HMR74

we actually looked at Ivanhoe development when we were looking to downsize, which was more than we wanted and too far out (laughing over that now), and wound up with a place on White Deer Run Course. Love the area, Docks, Crossroads and Emils (Broasted Chicken) and dearly depared Bulldogs .Bike ride past your place going (but take Hawley following path) out to the dog run area then back.

Just noticed, we live a few miles east of you. Off 176.

yeah, a TA, provided it has capital, can buy cabins at a discount to "listed price" as the cruise gets offerred say 2 years ahead of the cruise. whatever they buy in any class gets allocated to them and when you book it they wil tell you what cabins are available. Thats why if you try to book when a cruise is first offerred so many cabins are alreay taken, Withthat, I wonder if you are close to a TA and you told them you wanted to go on that cruise, could they buy the cabin specifically for you with the group discount. etc, eg, if I tell them several different cabins I woudl want can they make it happen even before it goes on general sale. I bet somebody here knows, In the old days the price actually could come down but thats old days. might see less of that as prices escalate and capital runs thin. X used to have a spreadsheet at cruising power .com with the info but I have not looked at it in a while, like years. I am thinking back to around 2019 whan a balcony or Aqua had about a 450 discount from list. It was good.helpful to compare all their cruises prices if a bargain was a sole determinant. on a per day basis of course. that was also before the sail away deals and everything since.

I would think from a business standpoint the TA wants to save it for a special customer. Or, and I have had this happen, the TA sells a group cabin to a customer at higher price and pockets a chunk, still giving perks to the customer. With prices going up, if the TA bought the cabin when the cruise was first offered, the profit could be insane. Or a hell of a deal to make a current good client real happy.

as we know, one problem of creating a longer cruise using b2b2b is you have 2 or 3 wasted days if using the same "home" port. We usually tried to go on point to point cruises, leave one city and end up in another. A winner winner chicken dinner would be say b2b2b Barcelona to Rome to Athens perhaps back to Venice with some small island hopping along with the obvious choices. Better would be how oceana does it where you can "hop on and off". Or Just do a Barceloneto rome to Istanbul to Athens and then to Venice cruise with good ports in between. All sorts of creative things they can do --if they are truly a premium big ship offering. if they were to do it they need more than a 14 day menu cycle--has to get a bit more creative. (although as I say, I could see dining in port in the better ports to enjoy the local cuisine). Would also like late evening stays where we cou;d enjoy local cuisine dinner and get back to ship and wake up in another port early. -thus have 12-15 hours in port to really enjoy a day there. The 8-5 stays is nothign more than drive by sightseeing IMHO and now since the costs are so high, I want more than drive by sightseeing and sea days. I could rest at home if I wanted to rest.

No way I take a sport coat. and we dine late on vacation. except with the grandkids with us. the kids were on Regency for their honeymoon Med trip years ago. They said there were too many old people like us. I understood. But other than that, perfect. Galapagos the last on our buckets list, but there. We want to do more with the kids and grandkids but need a couple more years to get away from the RCL big ship sh#$ show.

there have been too many changes in the schemes that its easy to forget. KISS method is being lost in the shuffle. I need fast intenet but want premium drinks, When they were packaging fast internet and premium drinks with a discount (from outreageous prices) it was easy to take I think indulge package over the upgraded package in aqua. Now I do not care-they are not using my fav orote whiskey in premium anymore and I am not sure if my fav upgraded wine is still there . They make it too difficult to make an informed decision . Its only money. Hate to say it but most of our balance sheets may be smaller than RCL's but better. I confess I do not supprt 20 billion of assets with 20 billion of debt.

I put one of our recent bookiing on a 10 day hold. But in the event of say a 2025 cruise I woudl like a long time not so much to make up y mind but so seemore time til I have to lock it in. Money is money. on the first matter I showed family-and this was last year, how a decent cabin on X vs RCL was no more than 100 apart when you finished with drinks grats and OBC and a TAs extra credit. The real issue was we went on Oasis and the play things there were great for the grandkids and nowhere on X. I am not sure why folks goling on RCL do so when there are no kids. The feel on the 2 lines obviously is totally different including cabins being sufficiently larger .

we do not look as frequently as you , but I have been getitng calls from Seaborne and Oceania recently whereas before all I got was mailings and as well on the maiingsViking. Its as if they are trying to poach celebritys customer list. For the time being, we wil be doing land trips for the sightseeing aspect, and winter cruises in carribean just to be in consistent 75-85 degree sunny temps

Yeah, I did not want to say that. I woudl hope that a succeeding company or restructured company would take care of us with deposits being made whole. The creditors committee would take sure ot that. Here is a trivia question. If FDIC was unable to take care of failed banks, what would happen to our checking and savings accounts, where we are general unsecured creditors of the bank.

