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You may have noticed that the return to cruising in summer 2021 so far looks to be very expensive with prices sometimes double what they would normally be. We give you the reasons why they are so expensive and still let you know how you can grab a great bargain.
So yeah! Cruise is now back. There are loads of cruises planned to sail from the UK as well as the Caribbean and Bermuda across the pond. But there’s something glaringly obvious. These cruises are more expensive than usual. Most cruises we have seen are 50% to 100%. So double, more expensive than they usually would be. UK cruises seem to be the most expensive. But Caribbean cruises are not far behind.
But obviously, you need to add in that you’re going to have to have to add flights to the Caribbean on top. So usually if you were departing from mainland USA, cruises would be historically a lot cheaper but you’ve got to fly to the Caribbean as well.
We’ve even seen three and four-night cruises to nowhere, so calling at no ports, as much as £700. That’s $900 per person! And we’ve seen the average seven-night cruise over £1000 per person for a balcony cabin with no extras and no drinks packages or anything like that. Just for a basic cabin. So you’re gonna be paying a premium. And we have to say we are surprised at some of the prices we have seen.
Some of the cruises are almost as expensive as luxury lines. And on top of this, lots of cruises don’t even go anywhere. They are just cruises to nowhere or a cruise to the cruise lines private island. Also on board is going to be different to how it was before. We’ve spoken about this a lot in the past. You’re going to have social distancing and masks will be required. And we’ve heard from cruise ship entertainers that entertainment will be cut back from what it was before.
So you’re not gonna be getting what you used to get before. At least at the start anyway. Yeah, what do you think? Do you think that it’s fair that you’re not getting all these types of things or is it just something that we have to accept? And on top of this, cruise lines won’t have to pay many of the expensive port fees for passengers as a lot of the cruises are not going anywhere or there are fewer ports stops now.
We’re positive people and this really isn’t a moan because we do understand some reasons why they’re going to be more expensive.
Let’s have a look at some of the reasons why prices of cruise are so high.
So the first reason cruises are more expensive is because of the pent up demand. You, us, everybody, we want to get cruising again. So there’s a big supply-demand situation. Lots of people want to cruise! It’s been over a year and people are willing to pay through the roof for these cruises. And a lot of us have cruise credits to use so the cruise lines need to charge more for new bookings as future cruise credits aren’t new revenue. Many of these people on these new cruises wouldn’t have paid any new money to the cruise lines.
So ships will be sailing at a reduced capacity. Sometimes around 70 per cent or even less. This basically means there’ll be fewer cabins available to sell and fewer people on board. So cruises will be more expensive because of this.
Cruise lines are going to have to charge more to make up for the missing passenger numbers on board. Fewer people means less revenue. The ship still costs basically the same amount to run regardless of the number of people on board. Things like fuel, electricity, all of that stuff.
So, as you can see this is a big problem. Taking into consideration point number one, where there’s pent-up demand, and point number two, where there aren’t enough cabins to go around for everybody who wants to cruise, they can charge as much money as they want.
But we have to say we are a little bit surprised. Because there is so much competition, example is in UK. There are now about 56 cruise lines going to be doing summer cruises to absolutely nowhere. As well, this is a really big point, you’re not going to be going to all of the lovely destinations that cruise is famous for. So we’re just so surprised that they’re not a little bit more competitive with their pricing.
It’s no big surprise that cruise lines have lost billions of pounds over the last year. They’ve had to keep here for the upkeep of the ships even while they haven’t been cruising. On top of this, they’ve had to pay for expensive ship refits. Things like new air conditioning, new technology and new air filter systems. They’ve equipped these ships with new expensive cleaning equipment and they’re working hard on new protocols.
These all costs a lot of money to get cruises safe again. And they need to make back some of this money as soon as they can. They will be charging premiums for these cruises.
So cruise lines will lose money from excursions. As many of these cruises are sea days so they’ll lose a huge chunk of revenue. Lots of staff have also been made redundant and they need to bring them back now. So that brings us on to number four.
First of all many cruise lines are going to be paying for vaccinations for all of their crew. And repatriating the crew back onto the cruise ships, it such a huge logistical nightmare. We’re not talking about a few people here. We’re talking thousands of different crew members from all around the world on each and every ship coming back.
That includes things like organizing their transfers, their flights, their quarantine in the different countries that they’re coming into depending on the rules. There are not even many flights at the moment and then they’ve got a quarantine when they’re on the ship. They’ve got to be tested.
You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of different people. And they’re going to have extra staff as well. Extra crews like extra medical staff, for the medical centre and brand new equipment as well. And all of these crew are going to have to be trained again because it’s been so long since they were on cruise ships. They need to go through most of the training procedures as well as all of those brand new training procedures for the new protocols on board. Extra cleaning, the way they’re going to do the temperature checks, the way they’re going to do social distancing, it’s a really big job because half of these crew have never done it before.
