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Advertising Overload


cinnamon
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We’re sailing on Spirit of Discovery next month. I reckon over the last 3 months we must have received at least 12 copies of the current small brochures, promoting the new ships. We’ve never travelled with Saga before but they’ve obviously got our names on several lists. 

Now this morning, listening to a commercial radio station (unusual for me) I’ve heard Len Goodman’s (not so dulcet) tones promoting the. Boutique cruising on Discovery. 

I understand that Saga need to reach new markets to fill the new bigger ships but they must be spending a fortune on advertising. No wonder the prices for next year are much higher than we’ve paid for this year. 

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In spite of several Saga cruises (I think we are 'silver' in their Club) we never get anything through the post, I am pleased to say.  I had to ask for next year's brochure a while ago.

I suppose it is because we have already cruised regularly recently that they do not need to try to persuade us to cruise.

 

I think many lines are having a slightly rough time at present filling their ships;  there have been some very special offers recently on Seabourn.  At present Saga now need to fill quite a few more cabins than they did a year ago, and it will be even more next year.  Discovery does not seem to be full - I think a recent Captain's blog mentioned something under 900 on board, although this could be to not trying to cope with too many until the crew are used to the new ship?

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3 hours ago, lincslady said:

In spite of several Saga cruises (I think we are 'silver' in their Club) we never get anything through the post, I am pleased to say.  I had to ask for next year's brochure a while ago.

I suppose it is because we have already cruised regularly recently that they do not need to try to persuade us to cruise.

 

I think many lines are having a slightly rough time at present filling their ships;  there have been some very special offers recently on Seabourn.  At present Saga now need to fill quite a few more cabins than they did a year ago, and it will be even more next year.  Discovery does not seem to be full - I think a recent Captain's blog mentioned something under 900 on board, although this could be to not trying to cope with too many until the crew are used to the new ship?

There could be something in your theory about being a previous customer: I'm the lead name on our bookings and I don't get any sales blurb from Saga at all, and only an A5-ish flyer from Cunard every couple of months. My wife is the one who made the initial contacts with both lines and she gets printed stuff from Saga at a minimum of every other week plus a regular stream of emails from Cunard. At least it reduces the chances of something important going straight to the recycling bin.

 

As for passenger numbers, I would have thought that Saga would have tried to retain as many crew as possible from Pearl II and rotate crew in from Sapphire in order to minimise the number of 'green' crew on board. Given the constant stream of marketing stuff, plus follow-up 'did you forget something?' emails if I do dummy bookings to see how many cabins are still available on my cruise, I'd be surprised if Saga are deliberately under-selling the first season.

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Yes, Kentchris, I too feel pretty sure that Saga are trying to fill the new ship;  I was quite surprised to read that she was far from full on one of the recent cruises.  Also, there is lots of availability on some of the Sapphire cruises coming up, and some quite large discounts. One (I think to the Med in November, which is probably not appealing to most) is coming up at just over £125 a day, all inclusive, in the cheapest cabins, which strikes me as good value if you wanted to do it, and suggests that maybe sales are flagging at present.

 

Could it be the Brexit factor?  I think we are all completely fed up with wondering what is going to happen and almost looking forward to the end of the year to see what has happened!

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