imho, they are marketing it all wrong. THey were okay at the beginning. Early on they told you the price, but if you were willing to do non refundable you saved money Now here is the price but for much more money you can get refundable. The con if you will, is they have raised the base price quite significanlty, which used to be refundable , and not its also non refundable, nbut for even more its refundable. and when it started a 900 deposit was refundabke but if you choose a non refundable the price went down 900. Now they ask for 1,000, 1500, 2,000 for refndable.-they want everythign non erfundable. I coudl be okay with that if for example they gave you a free look for a couple of weeks or more if its a cruise say two years from now. Its also why I used to wait to buy insurance till the final payment dates. now with non refundable I have to spend $$ to buy the insurance early. And as a bonus, I will throw in this, RCL is holding 4 billion of deposits. THey save money as they do not pay interest of 7% on 4 billion which is a cool 280 million a year, Worst , we are the creditors. Think about that.

I know how good commissions are because my TA by accident sent me their commish statement at the back end of the invoices and contracts they sent--perhaps it was not so accidently as they passed thru 2/3 of what they got.

Thats the situation I was told about and its the deposit and perks in a group booking that really entice us. There are certain TA's that just give out a refundable OBC or debit card equal to a % of gross cruise cost. Simple and clean but the group booking opens the door to bigger discounts and OBC. Also makes me wonder if X andRoyal are about to cut back on TA compensation or group booking enticements and how much theTAs can work with.

I just looked at the cruise I mentioned above. The price is up $400 including a 76 increase in the AI package and a 200 increase in the refundable deposit cost , plus X no longer giving a $200 OBC. Many moving pieces. This will also affect the move up price. This is for an inside cabin where with FCC it mentally works out to a free cruise.

my operative words were "I heard" and "Now" since this march 3 change has this issue changed. It would ,mean of course you would need to stay with X for the booking and save them commission money-which makes sense given it needs to improve cash flow and shows less and less concern about its meat and potato cruisers. I also noted on a cruise I booked 2 weeks ago, the non refundable deposit is up from 420 to 650, and I wonder what that's going to mean for when we buy a group booking at a TA and have received refundable deposit as part of it. My brother tried to book the same cruise we booked a week earlier and while the cabin went down by 100 PP the group price went up by 400. Somebody, the customer, is subsidizing the refundable up charge and in addition OBC was no longer offerred by X. But the 75% off and up to 1600 OBC sale is continuing to be offered, just the details change

I tried explaining your risk reward analysis with other cruiser ssince we only do a couple of cruises a year. eg, back before covid I had 2 14 dayers in Aqua with a 900 discount for taking the non refundable risk . Decent risk I though cause if we had to cancell it would be for some major issue. But if you ook 5 such cruises and save 4500 then if you cancell 1, no big deal. NOTE: back when non refundable started it was a significant discount off cruise price. the 900 for 14 days in Aqua, now if its a popular cruise its "dynamic pricing" and can be a 2400 add on for the refundable. I have to look but whats the suites 200% I have also heard that if you book on board and have a lower deposit, now if you transfer it to a TA it switched to the higher deposit. Check it out for yourselves. I also was told that if you havebeen using the same TA for a while, X wil automatically tranfer th ebooking to that TA. May not make a difference for us. We are flipping over to land based vacations which we used to do before. Costs far less and more time in the cities, towns or in say Tuscany to really see things. Well, except for a couple of Carribean cruises in January where the purpose is to go to warm weather.

Eggs were 1.20 a dozen a year ago. The famous Consumer price index, which is used for union and regular pay raises as well as social Security raises, only counted 80 cents of price increase for eggs. I have a theory on that too-beef and fish got too expensive and people had breakfast for dinner on the cheap. pushing up demand. There is a saying on wall street. "the cure for high prices is high prices and the cure for low prices is low prices". in other words when prices are hogh demand drops and vice versa when prices are low demand picks up. The iron clad law of supply and demand in a free economy and free market. Or the Warren Buffet way-buy when there is blood in the streets. eg, when wall street prices are sick we should be buying and when everyone is optimistic we should be sellers. But FOMO reigns, Fear Of Missing Out (on big gains or going on a great cruise) Shop Therapy??

it was about a year ago that X increased its spread on SV's across the board. Went from a niminal spread over a regular veranda to several hundred dollars over depending on the cruise itinerary and expected demand. I stated my theory on another thread that a lot of folks have seen their 401ks and regular portfolios do real well , until last year, and thus feeling flushed with values spent more. We will see how that plays out into the future. The Federal Reserve is tightening its easy money policy with the goal of reducing demand so prices go down. Put 2 and 2 together and if the Fed is successful, we will see lower cabin prices and less than 100% occupancy, although by next January we will finally have used our FCC and are not planning anything cruise after that. A side issue is that a bunch of brokerage houses are calling for higher oil prices soon as well as higher commodity (and food) prices so that is not great for pricing in the future.

