Holland 🇳🇱 America 🇺🇸 Has Largest Booking Day In Their History!

[Guest ldtr]

14 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Yawn.

 

Let's keep it simple. Do you believe that HAL would run a $1 deposit sale when bookings are strong? 

 

 

Sure. Just as they run wave season sales. Just as they ran sales before Covid when cruise line occupancy was hitting records. Just as airlines run sales when their planes are jammed.

 

Sales are intended for a number or reasons. Some are aimed at specific groups of customers with specific purchase patterns. Some are normal events that occur on a specific timing.

 

It, as with the airlines, is part of their highly dynamic pricing mix of fares, discounts, sales, etc. This type of sale is another tool in their rather complex tool box.

 

While cruise like to refer to bookings, now that the restart is pretty much over and bookings are getting back to normal, it is revenue dollars in actual quarters, coupled with dollar size of the deposits and payments received for cruises not yet taken that move the stock.

 

One important thing to note is that cruise lines have all of the data about their passengers, at what price each paid, when each booked, under what terms, how many ended up canceled the bookings and when.

 

All we can do is speculate and make assumptions. They have all of the data. They have the tools to try and impact passenger booking behavior.

 

So I am pretty certain that 1. they would periodically run such a sale when bookings are strong and 2. it is not run just to beef up booking numbers with bookings they know will be canceled.

 

It is part of an overall marketing strategy designed to generate a specific result. What that is will be part of their specific plan and the results (number of bookings, passenger demographics, cancellation rates, etc) will be tracked and compared to projections in very detailed fashion.

[Guest ldtr]

Yesterday I was reminded of many of these Cruise Critic discussions about how cruise lines are in bad shape or how some tend to look at every event and use them to try and indicate that it must be a drop in quality, or driven because of poor bookings, etc.

 

Yesterday on a Princess ship a fellow ordered a drink and it came without a straw. The person asked for one and was told that there were none. He then proceeded to tell everyone seated by him bar how it demonstrated how Princess was going downhill. With some around him agreeing how bad it was that they ran out of straws. After watching him go on his little rant for about 10 minutes and having difficulty in keeping from laughing,  I mentioned to him that we were in Glacier Bay and while in the Park the ship must follow the rules set by the national park service, one of which prevents cruise ships from dispensing straws while in the park.  Sure enough once we passed Gustavas and left the park the straws magically returned.

 

CC is a wonderful place for people to vent their opinions and their bias at the merest hint of anything. Pretty easy to tell how various people will interprete any given event based upon prior posts.

[Florida_gal_50]

6 hours ago, POA1 said:

I know of one of one for sure. 😉 Unless one of us can't get vacation at the right time.

No, that's not really what I mean.  I'm never quite sure it will happen for me either because of various things.  I'm speaking of people that book a number of cruises knowing that they'll maybe do 2 or none.

[Florida_gal_50]

1 hour ago, ldtr said:

Yesterday I was reminded of many of these Cruise Critic discussions about how cruise lines are in bad shape or how some tend to look at every event and use them to try and indicate that it must be a drop in quality, or driven because of poor bookings, etc.

 

Yesterday on a Princess ship a fellow ordered a drink and it came without a straw. The person asked for one and was told that there were none. He then proceeded to tell everyone seated by him bar how it demonstrated how Princess was going downhill. With some around him agreeing how bad it was that they ran out of straws. After watching him go on his little rant for about 10 minutes and having difficulty in keeping from laughing,  I mentioned to him that we were in Glacier Bay and while in the Park the ship must follow the rules set by the national park service, one of which prevents cruise ships from dispensing straws while in the park.  Sure enough once we passed Gustavas and left the park the straws magically returned.

 

CC is a wonderful place for people to vent their opinions and their bias at the merest hint of anything. Pretty easy to tell how various people will interprete any given event based upon prior posts.

While it's pretty rare that I use a straw wouldn't it have made a 1000X more sense to tell the person about the straw?  It likely would have shut the conversation down quickly.  

 

Agree with your other comment.  The ignore function on cruise critic is a wonderful thing.  Unfortunately, when someone quotes them you have to see it.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Florida_gal_50

[poeticlicensed]

I was one of the folks who booked with a $1 deposit. Never sailed HAL before, we usually cruise Celebrity. I saw the sale,  saw the itinerary I want, plus throwing in the have it all, the price was very competitive with celebrity. The $1 deposit helped me pull the trigger. 

[Guest ldtr]

7 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

No, that's not really what I mean.  I'm never quite sure it will happen for me either because of various things.  I'm speaking of people that book a number of cruises knowing that they'll maybe do 2 or none.