The ships themselves need bringing back up to standard. At the moment they’re only filled with ghost crews so around 50 to 100 crew members. Having so few crew on board for the last year has made things, like exterior paint jobs, have slipped and cruise ships are starting to look a little bit rough. So there are lots of jobs around the ships and inside the ships for the crew to do to get them up and shipshape, ready for you to get back on.
Overall the cost of bringing back a cruise ship with all of the crew is absolutely huge. There are so many logistics and things that cruise lines need to do that we’re probably not even aware of. There are so many things going on behind the scenes.
So despite all the increased costs, we’ve got some tips for you to still grab a bargain and save money when booking a cruise.
The first tip is that you need to book as soon as these cruises are released. The model cruise lines are using is that the prices start cheapest and when people book and the cruise has more demand when it becomes more popular. It gets more and more expensive as the availability reduces.
It’s similar to hotels and airlines and things like that. Yeah, so the more booked up a cruise is, at the moment anyway, in most cases, the more expensive it’s going to be. And there’s lots of demand, as we said, so you need to be really quick.
The most recent cruises from what we can see are the most expensive. So you can book right into the future, later into the year, even into 2022 and 2023. Because that pent-up demand should reduce as time goes on. So cruise lines are going to have to reduce their charges and it should get cheaper.
Surely, there will be promotions that are going to be included in your cruise. We’re talking about things such as drinks packages. Many cruise lines such as MSC and Princess are offering drinks packages, gratuities and wi-fi for a very small amount of extra cash.
This can make the overall cruise price much more reasonable. Particularly if you are going to be buying drinks, wi-fi and things like that. And some cruise lines are even offering big discounts for front line and emergency workers so make sure you check to see if any of those are doing that. We know that MSC and Royal Caribbean are bringing some things in as well.
Also, it’s a great idea to check the cashback and point sites like Quidco, Be Frugal or Rakuten. They offer cashback on lots of cruise companies. You can get sometimes up to 2% to 5% cashback reward in some cases.
We’ve already said that we do think it’s a little bit too expensive. But we understand why cruise lines have to do this.
These prices are just being hiked for now because there’s such a big demand and it’s been so long. Can you believe it’s been over a year? But at the end of the day, there are still upsides to cruising sooner. Reduced capacities will make the ships feel much less busy and hectic. It’ll be like a private yacht.
That’s it till next time, happy cruising.
CruisesforSingles.net is dedicated to providing quality information on the subject of Cruises for Singles and in particular various other cruise ideas for customers and merchants online.
Cruises for Singles
You may have noticed that the return to cruising in summer 2021 so far looks to be very expensive with prices sometimes double what they would normally be. We give you the reasons why they are so expensive and still let you know how you can grab a great bargain.
So yeah! Cruise is now back. There are loads of cruises planned to sail from the UK as well as the Caribbean and Bermuda across the pond. But there’s something glaringly obvious. These cruises are more expensive than usual. Most cruises we have seen are 50% to 100%. So double, more expensive than they usually would be. UK cruises seem to be the most expensive. But Caribbean cruises are not far behind.
But obviously, you need to add in that you’re going to have to have to add flights to the Caribbean on top. So usually if you were departing from mainland USA, cruises would be historically a lot cheaper but you’ve got to fly to the Caribbean as well.
We’ve even seen three and four-night cruises to nowhere, so calling at no ports, as much as £700. That’s $900 per person! And we’ve seen the average seven-night cruise over £1000 per person for a balcony cabin with no extras and no drinks packages or anything like that. Just for a basic cabin. So you’re gonna be paying a premium. And we have to say we are surprised at some of the prices we have seen.
Some of the cruises are almost as expensive as luxury lines. And on top of this, lots of cruises don’t even go anywhere. They are just cruises to nowhere or a cruise to the cruise lines private island. Also on board is going to be different to how it was before. We’ve spoken about this a lot in the past. You’re going to have social distancing and masks will be required. And we’ve heard from cruise ship entertainers that entertainment will be cut back from what it was before.
So you’re not gonna be getting what you used to get before. At least at the start anyway. Yeah, what do you think? Do you think that it’s fair that you’re not getting all these types of things or is it just something that we have to accept? And on top of this, cruise lines won’t have to pay many of the expensive port fees for passengers as a lot of the cruises are not going anywhere or there are fewer ports stops now.
We’re positive people and this really isn’t a moan because we do understand some reasons why they’re going to be more expensive.
Let’s have a look at some of the reasons why prices of cruise are so high.
So the first reason cruises are more expensive is because of the pent up demand. You, us, everybody, we want to get cruising again. So there’s a big supply-demand situation. Lots of people want to cruise! It’s been over a year and people are willing to pay through the roof for these cruises. And a lot of us have cruise credits to use so the cruise lines need to charge more for new bookings as future cruise credits aren’t new revenue. Many of these people on these new cruises wouldn’t have paid any new money to the cruise lines.
So ships will be sailing at a reduced capacity. Sometimes around 70 per cent or even less. This basically means there’ll be fewer cabins available to sell and fewer people on board. So cruises will be more expensive because of this.
