Passenger Totals

[mbddisney]

Is Celebrity still sailing with lower capacity?  Wondering how many on board on Apex for next few weeks.  We are scheduled for April 9 and when  I go to the site to see if I can get a reduced rate for my room with the sale there do no seem to be many rooms left.  I am wondering if they block rooms to insure a lower capacity.

[cruisestitch]

Yes, they keep back rooms to ensure a lower capacity.  They also block rooms to use for incoming crew to keep them isolated from the others. And they set aside some rooms for ill passengers and staff.  And on at least on one ship (Reflection), they move passengers from outside and inside rooms to veranda rooms so they can have fresh air, keeping their former rooms unoccupied.

[RickT]

I think they also keep the prices high to limit capacity. Even though there are lots of cabins showing as available the price has actually gone up in the past 2 weeks.  
 

By my unscientific count 45% of cabins are still available meaning the other 55% are either sold or otherwise blocked.  

[hrhdhd]

Currently on Apex: 1,530

[kwokpot]

We had under 900 last week on the Reflection.

[darsura]

Sailed at about 35% last week on Millenium.  

[sakigemcam]

2 hours ago, RickT said:

I think they also keep the prices high to limit capacity. Even though there are lots of cabins showing as available the price has actually gone up in the past 2 weeks.  
 

By my unscientific count 45% of cabins are still available meaning the other 55% are either sold or otherwise blocked.  

Wondering how your unscientific count determined those percentages? I just see cabins as either available or not - how can you know which are blocked and which are sold? Thank you!

[Mango Tango]

2 hours ago, RickT said:

I think they also keep the prices high to limit capacity. Even though there are lots of cabins showing as available the price has actually gone up in the past 2 weeks.  
 

By my unscientific count 45% of cabins are still available meaning the other 55% are either sold or otherwise blocked.  

We are on the Millennium on March 21 and YES, the prices have gone way up the last 2 weeks.  It is now over $2000 more for our balcony cabin than when we booked it the beginning of January!

I just hope that the capacity limits aren't higher now because of Spring Break.  We were on the Silhouette in December and again in January.  Only about 30% capacity then.  It was great!

[jelayne]

We are on the Apex in 5 weeks and currently Suites and Aqua are sold out and Concierge cabins are heavily booked. A week of 2 ago the passenger count was 1900+ so expecting   50% - 60% booked.

[RickT]

2 hours ago, sakigemcam said:

Wondering how your unscientific count determined those percentages? I just see cabins as either available or not - how can you know which are blocked and which are sold? Thank you!

If a cabin isn’t showing as available it’s either booked or blocked.  

[wrk2cruise]

Our upcoming Constellation cruise seems more heavily booked than Jan/Feb ones.   I agree they are using pricing to help control capacity.  A S2 is over $750 pp/pd and a base veranda is about $300 pp/pd.   This is on a non revolutionized 20 year old ship.  We were on it in January and it's in good shape but the prices are over twice what I paid.

[juksing]

I understand we all love it when the ships are not packed, better experience and space for all; but if the numbers people are saying on the forums (that ships are sailing at 30-50% capacity) are actually accurate and stay around that level it is not a sustainable business.

[jelayne]

10 minutes ago, juksing said:

I understand we all love it when the ships are not packed, better experience and space for all; but if the numbers people are saying on the forums (that ships are sailing at 30-50% capacity) are actually accurate and stay around that level it is not a sustainable business.

You are correct!  As much as it has been nice to sail with 30% capacity we want the numbers to start increasing substantially so that we will be cruising in 2023, 24 and beyond.

[drakes2]

9 hours ago, jelayne said:

You are correct!  As much as it has been nice to sail with 30% capacity we want the numbers to start increasing substantially so that we will be cruising in 2023, 24 and beyond.

Was on a 7 night Edge sailing January 30th. 730 passengers onboard.

[wrk2cruise]

If people are paying the prices listed for the current cruises I suspect it's more sustainable than you might think.   The lowest balcony cabin on my upcoming Constellation sailing is $300 pp/pd and a Sky Suite is over $750 pp/pd.  

[JamieLogical]

I am booked on a B2B on the Summit for 3/19 and 3/24. I have closely watched inventory of both sailings and right as it began getting close to 50%, the price went WAY up and there have been very few bookings since then. So I suspect they are using pricing to keep inventory around 50% rather than actually blocking off rooms.

