Will cost of Cruises rise or Fall in Future?

[Trevor33]

Is it likely that we will see the cost of cruising rise or fall in the future? Do you think that there will be lots of bargain fares due to lots of ships sailing with empty cabins? Will the break from cruising mean that passengers rush to fill the capacity? Will the variety of ports be open? Some cruise ships remain in an area - if these ports are not open then I assume they will have to move on somewhere else.

[oskidunker]

It will be supply and demand. Unless they raise prices on ships that go out half full.They built the huge ships, now they have to live with it. 

[majortom10]

Initially fall but long term will rise when confidence is back at full strength.

[Trevor33]

Yes good point. Cunard has a 4th Queen in a year or so and is a larger ship compared to current Queens - I think the extra capacity is about 3500 or so. do you think with all the new ships(Iona P&O etc) will have to drop their prices?

[Bigmike911]

3 hours ago, Trevor33 said:

Yes good point. Cunard has a 4th Queen in a year or so and is a larger ship compared to current Queens - I think the extra capacity is about 3500 or so. do you think with all the new ships(Iona P&O etc) will have to drop their prices?

To restart the cruising business, they will have to offer lower prices, along with fewer amenities for a while. I would imagine they will mothball or sell older ships and those with higher capacity just to get travelers back with out taking on bigger operating losses.

[Chunky2219]

Even once CV-19 is no longer a threat because we've all either had it or been vaccinated, the global financial damage will have been deep, substantial and long lasting.  It's going to shake out a lot of problems that were festering in the shadows. The sunny uplands will be a long time coming back and there will be far fewer people up for a cruise.

 

It's an industry heavily dependant on covering the cost of fuel, food, maintenance and labour.  Expect lots of multi-ship operators to just park up a proportion of their ships and milk what ever they have left on the sea for as much revenue and profit as possible.  I can't see that it will lead to lower prices; those who want and can afford to cruise will likely pay more for the pleasure.

 

Our next booking is way out in October 2021.  The price is fixed, excursions are included as is booze, but I expect to get comprehensively goosed on flights. Hopefuly I might claw a bit back on hotels.  Of course, Regent might park  Seven Seas Explorer up, in which case I guess we'll be having a new kitchen.

.

[Trevor33]

The Cruise Critic Survey(Currently 4,551 replies when posting) suggests over 10% will cruise more in the future to support the industry with 65% suggesting they will continue to cruise exactly the same as before. Over 16% say they will cruise less while nearly 8% say that they will not cruise again. Whilst over 10% say they will cruise even more, will the 16.66% that will cruise less and the current 7.91% that will stop cruising mean that prices will be likely to fall any time soon? Do people think that there will be some bargains to be had or will people be cautious?

[Wordzz]

Impossible to guess, of course, but assuming things return to some kind of normality in due course, I for one hope there won't be a rush to the bottom, with bargain basement prices and service levels to match. That would be more likely to stop me cruising....

In the meantime, we are staying booked on our Jan 2021 cruise on QV.

[Trevor33]

"Small World" as they say we are booked on the Queen Victoria 108 World cruise in January 2021. We are not sure though whether it will sail as intended - that is to all the current ports listed on the circumnavigation. I do agree that we do not want to see anymore lowering of service as a result.

[Colin_Cameron]

I'd guess that anyone facing increased costs and reducing their prices is probably going to be offering a product that I could do without.

[Host Hattie]

I've merged your similar threads @Trevor33

[Guest SilverHengroen]

Any fare reduction will be meticulously planned and managed, I wouldn't expect real rock bottom rates just because cruise lines are desperate to fill half empty ships - they will likely only re-activate as many ships as they can fill profitably. 

[Windsurfboy]

The interest on Carnivals $6 billion loan at 12% is $60 million a month.

 

Carnival has 75 ships, if you say 2000 cabins per ship and 4 weeks per month, the cost of this is $100 per cabin week as an additional cost . This must eventually push prices up if cruise lines are to remain viable.

 

In the short-term prices may go down to get people cruising again, supply and demand . But in long-term prices will go up

[navybankerteacher]

I suspect that initially prices will drop.  A number of older ships are likely to be sold by mainstream operators (NCL, RCCI, and CCL) to raise needed funds (or possibly as part of bankruptcy reorganization/liquidation) and go into service with start-up bargain lines - sort of Freddy Laker kind of operations, or perhaps Chinese entities seeking to grab their likely growing share. Of course those are likely to be pretty grim - but there has already been a  trend in the industry towards dumbing down the cruise experience to attract the millions of new customers needed to fill the ever growing number of bunks.

 

There will probably be a several-year period during which things shake out - ultimately resulting in two distinct approaches:  a relatively inexpensive bare-bones service using mega-ships for the millions, and a small ship, premium service, “expedition” oriented sort for people willing to pay for quality.

 

It is also likely that many of the more interesting ports will not allow the large ships to call at all.

[Trevor33]

8 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

I've merged your similar threads @Trevor33

Yes absolutely, many thanks. There are quite a lot of Topics on the front page that have not been accessed for quite a long time. Great idea let's keep the front page "fresh" as it saves searching through later pages and potentially makes it more interesting for people if the topics change more often.

[Chunky2219]

There's an old saying  - if you owe the bank £100, that's your problem, if you owe them 6 billion, that's their problem.  There will be more "financial restucturing" than you can shake a stick at.

 

I don't buy the idea that people will cruise more to support the industry, certainly not based on a small proportion of a survey population that would barely fill one of the larger ships. 

 

Once this all shakes out there will be lots of people who are counting the pennies and won't be spending big on holidays for quite some time, the folks still taking multiple cruises a year will be thinner on the ground.

