser. I know it was only booked as a guarantee but I can't even see where cabin number is supposed to appear. Is it just on the Booking Summary page where the voyage details appear? There are so many broken links/images on the page that it's hard to follow. This is our first time dealing with Cunard.

 

From my experience with the new VP, the cabin assignment will take some time - much closer to sailing - and then they will only be able to see it once their documents, and luggage tags are ready to be printed from the VP. The cabin number will be on their e-ticket and the luggage tags.

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by LittleFish1976

[MicCanberra]

2 minutes ago, amatuercruiser said:

Do cruise ships or cruise ship travel agents do heavily discounted last minute cruise deals or is it a waist of time in that it just gets too rushed and complicated?

 

When is the cheapest time to get a bargain cruise. I really don't care where I go.

The last few weeks prior to a cruise leaving, are generally when the best last minute sales come out.

[mum and son]

20 minutes ago, LittleFish1976 said:

 

From my experience with the new VP, the cabin assignment will take some time - much closer to sailing - and then they will only be able to see it once their documents, and luggage tags are ready to be printed from the VP. The cabin number will be on their e-ticket and the luggage tags.

 

Thanks for the info. I've seen a number of people who have received cabin assignments so I was just curious. The website is just very "broken". E.g. there are two buttons to choose bed configuration but no wording or diagrams to say what the options are. I guess they're just playing catch up with their website??

 

 

[LittleFish1976]

15 minutes ago, mum and son said:

Thanks for the info. I've seen a number of people who have received cabin assignments so I was just curious. The website is just very "broken". E.g. there are two buttons to choose bed configuration but no wording or diagrams to say what the options are. I guess they're just playing catch up with their website??

 

 

 

The new website has been in what could only be described as a parlous state since its inception, I'm afraid. In my experience, the buttons surrounding the 'bed configuration' (and almost everything else) do nothing. It'll all be okay when your folks get on the ship, though, which is the most important thing.

 

Similarly, where it asks you to put your insurance details in won't work. I rang them about this a few weeks ago and they said 'it's not working for us either; we know it doesn't work but it's okay, we don't have to have your insurance details anyway', so that's all okay. But don't waste your time struggling with it.

 

My advice would be, that if there is anything important that you need to add or alter and you can't do it on-line, wait a week or so and give them a call. Unless you have an hour to wait in which case you could call them now - they're still super busy with taking bookings for the last-minute changes to sailings as I discovered this morning

 

I'm on one of the Tassie cruises, also. I'm not expecting to see a cabin number or have any docs until about a week before sailing.

 

Your parents are lucky they have you to organise and help them1

[queenslander]

45 minutes ago, mum and son said:

Thanks for the info. I've seen a number of people who have received cabin assignments so I was just curious. The website is just very "broken". E.g. there are two buttons to choose bed configuration but no wording or diagrams to say what the options are. I guess they're just playing catch up with their website??

 

 

 

Yes - it's the first time on the Cunard website for me too and I agree that it's not working too well at the moment! I'm not expecting to find out the suite number until the last week when I print out the documents. 

[linanles]

9 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

Good point, although that all depends on when you sell.

Exactly. As with all shares, you've lost nothing when the price falls. You only lose money when you panic and sell when they are low. Hang on to them for the long term and the price will come back up. After all you are looking to purchase them to get the benefit of the onboard credit. As others have said the onboard credit is not guaranteed the benefit is renewed at the AGM along with Director's benefits and I don't think the Director's are going to give themselves benefits but take them away from shareholders. There would be a revolt if they did.

Now is a good time to buy while they are low.

 

[MicCanberra]

They are down to $38.50 today.

[ninjacat8]

18 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

 

From my experience with the new VP, the cabin assignment will take some time - much closer to sailing - and then they will only be able to see it once their documents, and luggage tags are ready to be printed from the VP. The cabin number will be on their e-ticket and the luggage tags.

 

Please what is VP

[MicCanberra]

Vice President.?

[RosieCanberra]

Voyage personaliser?

[ninjacat8]

Thank You

[The_Big_M]

6 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

They are down to $38.50 today.

A quick loss of about US$400 if you bought yesterday.