I usually have 10 to 12 cruises booked at any given time. Based upon changes in plan I may cancel 25% due to other travel opportunities. Not an issue with refundable fares and using fcds. Now with refundable meaning more expensive than non refundable and with fewer refundable options on some lines, these kinds of sales are just another tool in the passengers toolbox, just as they are another marketing tool in the cruise lines.

[Guest ldtr]

7 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

While it's pretty rare that I use a straw wouldn't it have made a 1000X more sense to tell the person about the straw?  It likely would have shut the conversation down quickly.  

 

Agree with your other comment.  The ignore function on cruise critic is a wonderful thing.  Unfortunately, when someone quotes them you have to see it.

Yep the server could have mentioned that, if they even knew the reason. Not even sure if they knew the reason, only that the supervisors locked up the straws.  No paper napkins either.

 

It is just the tendency for people to jump to conclusions instead of digging into the why. 

 

 I have only used ignore for 1 person. Tried removing it, lasted one day then put it back on. Most people atleast have some logic behind their arguments, in one case no logic to be found.

[Florida_gal_50]

8 minutes ago, ldtr said:

I usually have 10 to 12 cruises booked at any given time. Based upon changes in plan I may cancel 25% due to other travel opportunities. Not an issue with refundable fares and using fcds. Now with refundable meaning more expensive than non refundable and with fewer refundable options on some lines, these kinds of sales are just another tool in the passengers toolbox, just as they are another marketing tool in the cruise lines.

Once again, I'm not talking about that.  I'm talking about people that know going in that they will not do the cruise and still book it because it's a dollar.  I have serious doubts if people had to put down $1000 for each one that they'd do that.

[Florida_gal_50]

3 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Yep the server could have mentioned that, if they even knew the reason. Not even sure if they knew the reason, only that the supervisors locked up the straws.  No paper napkins either.

 

It is just the tendency for people to jump to conclusions instead of digging into the why. 

 

 I have only used ignore for 1 person. Tried removing it, lasted one day then put it back on. Most people atleast have some logic behind their arguments, in one case no logic to be found.

How would they dig into it if the server didn't know?  I'm not an Alaska fan but I certainly didn't know that rule.  I wouldn't have dreamed in a million years that was a rule.

[Guest ldtr]

17 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

How would they dig into it if the server didn't know?  I'm not an Alaska fan but I certainly didn't know that rule.  I wouldn't have dreamed in a million years that was a rule.

Asking customer service would be a good example. On Princess an easy text on crew chat.

 

However in this case it was mentioned in the information provided about glacier bay the day before. Along with the note that the only allowed announcements in glacier bay was the ranger  narration. 

 

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by ldtr

[Florida_gal_50]

2 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Asking customer service would be a good example. On Princess an easy text on crew chat.

 

However in this case it was mentioned in the information provided about glacier bay the day before. Along with the note that the only allowed announcements in glacier bay was the ranger  narration. 

 

 

Its been a while since I've been on princess but I wouldn't count on the front desk if they are anything like hal.  Having the information passed around the day before would be helpful.

[Guest ldtr]

31 minutes ago, Florida_gal_50 said:

Its been a while since I've been on princess but I wouldn't count on the front desk if they are anything like hal.  Having the information passed around the day before would be helpful.

Sounds like a self full filling prophesy.

 

Expecting a poor outcome usually results in one looking for things to confirm the view.

Edited July 14, 2023 by ldtr

[Florida_gal_50]

9 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Sounds like a self full filling prophesy.

 

Expecting a poor outcome usually results in one looking for things to confirm the view.

Nope.  It’s a common thing discussed on here.  It’s tiresome hearing it’s always the person when that so far from the truth.  Classic cheerleading at it’s best.

[YourWorldWithBill]

8 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Lines like Oceania, Viking, etc, have actually moved to bigger deposits that are non-refundable a long time prior to the cruise.  O, for example, requires final payment 6 months in advance (which is also the start of the penalty period). 

Hank, my O cruise final payment is due about 3 months before the cruise! But I did make a large deposit, because I had booked three cruises and canceled two, moving the deposit to the third. The payment for Viking depends on whether you have another cruise booked (you probably know that). We recently booked one of the Viking river cruises with a $25 deposit, as we're really not sure about that one.

[Hlitner]

3 minutes ago, YourWorldWithBill said:

Hank, my O cruise final payment is due about 3 months before the cruise! But I did make a large deposit, because I had booked three cruises and canceled two, moving the deposit to the third. The payment for Viking depends on whether you have another cruise booked (you probably know that). We recently booked one of the Viking river cruises with a $25 deposit, as we're really not sure about that one.