 

I don't buy the budget basement, ultra no-frills idea either.  People have become accustomed to whatever standard of voyage they have experienced and will be unwilling to go backward, even if prices are lower.  Just look at how many people still mourn the good old days of silver service on QE2.  You can only sail a ship from A to B at a certain minimum price because fuel is such a major component. 

 

The Chinese buying up lots of ships (at a bargain price) would be an obvious answer in normal times, but these times are no longer normal, whatever that was.  A world in lockdown will devastate the Chinese economy just the same as it will in the west and that burgeoning middle class is going to evaporate.

 

 

 

 

[Trevor33]

3 minutes ago, Chunky2219 said:

There's an old saying  - if you owe the bank £100, that's your problem, if you owe them 6 billion, that's their problem.  There will be more "financial restucturing" than you can shake a stick at.

 

I don't buy the idea that people will cruise more to support the industry, certainly not based on a small proportion of a survey population that would barely fill one of the larger ships. 

 

Once this all shakes out there will be lots of people who are counting the pennies and won't be spending big on holidays for quite some time, the folks still taking multiple cruises a year will be thinner on the ground.

 

I don't buy the budget basement, ultra no-frills idea either.  People have become accustomed to whatever standard of voyage they have experienced and will be unwilling to go backward, even if prices are lower.  Just look at how many people still mourn the good old days of silver service on QE2.  You can only sail a ship from A to B at a certain minimum price because fuel is such a major component. 

 

The Chinese buying up lots of ships (at a bargain price) would be an obvious answer in normal times, but these times are no longer normal, whatever that was.  A world in lockdown will devastate the Chinese economy just the same as it will in the west and that burgeoning middle class is going to evaporate.

 

 

 

 

Excellent , agree with you totally. Silver Service yes I can remember that no that was a service that suddenly vanished

[Guest SilverHengroen]

6 minutes ago, Chunky2219 said:

There's an old saying  - if you owe the bank £100, that's your problem, if you owe them 6 billion, that's their problem.  There will be more "financial restucturing" than you can shake a stick at.

 

I don't buy the idea that people will cruise more to support the industry, certainly not based on a small proportion of a survey population that would barely fill one of the larger ships. 

 

Once this all shakes out there will be lots of people who are counting the pennies and won't be spending big on holidays for quite some time, the folks still taking multiple cruises a year will be thinner on the ground.

 

I don't buy the budget basement, ultra no-frills idea either.  People have become accustomed to whatever standard of voyage they have experienced and will be unwilling to go backward, even if prices are lower.  Just look at how many people still mourn the good old days of silver service on QE2.  You can only sail a ship from A to B at a certain minimum price because fuel is such a major component. 

 

The Chinese buying up lots of ships (at a bargain price) would be an obvious answer in normal times, but these times are no longer normal, whatever that was.  A world in lockdown will devastate the Chinese economy just the same as it will in the west and that burgeoning middle class is going to evaporate.

 

 

 

 

It's going to be one heck of a 3D jigsaw puzzle in the aftermath of this. I genuinely wonder if they won't end up cancelling all future bookings for a clean slate? The reason being they probably won't want to run half-full ships on a pre-crisis itinerary, they will want to put the ships they can fill back into service, carefully managing available berths and prices, and mothball, sell, or scrap any that are surplus with little hope of having a role again any time soon. 

[VK3DQ]

Hi

 

Cruising is closed ..at least in the foreseeable future  there are just too many forces arrayed against a restart of operations in the near future .. no cruising as we knew it is finished there will be many changes needed 

 

regards

John

[VK3DQ]

For Cunard a transatlantic service using all three ships might happen but ships would need to be British flagged meaning no cheap labour crew from third world countries , so prices will not be cheap

 

 

And there will be health checks at both ends the USA might start to insist that cruise ships making closed loops from the USA be confined to USA registered ships .... imagine that 

 

 

Regards

John

[Trevor33]

Hopefully all will be bit clearer very soon. Cunard have removed all cruises on their website up until August 2020. 

[lissie]

Part of the issue is how much are airfares  going to be to get to a  cruise? That's part of the equation for us - and I'm watching with a lot of interest to see how airlines manage it 

[PORT ROYAL]

On 4/8/2020 at 11:50 AM, Trevor33 said:

"Small World" as they say we are booked on the Queen Victoria 108 World cruise in January 2021. We are not sure though whether it will sail as intended - that is to all the current ports listed on the circumnavigation. I do agree that we do not want to see anymore lowering of service as a result.

 

Totally agree with the service aspec, we are booked on QM WC 2021 and QV WC 2022, and it's not the ports that is causing concern, it's personal health insurance cover.  As our insurers said, knowingly going to a Country with Coved without adequate protection would not be considered an unforeseen risk.  Premiums would therefore increase.  Fingers cross for a vaxeen.

Edited April 12, 2020 by PORT ROYAL
Predictive

[majortom10]

Think personally roundtrip cruises from Southampton whether it be TA or Canaries, Med or Northern Europe as far as the basic cost of the cruise think initially there will be cheap availability for cruises that have not sold out on FCCs from cancelled bookings in 2020. But long term they will inevitably increase to try and fill the bank balances of Carnival but they will be have to be careful not to increase too much and deter cruisers and a currently frail industry.

[hypercafe]

I don't think the industry will have a chance until there is a vacine for this virus. Once there is one I believe things will revert to normal. If they sail before I believe they will have to have great deals to get people to take a chance. I don't thing pre vacine insurance will be available or many ports will allow ships to call.