How can you tell how well a cruise is selling?

[laurmac]

I have seen various posts from people who comment that a particular cruise is/isn't selling well. How do you make this determination?

 

Is it a matter of watching the price? Other tips?

[whogo]

Only Holland America knows how well a cruise is selling and they consider it proprietary information. Price drops are a sign a cruise is not selling and price increases are a sign it is.

[RuthC]

Other than the price fluctuations whogo mentioned, there is no way to tell.

You could look for available cabins, but even that won't let you know. There could be one high level cabin open, and every category will show availability, since upgrades would set off a domino effect.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Checking prices is somewhat of an indication how the cruise is selling.

If you have the time -- a lot of time -- you could do a dummy booking where you go to each cabin category and keep putting in all the various cabin numbers to see which ones are still available. It could take you quite a few hours to do that.

[jtl513]

If you see "Call for price and availability" show up on most or all categories several months before the cruise you can tell it is selling well! That happened to us on the N.A. when it was just about a month old.

[Lisah101]

There is a website you can check that will tell you the percentage and also the history of pricing by cabin type.

 

It is ********** with a "net" after the dot - I know they keep starring out URLs, but this isn't a competitor, just a way to check your cruise and the price history as well and percentage sold out.

 

Ok I guess they don't like my URL so will try one more time...... cruise "then the word" fish with no space between the two words.

[Randyk47]

Years ago another CC'er, who has since dropped out of cruising, kind of headed up an effort here to come up with a surefire way to easily determine how well a cruise was selling and what was the remaining inventory. Collectively we pretty much got nowhere, especially when it came to the "easily" part. Getting status on maybe a specific cabin or two wasn't too bad but you start doing that for a ship say the size of a HAL Vista class and you better start thinking of having food delivered to you at the computer. :rolleyes::) I'd go with price fluctuations as being the best indicator though I'm not saying that's 100% trustworthy. I've seen cruises go up in price within a category only to watch the same category go down in price significantly....almost like the cruise line was trying to create demand by making it look like they were selling out the cruise. Heaven forbid they'd be that clever..... ;):)

[Cruiser Andi]

There is a website you can check that will tell you the percentage and also the history of pricing by cabin type.

 

It is ********** with a "net" after the dot - I know they keep starring out URLs, but this isn't a competitor, just a way to check your cruise and the price history as well and percentage sold out.

 

Ok I guess they don't like my URL so will try one more time...... cruise "then the word" fish with no space between the two words.

 

Thanks for the tip! Never knew about this. I've been checking everyday to see if there are changes. Now, it's more than a year out for my cruise. So there's still hope.

[lovetocruise2020]

Only Holland America knows how well a cruise is selling and they consider it proprietary information. Price drops are a sign a cruise is not selling and price increases are a sign it is.

 

Any travel agent can look and see the inventory on the interface.

[lovetocruise2020]

I have seen various posts from people who comment that a particular cruise is/isn't selling well. How do you make this determination?

 

Is it a matter of watching the price? Other tips?

 

What cruise do u want to know about? What cabin type? Can ur TA check for u?

[jtl513]

Any travel agent can look and see the inventory on the interface.

They can certainly see what specific cabins are available, just like we can, but I don't think they have any way of telling how many guarantees have been sold. A sailing could have a lot of unselected cabins but only room for a few more people.

[lovetocruise2020]

They can certainly see what specific cabins are available, just like we can, but I don't think they have any way of telling how many guarantees have been sold. A sailing could have a lot of unselected cabins but only room for a few more people.

 

Each category shows how many are left. Right now there are 9 vd cabins and 13 suites unsold on my sailing.

For instance the SY is a gnt. But there are 2 left in inventory.

 

It is my understanding that they will not sell more guarantees then they have total cabins available. If they are oversold, interline first to go.

[laurmac]

Thank you all for taking the time to answer!

[jtl513]

Each category shows how many are left. Right now there are 9 vd cabins and 13 suites unsold on my sailing.