One of the beautiful thingsin life is we are all diiferent which changing needs and goals. Whether cruising, AI resorts or land based trips, escorted or not , intensive in an area or quick drive by tours. All of the above or none of the above, or different combinations. I'd personally like to have a suite sized cabin but do not need the heavy fancy food. Only way to do that is book a suite and go MDR. Expensive way to get what I want. The other part is are you looking for a reastful vacation or a lot of sightseeing. YOu know where I am going on this--a Self directed land based vacation. Doing that this spring and if we did not have to pay for expensive 1 hour flights between greek islands it would be incredibly cheap for pretty good quality and a lot of flexibiity and "full days " meaning from breakfast till late "coffee and". Image Santorini and Mykonos and seeing sunsets from a cliff side restaurant as the ships are leaving. I just watched the Smithsonian Institutes "A guide to Essential Italy" and I quickly realized how much local culture there is in Rome, Florence, and Venice and countryside and Southern Italy. The effort put in during the planning is matched up with the excitement of being there and seeing it all. Unfortunately the ships mostly do not do good overnight stops. Or late night departures where you can enjoy and if in port early like 8 am usually leave around 5, and than means gangwalk up at 4: so 5 really means 4 for scheduling and assuming you can get off ship asap in the AM. If you have an apartment -realy good ones with great locations in main tourist towns and cities are 200 a night, -you just get back a little later. Rhodes Greece is 80 a nite on the water 3 blocks from town center. And the trains in Italy are part of the experience. But you are not on a billion dollar ship with a crew of 1200 including entertainment.

its not just the food-the all inclusive deals " give" up to 800 in OBC per cabin, or more thru other deals or agent OBC. Its harder to find refundable OBC, so now we have to spend OBC on expensive stuff like the companies excursions. I think we and others had more fun with our private excursions on mini buses with up to 10 people. Now we can blow off 600 of obc on a private ship excursion. With X getting a share of that. for a while it looked like cabin service would be once a day. ts a lot of things-but when they gross up the cost of a cruise to hand out 800 OBC, we also need to buy more cancellation insurance, because if you cancell, you are stuck for the grossed up price. Not the net if you get a refundable OBC. Am I getting picky? Perhaps. But its my money I am spending. I would like to keep as much as I can. to spend in different ways.

I reached that Carribean point 24 years ago after a 16 day Pamama canal trip from Acapulca to either San Juan or Ft Lauderdale with teh ABC and a few other ports. Everything looked and was the same and our daughters could have their hairs bradied at each port. I cancelled a b2b2b set for April TA and May ( i think 16 ports) when I had a personal issue come up which messed up my scheduling. The 16 ports had an average of no more than 8 hours each which effectively work out to 7 hours each at best. I did a 180 and booked a 35 day land trip in Greece and Italy. Far less costly and still rather nice. And we will have weight gains from local cuisine, pretty good food and wine, offset by a lot of walking around. Travel times on travel days other than going to and from Europe are 5 hours Leving plenty of time on non travel days as well as the nights. Its more work and effort, but i think yields a nice return.

well, thats certainly true. people will stop when the masses think the prices exceed the value received, or, when the spenders run out of money I bet a lot of people who have upgraded to Aqua and Retreat and a decent portion of those still in norml accomodations, are doing so because portfolios the last decade have done well, or alternatively, and I think I am correct, many people in Florida who have time can just get on a cruise without complications or high costs of hotel the night before and airfares. Those folks may or may not have portfolios but many have pensions, whether from a government or private company where thats underfunded. My thesis is if we have a prolonged market selloff because the Fed does not rush in to save it, that wil have sort of an adverse effect on annuities and pensions ability to pay out benefits and of course stocks and bonds. And if cruising business declines, none of the cruise lines (or airlines, or hotel insdustry or restaurants) have built up a war chest of sorts-a rainey day fund- to survive the next econ decline, nor have many of the other companies out there.

Hard to say, however, I am in the group seeing where the econ growth data is being overstated and inflation understated. We have too many unknowns, Watch the overall market and if that starts selling off its a signal to get out. There is a saying, if you are in the market its better to panic sell early rather than late. My big concern is companies in general that have too much debt and are illiquid to pay off debt. Not just the cruise lines which depend on deposits. The cruise lines have made large capital committments and have surviced the lockdowns, but not by much. Everything is ok til its not. While the Fed is talking tough now it can turn on a dime like it has if things get tight again. Inflation is preferable to an economic calamity.

or put the company at risk, which they have done even if its only a perception that things are not as good as before, thats a problem and its managements problem, and the shareholders problem that neither seems to have a good grasp on whats happening

well, at 76, I only do refundable bookings and I do not buy green bananas. I am not their future. I do think they should be targeting to 50-70 age group who want and can pay for upscale adult mature cruises. I also think they should plan on spending more time in ports specidicately evenings and where when they do O/N stays they port early the first day and leave late the second-so customers do not have 2 chopped up days It is more than food. But lets face it, Food used to be X's strong draw. Eg, best food. Has anybody said food is outstanding at all places and meals, like they used to say.