over the top prices on rci

[jcc1025]

We were on two RCCL ships this year and both were full. If you don't like the price you can always sail with someone else. Why complain, just go somewhere else's?

 

 

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[tinkertwo]

I find it amusing every time I read a post about how high the prices are at RCCL. You want to talk over priced? We have been sailing DCL for the past dozen years. Now their prices are out of wack, compared to them RCCL is a bargain!

 

I'm sailing 2 weeks soon on the Oasis for less than the cost of 1 week on the Fantasy. Long story short.....I think RCCL is very reasonably priced.

JMO and just JMO.

[SPacificbound]

well well well wondered when the people who can afford these silly price would stick up for rci you think they where paid by them to post these things

 

Wow, seriously? :rolleyes:

[KiwiGal117]

I recently found the receipts for our 2003 honeymoon cruise on Legend of the Seas. Avg per person/per night cost on Harmony cruise this past summer was only 20% more for the same cabin type. Any mathematicians out there who can tell us the average annual price increase? I'm thinking it is in line with the cost of living.

 

 

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[TonyL128]

The Harmony is commanding high prices because it is brand new. On average, fares on Harmony is 20% more than Oasis/Allure for the same category cabin.

 

I know because I'm going to be sailing all three ship this year and I've been watching prices.

 

 

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Edited January 29, 2017 by TonyL128

[JAMESCC]

I've noticed that NCL prices are way up also. I noticed they shot up pretty high a few weeks ago and remain. RCI prices are also i agree, but kinda bumpy up and down. When we booked Anthem to Canada/NE oh probably 3 months ago it was $3700 for two adults and one child in a D2 cabin. I noticed a month ago prices dropped and thus I requested a price drop and it went down to $3300, but a few weeks later and I still see its $3900, actually almost 4 grand. I was surprised by all of this.

[Merion_Mom]

Yup, Saturn was no haggling (not really true if you had a trade-in).

 

Problem is most consumers look for the word "sale" and go bonkers. Has anyone ever bought something full price from a place like Bealls or Kohls? Problem is once a place started down the all "sale" all the time path they can never go back.

 

I hate the gimmicks like many on here. But the many on here are the minority when it comes to attracting bookings. Setting a higher price gives the illusion of a better product, then better value once the "sale" is factored in.

 

Back to the Bealls and Khols example, just wait untill they start offering "Royal Bucks"...

 

Added: Just thought about it. They do in the form of OBC when that promotion runs...

 

Sent from a mobile device

 

Now you have my brain churning.

 

I will actually leave Kohl's if I forget to bring my 30% off coupon with me. (sometimes they offer to do it without the coupon, to keep me from leaving. ;) )

 

Better example: "Everyone" uses the 20% coupons at Bed, Bath and Beyond. It's definitely built into the prices. If you return something without a receipt, they automatically only refund 80% of the price.

 

Yes, we are psychologically primed to react to the word "sale". :D

Edited January 29, 2017 by Merion_Mom

[zdad59]

Did you see RCL's 4Q16 earnings press release this week?? Earnings increased by 25% and they expect their 5th consecutive year of double digit earnings growth in 2017. The DAY of their report the value of their stock rose over 9%.

 

From a business perspective they are doing something right. We continue to cruise with them and find them a fair value and well run.

[rkkunk]

We did 3 Disney cruises, one each year 2012, 2013, and 2014. The first 2 were VGT ( basically balcony guarantee) rooms and the last one was booked 2 years out.

We were fortunate and got great prices. But I will tell you that we can sail in a GS on Allure for about the same as a regular balcony room on Disney now. Needless to say, we don't sail Disney any longer!

