Is NCL Pricing themselves out of business?

[NCMtnBoys]

6 hours ago, tallnthensome said:

The OP is right. Anyone that has cruised with NCL in the past and is cruising now and is booking cruises with them aren't shopping all lines. If they were they wouldn't be booking NCL right  now. They were my go to line but their pricing value went from the best to the absolute worst. NCL is a total ripoff now. No deals at all. 

I was looking for a Sept or Oct 2023 Greece/Turkey cruise with specific ports and NCL was the only one that visits all four ports I want to visit. I looked at Celebrity, MSC, Virgin Voyages, Princess, Royal and Costa but no others went to where I want to go on a 7-night itinerary. I ended up booking NCL, but in an OV cabin and without the drink package or dining package in order to save on the tips/fare. Didn't take the BOGO airfare promo either, hoping that by not taking that, if the price should happen to go down for a balcony cabin we might be able to upgrade to that. NCL's prices are high for Greece/Turkey compared to Royal for sure but I'm also looking at it as being able to check all four ports off my list without having to purchase a second cruise down the road to visit the ports that I didn't get to on this cruise. 

[tallnthensome]

1 hour ago, Liljo22 said:

I am always shopping cruises and have found Carnival to be offering dirt cheap cruises right now and then NCL is next in pricing and then Royal. I am only shopping Galveston and New Orleans though so I haven't looked at Celebrity.  NCL was a lot higher out of NO but they have come down in the last month.  A spring break cruise in a balcony for 4 was over $5k but is now sitting at $3,900.  Still about $900 more than the spring break cruise we took in 2020 but they were running the kids sail free promo at the time.  

 

 

I booked the brand new to come MSC Seascape for April 2nd 2023 for my family of four in a balcony for spring break week for $2411. Kids 17 and under sail free which is amazing for spring break week. Anything on NCL for the same time and comparable cabin type is about $5000. 

Edited April 21, 2022 by tallnthensome

[Yesimapirate]

In my traveling experience,  "pricing yourself out of business" has been selling cabins, seats, rooms,  etc below cost to fill them.  The old lose money on every sale but make it up in volume philosophy.   The same philosophy which mathematics says cannot be sustainable. 

 

Remember,  it is MUCH easier to lower prices than it is to raise them.

[Toxicfog]

I heard an interview with the NCL CEO Frank Del Rio a week or so ago … they are not going to be discounting fares like the use too. NCL would rather spend more money on marketing than cut the fare prices. That in the end he said that once they lowered the price just to fill the ships …  it would be difficult to raise the price levels again over a short amount of time.

[geleisen]

11 hours ago, tallnthensome said:

No deals at all. 

Some great deals on the rescheduled Getaway itineraries. 13 night transatlantic in June. Solo traveller in a balcony cabin. Free at sea and everything included for less than 1000 USD.  I certainly wouldn't say no deals at all...

[ontheweb]

12 hours ago, NCMtnBoys said:

I was looking for a Sept or Oct 2023 Greece/Turkey cruise with specific ports and NCL was the only one that visits all four ports I want to visit. I looked at Celebrity, MSC, Virgin Voyages, Princess, Royal and Costa but no others went to where I want to go on a 7-night itinerary. I ended up booking NCL, but in an OV cabin and without the drink package or dining package in order to save on the tips/fare. Didn't take the BOGO airfare promo either, hoping that by not taking that, if the price should happen to go down for a balcony cabin we might be able to upgrade to that. NCL's prices are high for Greece/Turkey compared to Royal for sure but I'm also looking at it as being able to check all four ports off my list without having to purchase a second cruise down the road to visit the ports that I didn't get to on this cruise. 

Location, location, location! Seeing what you want to see should always come first.

[Liljo22]

14 hours ago, tallnthensome said:

I booked the brand new to come MSC Seascape for April 2nd 2023 for my family of four in a balcony for spring break week for $2411. Kids 17 and under sail free which is amazing for spring break week. Anything on NCL for the same time and comparable cabin type is about $5000. 

I looked into this already because for this past spring break they had really cheap deals.  Our spring break week is not as cheap.  The kids sail free with the free balcony upgrade is about $3400 but then it would cost another $1000 for the drink package.  The offer that includes the drink package comes to $4100.  Then we would have to throw airfare on top of that.  

