Constellation Wine CruiseS

[BigKeith]

Just interested to know if the wine cruises this year out of Southampton are selling poorly.

 

I ask this because i seem to be bombarded with really good deals in emails a lot and have noticed they are advertised a lot in the national papers and seem extrememly good value.

 

If someone like me were to go on the cruise could I treat it as a normal cruise or is it largely focused on the wine element?

 

Big Keith

[Oakton Girl]

We are thinking of booking with our English friends for 1 of these cruises. From what I am reading on the boards you may be getting better offers than we are on this side of the pond.

As far as enjoying the cruise, you can partake of the activities on board or not. I feel sure that most of the wine venues will include a charge.

The iteniaries sound interesting and you can gage your ventures off ship with another focus in mind. As with most cruises, you can make it what suits your interests.

Good luck!

[karpela]

Just interested to know if the wine cruises this year out of Southampton are selling poorly.

 

I ask this because i seem to be bombarded with really good deals in emails a lot and have noticed they are advertised a lot in the national papers and seem extrememly good value.

 

If someone like me were to go on the cruise could I treat it as a normal cruise or is it largely focused on the wine element?

 

Big Keith

 

I was wondering the same thing. I had an email yesterday from one of our large Supermarket Travel Agents and this cruise was less than £700 for 12 nights in a balcony cabin.

The cheaper prices are on the November dates when the weather is a lot cooler, perhaps that's why.

[LuvCeleb]

Wife and myself booked this cruise. We really like the wine aspect, but even more, are the overnight stays. I have always wanted to go to normandy, and we also get Paris in the cruise. I think we got a pretty good deal from a large internet agency. I priced it out with several agencies, and also looked at booking everything myself. The online agency price was the same as if I booked myself, so it just made it much easier for us to go with the agency. We got air, two night hotel, ground transfers etc. We are pretty excited. I plan on watching prices however. I almost never book this far out. I have always found if you get within the 60 day departure window you can save money. The only option I have if a lower price appears, is to cancel and re-book. I think I can do that as long as it outside the 75 day sailing window.

[ali-ali-oh]

We have also booked one of these and are by no means wine buffs and intend treating it as any other cruise - at the prices on offer at the moment and loving the Connie, we'd be fools not to take a break to chill before Christmas hits us and are really looking forward to it - why would you "wine" about it?!

 

(forgive the pun and the incorrect use of whine)

[frank3684]

Have also booked and have no interest in wine or its production . The deal was too good and we might afford to buy a glass or two.

[suec12]

There is a website where you can check occupancy rates and also whether the prices are going up or down - I think most of these itineraries are about 66% sold at this point. We booked our trip in Feb. I think and shortly after booking there was a very nice price drop. Recently there was a slight increase on our sailing, I think the others have been pretty constant after the early spring price reductions. The current emails making the rounds - book a cabin, get second guest half off - seem to be a bit of a come on. You must book an X guarantee, which can be OK, but the rates for those cabins are higher than an assigned cabin. You end up paying about the same price as if you picked out the cabin you want.

 

I assume you can wine or not wine - certainly the ports have other things to see besides vineyards. I expect most activities onboard involving wine will have a surcharge, except for perhaps Elite Captain Club members - might be a freebie or two for those folks (I say this because on a Carrib. sail there was a free wine seminar for Elites).

 

Anyways this cruise will take us to a part of Europe we have not yet visited plus London so we think it will be a very pleasant 12 nights.

[Chunky2219]

We are booked on one of these and will be taking our neighbours with us. Prices were initially quite steep, but dropped after we booked and we got the reduction without a problem. Since then, prices have risen and fallen several times , but never got any lower than we managed.

 

For our cruise, the price went up again last week by about £100 each for a 2A. The prices of the RS suites are still at their lowest. But looking on our TA's website you can see that availability is still quite good. You can check availability on most of the big TA and cruise bureau websites if you know where to look.

 

One of the reasons for poor take up might be brochure availability (or lack of). The wine cruises were a replacement for Eastern Med voyages as an addendum stuck in the old brochure. We've looked in 3 TAs in our local shopping centre this morning and there are STILL no new brochures available which go past about May 2012. Folks won't buy things they don't know exist!

 

For anyone thinking about one of these cruises, I believe that Oz Clark is on board the one after us, which would be sailing 13 Oct.

.

.

[cruisestitch]

Read Cruise Critic policy -- you cannot name Travel Agencies on this website, and most of the sites which show occupancy etc. are run by travel agencies.