 

 

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[mainmast]

thanks for all your replies happy cruising

[vacationlover_mn]

There are half empty ships??!!! Please tell me which they are, so I can book one! Would love to be on an uncrowded ship so I can easily get an awesome lounger in the sun without much effort! ;)

 

 

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[setexenv]

You get what you pay for or what you want. The cruising market is extremely competitive. About 21 of my 24 cruises have been on Royal Caribbean. It's very hard for me to find competitive prices on other lines now, obviously because of my Diamond Plus status/discounts. BUT, I remember comparing Carnival to RCCL years ago and couldn't find a Carnival cruise on same date for same itinerary out of the same port for a lower price. Years have passed, so maybe that data point is irrelevant now, but you always have the option of booking with someone else. We really like RCCL, we once sailed on NCL (Jewel) out of N.O. because they ran a sale on a penthouse suite if you booked more than 9 months out and we did. Didn't much care for that cruise. Seemed inferior to RCCL to us. May have been an outlier/one off thing. We have our first Carnival cruise coming up 3/12/17, Fascination out of San Juan, because it was a freebie from a land-based casino. So everyone knows how this works. Prices go up and down based on supply and demand. We feel comfortable sailing on RCCL and Holland America, but often compare prices. I was just on the phone w/ HAL yesterday. We have never received an upgrade on RCCL so that mean they sail booked and I can see how they manage to do that. I got a special cruise rate flyer in the mail from Holland america Friday and called them w/in hours. All those cabins were now filled. I have heard that Disney Cruises are expensive but I've also heard they are really good cruises. Never heard anyone say Disney is gouging them or start focusing on their bottom line/profit margin in a cruise forum. Don't like RCCL, don't book with them.

 

 

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[irun5k]

Unless someone has done a statical sampling of all sailings over time and plotted the data, all this is just merely anecdotal noise.

 

I'll add my anecdotal bit to the noise, we just got a better deal on the Oasis this year than we did in 2011. I was shopping around a bit, e.g. CCL Vista, NWC Escape... neither were significantly different in price.

 

My observation is that they've certainly ramped up the "perpetual sale" thing, and I think there is no doubt about the onboard revenue.... but as far as whether the actual base cruise fare paid is dramatically increased over past years or significantly more other cruise lines... well, show me the data!

[BNBR]

RCI built the biggest and best ships - they are able to charge a premium for it. Just like Disney can charge a premium for their "Disney experience."

 

I know people who don't want to sail on anything but Oasis class. We booked Harmony this year... I'll sail on smaller, but prefer not to.

[wilmingtech]

Our 1st cruise on RCI was in February of 2015. It was purchased in October of 2014. It was a 7 day Eastern Carrib on the Freedom of the Seas. Inclusive of taxes and fees it was 5400.00 for 6 of us in a Family Oceanview. Averaged to 900.00pp

 

Our 2nd Cruise on RCI will be in March on 2017. It was purchased in June 2016. Its an 8 day Eastern Carrib on Freedom of the Seas. Inclusive of taxes and fees it was 3700.00 for 6 of us in a Family Oceanview. That averages out to 617.00pp. If you remove the taxes of 107.00pp, it ends up being ~509.00 pp as the cruise fare for this cruise or ~64.00 per person per day.

 

I'd say for us RCI is very comparable to other lines. We weighed this cruise against an NCL Epic cruise out of Port Canaveral and for that 7 day cruise it was about 100$ more overall than the Freedom.

 

As others have said above, you need to figure out the total cost of the cruise that you want to take (Inclusive of taxes) compare with other lines (lots of resources online for this) and watch the prices like a hawk. Don't pay attention to the sales, discount's, reduced pricing.. etc. Just the total cost of the cruise. That's the only comparable number. What you pay out of pocket.

 

On our Freedom cruise we were also able to catch a sale just right and it saved us an additional 200$ from the initial quote. It also helps us if we purchase early and are flexible in our travel dates.

 

Don't complain about the prices, be a smart shopper. You'll find a deal if you keep your eyes open.

 

-Sean

[imlulu]

You don't have to book with RCL. The decision is up to the buyer. :) I'm not sold on any cruise line. It depends on what I'm looking for and what I'm willing to pay for that experience. Our upcoming cruise was chosen because we wanted to try Oasis class. We had specific dates and know we always want a balcony. Allure fit the bill with a great price for 3. We can't wait and hope it lives up to the hype. :)

[Biker19]

Unless someone has done a statical sampling of all sailings over time and plotted the data, all this is just merely anecdotal noise.

