Do cruise ships ever sail near empty?

[Aplmac]

29 minutes ago, Cruzaholic41 said:

 

Why?  Most planes have a schedule to keep and flights lined up at other airports. If it has to fly anyways, why wouldn’t you fly on it?  

 

The individual's Biggest Carbon Footprint Of All Time

[MicCanberra]

Interesting position, refusing to fly due to carbon footprint is admirable but I bet the plane would still go and they would still take your money and you would still be in the airport waiting.

Once I have actually committed to flying (as opposed to other forms of transport), I want to be on that plane.

[sanger727]

They don’t cancel cruises due to low booking. Food is ordered, crew is on contract, any money from paying passengers is better than just letting the ship sit for a week. Cruises usually sail very close to full. With the listed exceptions that the cruise was fully booked but due to weather or transportation emergencies they had an unusually high number of people miss the sailing. Saw a documentary about NCL and how they aren’t profitable on a sailing by room sales, even for a sell out. They don’t become profitable until people are onboard spending money. This is why they will give away rooms to casino customers or drop prices at the last minute to fill the ship. Even a customer who gets a free room is better than leaving a room empty because they may spend onboard.

[MicCanberra]

Good points, .

[ilikeanswers]

Very intersting posts, thanks everyone🤗. To be honest I though the answer would be that they never ever run cruises at low capacity so it is really interesting that it does happen even if very rarely.

[MicCanberra]

Yes, normally extreme events for whatever reasons that may be.

[ontheweb]

On 9/9/2019 at 7:57 PM, Aplmac said:

 

The individual's Biggest Carbon Footprint Of All Time

Since the plane is probably needed at the next airport, it would still fly with only the crew. You would not add to the carbon footprint by being the only passenger.

[Drock20J]

I just did the Hurricane Shortened Harmony of the seas cruise. Only 1,000 Harmony Passengers were able to make the new sailing, so they added 2,000 passengers from a recently canceled Mariner cruise. All told, we had just over 3k passengers on a ship that holds well over 6k. This will be the most empty I will ever see on a cruise.

 

We never had to wait for anything, and we had amazing seats for every show, even when we showed up 5 minutes beforehand.

[ontheweb]

44 minutes ago, Drock20J said:

I just did the Hurricane Shortened Harmony of the seas cruise. Only 1,000 Harmony Passengers were able to make the new sailing, so they added 2,000 passengers from a recently canceled Mariner cruise. All told, we had just over 3k passengers on a ship that holds well over 6k. This will be the most empty I will ever see on a cruise.

 

We never had to wait for anything, and we had amazing seats for every show, even when we showed up 5 minutes beforehand.

We once had a cruise go 2 extra days because a hurricane kept the ship out of Fort Lauderdale. The next cruise on the ship was obviously 2 days short, and because of the destruction from the hurricane had different ports. From what I read afterwards, the next voyage had only one seating instead of early and late. (This was before any kind of anytime was being done.) So, it must have been half full or less.

 

I also remember speaking to one of the cruise ship people at the airport who was holding a Royal Caribbean sign and asking how many they expected for the following cruise. Her answer was that they had no idea.

 

[Drock20J]

2 hours ago, ontheweb said:

I also remember speaking to one of the cruise ship people at the airport who was holding a Royal Caribbean sign and asking how many they expected for the following cruise. Her answer was that they had no idea.

 

Yeah, no one knew on our ship until we actually left the port. I will say, I REALLY enjoyed being on a large ship with half the amount of people!