[njkate]

Yes they are getting very pricey an also have deceptive marketing strategies, for instance the 3rd and 4th passenger sail free lmao, yes 3rd and 4th shows zero but 1st and 2nd have doubled.

[DCGuy64]

10 hours ago, geleisen said:

Some great deals on the rescheduled Getaway itineraries. 13 night transatlantic in June. Solo traveller in a balcony cabin. Free at sea and everything included for less than 1000 USD.  I certainly wouldn't say no deals at all...

Yeah, I can't agree with the "no deals at all" comment, either. We booked a transatlantic cruise for this December to celebrate our anniversary and the price was about $1150 pp in a Club Balcony suite for 9 days. Even with FAS gratuities it's less than $3,000 for the two of us. Seems like a good deal to me!

[CWMixer]

22 hours ago, MNcruisingcouple said:

I keep hearing this so last week I priced out Caribbean cruises we were considering for Feb 2023.  The prices between NCL and Celebrity ranged from close to the same to $1000 more on Celebrity.  Plus, we would want to upgrade Celebrity's drink package and they have a $500 non-refundable deposit.  

 

The price/value really varies between sailings.  It's hard to make a blanket statement that NCL is overpriced or not competitive. 

I found the same between NCL (Joy and Pearl) and Celebrity (Summit) for a 7D Bermuda cruise next June.

Using the same relative room categories, the bottom line for each after including all cruise-related "extra" costs (NCL FAS gratuities, NCL daily service charge, unlimited wifi, etc) was within 2% of the others.

Although a significant consideration, cost isn't the only factor (for us) in deciding on a cruise.  Other subjective things like 'atmosphere', type/variety of restaurants & venues, ship size, ports, etc., count as well.

 

[BermudaBound2014]

2 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

Yeah, I can't agree with the "no deals at all" comment, either. We booked a transatlantic cruise for this December to celebrate our anniversary and the price was about $1150 pp in a Club Balcony suite for 9 days. Even with FAS gratuities it's less than $3,000 for the two of us. Seems like a good deal to me!

 

Until you realize how cheap transatlantic cruises end up selling for in December. Historically, these go much less than $1,150 pp in a club balcony last minute. Of course, a transatlantic is a bit tricky since you don't have the option of a land vacation in the case of a blow out, but monitoring for inventory will be an excellent gauge on how low the price will go. It's a simple strategy, when inventory gets tight pull the trigger. I just set a reminder to check pricing as the time gets closer. If I'm wrong I'll come back and admit it here so others can learn from my mistake. 

[david_sobe]

Oh come on now.  Every time I log into NCL and every week in the mail I receive a booklet that has 40% off all cruises and FREE excursions, FREE specialty dining, FREE drinks and FREE internet.

 

Its the mother of all deals 

 

 

😁😆

Edited April 22, 2022 by david_sobe

[ChiefMateJRK]

6 hours ago, ontheweb said:

Seeing what you want to see should always come first.

Yep.  Of course, on some level, I am mostly satisfied just seeing the inside and deck of a cruise ship.  I greatly appreciate God's creation (i.e. scenery), but touristy land destinations really don't do much for me.

3 hours ago, njkate said:

Yes they are getting very pricey an also have deceptive marketing strategies, for instance the 3rd and 4th passenger sail free lmao, yes 3rd and 4th shows zero but 1st and 2nd have doubled.

SMH.  Math major?

[njkate]

59 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Yep.  Of course, on some level, I am mostly satisfied just seeing the inside and deck of a cruise ship.  I greatly appreciate God's creation (i.e. scenery), but touristy land destinations really don't do much for me.

SMH.  Math major?

your point? I just priced a cruise with the 3rd and 4th sails free and the price for 1 & 2 doubled so not getting your snarkiness

[tuxala]

On 4/21/2022 at 12:23 PM, complawyer said:

personally, i find the only outrageous prices are on the prima.

Too true. We wanted a Christmas week (2022) cruise out of Port Canaveral. Prima. Our first house cost about the same price as Prima Haven at Christmas. For grins I checked MSC because of the ability to status match. So - Christmas week on Meraviglia, Yacht Club suite - and we're booked. Over $4500 saved. We've been to all the ports, don't plan to get off the ship. (Except maybe Costa Maya - Maya Chan.) It will be interesting to compare the comparables . . .

TD