 

... well, show me the data!

 

Do you believe the fish site?

 

 

[bcarney]

Do you believe the fish site?

 

 

 

What the heck happened in 2014 to cause that Suite price spike?

[Biker19]

What the heck happened in 2014 to cause that Suite price spike?

 

I assume it was a software glitch at the fish site, not a reflection of prices.

Edited January 30, 2017 by Biker19

[Coralc]

As others have said above, you need to figure out the total cost of the cruise that you want to take (Inclusive of taxes) compare with other lines (lots of resources online for this) and watch the prices like a hawk. Don't pay attention to the sales, discount's, reduced pricing.. etc. Just the total cost of the cruise. That's the only comparable number. What you pay out of pocket.

-Sean

 

Exactly! The sales make it difficult to compare costs, but it really comes down to the bottom line. We took advantage of a special rate for an upcoming cruise and we lost our $300 OBC. We didn't care, we saved $500 out of pocket. I can make my own onboard credit. :)

[irun5k]

Do you believe the fish site?

 

 

 

 

I can't seem to bring up their site right now to read about how they do their data collection but I'm assuming they're just web scraping RCCL's web site and recording the results. If so the results ought to be OK for establishing general trends such as in that chart.

 

From the chart it is interesting that the different stateroom types usually all move together on price (although it looks like there are a few exceptions, which are interesting as well.)

[MrYellowDuck]

RCL is very cheap for us. Two in a row we've got a GS for much less than the equivalent on the other lines we use; thousands cheaper even after the upsell needed to get acceptable food.

[hackwid]

When Oasis moved to Port Canaveral their prices also went down. So consider when you did Oasis and leaving from which Port.

 

Unless someone has done a statical sampling of all sailings over time and plotted the data, all this is just merely anecdotal noise.

 

I'll add my anecdotal bit to the noise, we just got a better deal on the Oasis this year than we did in 2011. I was shopping around a bit, e.g. CCL Vista, NWC Escape... neither were significantly different in price.

 

My observation is that they've certainly ramped up the "perpetual sale" thing, and I think there is no doubt about the onboard revenue.... but as far as whether the actual base cruise fare paid is dramatically increased over past years or significantly more other cruise lines... well, show me the data!

[Robo1098]

I have cruises booked on Carnival Vista and MSC Seaside and they are really not much cheaper than I paid on Harmony. I expected the Carnival cruise to be cheaper but in the end, not so much. These are all new ships so there is a premium but none are cheap. Also the MSC bogo sale is just as bad as RCI.

[graphicguy]

I think the point of diminishing returns may be on the horizon for cruise lines like RCCL. Used to love their ships, especially the larger ones (Allure, Anthem, Liberty, etc).

 

While I'm a sample size of 1 (OK, 2 with my cabin mate), it became clear RCCL was pushing up prices for the same experience a few years ago. It got to the point I started price shopping, which I had never done before. Usually, I picked the itinerary and the ship, in that order, with price coming in 3rd. Once I started shopping around, I found a lot of new experiences...NCL, first with their solo cabins and then in the Haven. They got rid of their President, and the new guy started raising prices and cutting amenities. Started looking again. Went on tried and true Carnival. Say what you will about them, but their cruises are consistently good, and pricing reasonable.

 

That lead me to MSC. Talk about putting the kaboom on service and cruise experience. I can sail in their Yacht Club private area with Butler and Concierge, private restaurant and lounge, as well as private pool, for about what it costs for a superior balcony on RCCL. They have their Divina only here (out of Miami). But, the ship is absolutely gorgeous, food outstanding and service the equal of any I've experienced.

 

Not begrudging RCCL. But, eventually they're going to want to attract new customers. The competition is too fierce, MSC is just one example.

 

With all of the above on par with RCCL (and in at least one case, superior), their pricing will be unsustainable as their "loyal Royals' inevitably begin to fall away.

 

NCL has a similar problem....raising prices will pulling back on services and amenities. That is not sustainable for very long.