I believe their policy is final payments are due based on the length of the cruise.  For cruises over 14 days in length, final payment is due 150 days prior to embarkation.  Since we (and many others) work through a cruise agency, our final payment date is a couple weeks prior to that 150 day mark..which is pretty typical of many cruise/travel agencies to allow some additional time for processing.   I would add that the deposit for our upcoming "O" cruise was $3000!  No such thing as $1 deposits with that outfit.  The good thing about large deposits is that it discourages folks who are not serious...and avoids having inventory tied up with lots of "faux bookings."

 

My comment about Viking was referring to Viking Ocean!  

 

Hank

[YourWorldWithBill]

1 minute ago, Hlitner said:

I believe their policy is final payments are due based on the length of the cruise.  For cruises over 14 days in length, final payment is due 150 days prior to embarkation.  Since we (and many others) work through a cruise agency, our final payment date is a couple weeks prior to that 150 day mark..which is pretty typical of many cruise/travel agencies to allow some additional time for processing.   I would add that the deposit for our upcoming "O" cruise was $3000!  No such thing as $1 deposits with that outfit.  The good thing about large deposits is that it discourages folks who are not serious...and avoids having inventory tied up with lots of "faux bookings."

 

My comment about Viking was referring to Viking Ocean!  

 

Hank

Yep, our O cruise is 11 days, and they have $3,000. But I had a booking on Viking Ocean that was made on a Viking cruise that required payment 6 months in advance.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Congratulations 

[POA1]

17 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Many cruise lines (we could say better cruise lines but some here would object) have abandoned the idea of small deposits.  The reason is simply that many folks will book a low refundable deposit with little intention of ever taking the cruise.  Lines like Oceania, Viking, etc, have actually moved to bigger deposits that are non-refundable a long time prior to the cruise.  O, for example, requires final payment 6 months in advance (which is also the start of the penalty period).

Are you 100% sure of this? I'm on Oceania's email list and we received a hard copy, postal mailer this week stressing reduced deposit, low fares and airfare credit. I can't imagine that someone would spend the money to print a nice brochure on high quality paper stock just to prank me.

[mcrcruiser]

On 7/13/2023 at 8:10 PM, BermudaBound2014 said:

Market manipulation. 

 

The bigger question here is why does ccl need this headline? Why now? Why Hal? 

 Because of this one dollar sale I can not  book a handicap cabin  in any balcony  level on 2  2025  cruises  .  so they gained the $2 deposit but lost the  many thousands we would have been spending . We do not respond well to that type of greed 

[mcrcruiser]

14 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Yawn.

 

Let's keep it simple. Do you believe that HAL would run a $1 deposit sale when bookings are strong? 

 

 

Your post makes sense . The rooting section on  this HAL thread  " Never " sees any negatives as if they are in  total bliss . I will stick with the fact that pre covid HAL was 100 % better than post covid. Thus , the bookings were very good . The propaganda machine shoots  out  that there are no storms on the horizon

Edited July 15, 2023 by mcrcruiser

[mcrcruiser]

9 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Between you and Mary, we already do - I’ll just hang around and stir chit for entertainment 🙂 

Interesting !!

[Hlitner]

8 hours ago, POA1 said:

Are you 100% sure of this? I'm on Oceania's email list and we received a hard copy, postal mailer this week stressing reduced deposit, low fares and airfare credit. I can't imagine that someone would spend the money to print a nice brochure on high quality paper stock just to prank me.

After reading your post I did a faux booking (did not complete the process) for an 18 day June 2024 Vista cruise.  The required deposit is $3000 (the same as we had to pay on a different 2024 O cruise).  We than did a faux booking on a 2025 eleven day Vista cruise and the deposit is $1000.  Just the facts 🙂   Another weird thing about O has to do with cruises that are "sold out" and available for booking under their "waitlist" program.  In such cases, even though there is no guarantee you will ever clear the waitlist, O charges a hefty deposit....just to get waitlisted!   There are multiple things we do not like about dealing with "O" which is part of the reason why we never booked that line until recently.

 

Hank

 

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

It is a great sales technique, when someone gives a cash deposit even if it is only $2 they are booked on a cruise. And will start planning.

[chill6x6]

I'm one of those that participated! Deposit wasn't a DOLLAR for a Neptune Suite but it was still lower than I've seen it in a while.  

Why not?

 

[wdw1972]

3 hours ago, chill6x6 said:

I'm one of those that participated! Deposit wasn't a DOLLAR for a Neptune Suite but it was still lower than I've seen it in a while.  

Why not?

 

It wasn't?  I booked an aft wrap Neptune Suite for the 2 of us and total deposit was $2.  This is for May 2025 Alaska - hoping the aft wrap neptune will be a big plus during the scenic cruising and Glacier Bay day!  

 

Sue/WDW1972