[39august]

I've been watching Equinox May 6 for a few weeks. Aqua is sold out and concierge class heavily booked. Usually there is one suite available or shows sold out. But there are tons of balcony cabins available as well as a lot of inside and ocean view.  

[lv2cruisgrl]

We are on Edge was told 1200 or so.  We sail April 2 on Apex will be interesting to hear what the #s are. 

[Jeremiah1212]

Cruises are not capacity restricted right now. There may be a small amount of cabins held for quarantine, but there is no magic 50% number or whatever the case may be. Low guest count is due to weak bookings. 

 

March sailings had 60 day final payment windows. Many of those cancelations were made in January at the height of omicron. Late March into April and Alaska for summer seems quite a bit stronger. 

[Peteymil]

18 hours ago, jelayne said:

We are on the Apex in 5 weeks and currently Suites and Aqua are sold out and Concierge cabins are heavily booked. A week of 2 ago the passenger count was 1900+ so expecting   50% - 60% booked.

Just curious how you got the passenger count.  We tried to get it before our cruise last week, and couldn't find a resource.

[BEAV]

1 hour ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

Cruises are not capacity restricted right now. There may be a small amount of cabins held for quarantine, but there is no magic 50% number or whatever the case may be. Low guest count is due to weak bookings. 

 

March sailings had 60 day final payment windows. Many of those cancelations were made in January at the height of omicron. Late March into April and Alaska for summer seems quite a bit stronger. 

 

Yes, I was also under the impression that cruise lines were no longer required to restrict occupancy levels. The January-March low levels are what I believe to be a combination of Omicron and restricted capacity. 

 

So although they’re no longer required to restrict capacity, maybe they choose to continue until they’ve been able to rehire sufficient crew members to increase capacity? I know here on shore a number of businesses have restricted their business hours because of insufficient staffing. 

[LGW59]

On 3/10/2022 at 1:27 PM, mbddisney said:

Is Celebrity still sailing with lower capacity?  Wondering how many on board on Apex for next few weeks.  We are scheduled for April 9 and when  I go to the site to see if I can get a reduced rate for my room with the sale there do no seem to be many rooms left.  I am wondering if they block rooms to insure a lower capacity.

with spring and summer fast approaching in cold mid-west/east coast cities, low capacity will not last long.  Folks are clamoring to get back to normal and hopefully we will see full ships again very very soon.  I take the subway (Boston) to my office 2x/week and on those days it is almost back to pre-pandemic ridership, makes me happy to see.

Edited March 11, 2022 by LGW59

[grandgeezer]

54 minutes ago, BEAV said:

 

Yes, I was also under the impression that cruise lines were no longer required to restrict occupancy levels. The January-March low levels are what I believe to be a combination of Omicron and restricted capacity. 

 

So although they’re no longer required to restrict capacity, maybe they choose to continue until they’ve been able to rehire sufficient crew members to increase capacity? I know here on shore a number of businesses have restricted their business hours because of insufficient staffing. 

I’ve seen many reports of less than 1,000 passengers, they must have crewing for that. There also have been reports of 3,000 passengers, with no comments about hardships caused by understaffing. It’s possible thst a lot of people just aren’t ready to cruise yet, or ever.

[jelayne]

1 hour ago, Peteymil said:

Just curious how you got the passenger count.  We tried to get it before our cruise last week, and couldn't find a resource.

Posted by CC members on sailing and reporting the count.

[BEAV]

1 minute ago, grandgeezer said:

 It’s possible thst a lot of people just aren’t ready to cruise yet, or ever.

I definitely think it’s that, too. A combination of lots of factors at play. 
 

I think we’ll see a more dramatic increase when pre-cruise Covid testing is no longer required. I think a lot of people are spooked by that, which I understand. 
 

I’m on the Edge Transatlantic in 6 weeks. 
The roll call is quiet (14 pages at this time) while the October ‘22 westbound TA is at 34 pages. Roll call activity certainly isn’t a scientific way to judge ridership numbers, but pre-Covid Transatlantics always had large, chatty roll call threads! 
 

And, specific to international travel, until Covid testing is no longer a requirement to return to the US, I think that will keep a lot of folks away as well.