Cruise lines are going to have to charge more to make up for the missing passenger numbers on board. Fewer people means less revenue. The ship still costs basically the same amount to run regardless of the number of people on board. Things like fuel, electricity, all of that stuff.
So, as you can see this is a big problem. Taking into consideration point number one, where there’s pent-up demand, and point number two, where there aren’t enough cabins to go around for everybody who wants to cruise, they can charge as much money as they want.
But we have to say we are a little bit surprised. Because there is so much competition, example is in UK. There are now about 56 cruise lines going to be doing summer cruises to absolutely nowhere. As well, this is a really big point, you’re not going to be going to all of the lovely destinations that cruise is famous for. So we’re just so surprised that they’re not a little bit more competitive with their pricing.
It’s no big surprise that cruise lines have lost billions of pounds over the last year. They’ve had to keep here for the upkeep of the ships even while they haven’t been cruising. On top of this, they’ve had to pay for expensive ship refits. Things like new air conditioning, new technology and new air filter systems. They’ve equipped these ships with new expensive cleaning equipment and they’re working hard on new protocols.
These all costs a lot of money to get cruises safe again. And they need to make back some of this money as soon as they can. They will be charging premiums for these cruises.
So cruise lines will lose money from excursions. As many of these cruises are sea days so they’ll lose a huge chunk of revenue. Lots of staff have also been made redundant and they need to bring them back now. So that brings us on to number four.
First of all many cruise lines are going to be paying for vaccinations for all of their crew. And repatriating the crew back onto the cruise ships, it such a huge logistical nightmare. We’re not talking about a few people here. We’re talking thousands of different crew members from all around the world on each and every ship coming back.
That includes things like organizing their transfers, their flights, their quarantine in the different countries that they’re coming into depending on the rules. There are not even many flights at the moment and then they’ve got a quarantine when they’re on the ship. They’ve got to be tested.
You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of different people. And they’re going to have extra staff as well. Extra crews like extra medical staff, for the medical centre and brand new equipment as well. And all of these crew are going to have to be trained again because it’s been so long since they were on cruise ships. They need to go through most of the training procedures as well as all of those brand new training procedures for the new protocols on board. Extra cleaning, the way they’re going to do the temperature checks, the way they’re going to do social distancing, it’s a really big job because half of these crew have never done it before.
The ships themselves need bringing back up to standard. At the moment they’re only filled with ghost crews so around 50 to 100 crew members. Having so few crew on board for the last year has made things, like exterior paint jobs, have slipped and cruise ships are starting to look a little bit rough. So there are lots of jobs around the ships and inside the ships for the crew to do to get them up and shipshape, ready for you to get back on.
Overall the cost of bringing back a cruise ship with all of the crew is absolutely huge. There are so many logistics and things that cruise lines need to do that we’re probably not even aware of. There are so many things going on behind the scenes.
So despite all the increased costs, we’ve got some tips for you to still grab a bargain and save money when booking a cruise.
The first tip is that you need to book as soon as these cruises are released. The model cruise lines are using is that the prices start cheapest and when people book and the cruise has more demand when it becomes more popular. It gets more and more expensive as the availability reduces.
It’s similar to hotels and airlines and things like that. Yeah, so the more booked up a cruise is, at the moment anyway, in most cases, the more expensive it’s going to be. And there’s lots of demand, as we said, so you need to be really quick.
The most recent cruises from what we can see are the most expensive. So you can book right into the future, later into the year, even into 2022 and 2023. Because that pent-up demand should reduce as time goes on. So cruise lines are going to have to reduce their charges and it should get cheaper.
Surely, there will be promotions that are going to be included in your cruise. We’re talking about things such as drinks packages. Many cruise lines such as MSC and Princess are offering drinks packages, gratuities and wi-fi for a very small amount of extra cash.
This can make the overall cruise price much more reasonable. Particularly if you are going to be buying drinks, wi-fi and things like that. And some cruise lines are even offering big discounts for front line and emergency workers so make sure you check to see if any of those are doing that. We know that MSC and Royal Caribbean are bringing some things in as well.
Also, it’s a great idea to check the cashback and point sites like Quidco, Be Frugal or Rakuten. They offer cashback on lots of cruise companies. You can get sometimes up to 2% to 5% cashback reward in some cases.
We’ve already said that we do think it’s a little bit too expensive. But we understand why cruise lines have to do this.
These prices are just being hiked for now because there’s such a big demand and it’s been so long. Can you believe it’s been over a year? But at the end of the day, there are still upsides to cruising sooner. Reduced capacities will make the ships feel much less busy and hectic. It’ll be like a private yacht.
That’s it till next time, happy cruising.
CruisesforSingles.net is dedicated to providing quality information on the subject of Cruises for Singles and in particular various other cruise ideas for customers and merchants online.
Cruises for Singles
CruisesforSingles.net is dedicated to providing quality information on the subject of Cruises for Singles and in particular various other cruise ideas for customers and merchants online.
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