There are 9 VD and 13 suites unchosen (unassigned) but there could well be 8 gty against the VD and 12 gty against the suites for all you know. As soon as any one is specifically chosen by somebody, or another gty is sold, then the category will abruptly close.

 

Furthermore, I believe all cruises are slightly oversold if possible, with the expectation that there will always be some percentage of cancellations. When sufficient cancellations do not occur, then they must go out and "buy back" cabins with offers to move to other sailings. That happens frequently, and it would never happen if as you say " ... they will not sell more guarantees then they have total cabins available."

 

You say "If they are oversold, interline first to go." How can they ever be oversold if they won't sell more cabins than they have? :confused:

[lovetocruise2020]

There are 9 VD and 13 suites unchosen (unassigned) but there could well be 8 gty against the VD and 12 gty against the suites for all you know. As soon as any one is specifically chosen by somebody, or another gty is sold, then the category will abruptly close.

 

Furthermore, I believe all cruises are slightly oversold if possible, with the expectation that there will always be some percentage of cancellations. When sufficient cancellations do not occur, then they must go out and "buy back" cabins with offers to move to other sailings. That happens frequently, and it would never happen if as you say " ... they will not sell more guarantees then they have total cabins available."

 

You say "If they are oversold, interline first to go." How can they ever be oversold if they won't sell more cabins than they have? :confused:

 

Because it is my understanding that cabins do not go to a guarantee until they are close to selling out. Your travel agent can always tell you when its gone to a guarantee, and what is left or what is sold out. Its not exact, but pretty darn close.

 

It is also because interline is almost like stand by. I do it all the time so yes I do know.

 

With the exception of SZ that is listed on the interface* right now at almost 6k pp, because they wait to sell that last. You can buy it, but it is not showing to the general public.

 

Every line is different. Hope what i am trying to say makes sense.

[cruz chic]

Thanks for the tip! Never knew about this. I've been checking everyday to see if there are changes. Now, it's more than a year out for my cruise. So there's still hope.

 

A word of caution, they website does not show how sold out a ship is. If you read the FAQ on that site it does say that.

[jtl513]

Because it is my understanding that cabins do not go to a guarantee until they are close to selling out.

First of all, you can book a guarantee on any category at any time. We've booked 9 guarantees, and all of them have been 6 months to a year before sailing. We did not choose a cabin, nor did the TA choose one for us. The bookings showed GTY right up until they were assigned. I think most people that book gtys do this. All the time we read posts asking when they will they get their assignment long before HAL has gone to selling a category as only GTY.

 

But explain to me how you can say in one sentence that " ... they will not sell more guarantees then they have total cabins available" and in the next sentence "If they are oversold ..." Those are contradictory.

[lovetocruise2020]

First of all, you can book a guarantee on any category at any time. We've booked 8 guarantees, and all of them have been 6 months to a year before sailing. We did not choose a cabin, nor did the TA choose one for us. The bookings showed GTY right up until they were assigned. I think most people that book gtys do this. All the time we read posts asking when they will they get their assignment long before HAL has gone to selling a category as only GTY.

 

But explain to me how you can say in one sentence that " ... they will not sell more guarantees then they have total cabins available" and in the next sentence ""If they are oversold ..." Those are contradictory.

 

My meaning is that as I understand it, interline is not a gnt, its a interline that happens to be a gnt. That is what I mean.

 

On the interface (Polar Online), from my understanding of how it works is:

 

1. Cabin catagories that are close to selling out, go to gnt only

2. You can always pick a gnt, if you want, when there are plenty of cabins to purchase but it wont push that catagory to be listed as gnt. you can still seee how many are available even when it has gone to gnt.

 

You can look to see how close a ship is to selling out, by 1. Looking at how many cabins are available, 2. Seeing what catagories have gone to a gnt only offer.

 

I hope this makes sense. They will sell cabins to travel agents, (kind of like standby) at interline, and they may never be able to get on the ship. Those will be bumped. Sometimes interline rates are not gnt, it all depends on the line and what type of reservation.

[kazu]

My meaning is that as I understand it, interline is not a gnt, its a interline that happens to be a gnt. That is what I mean.

 

On the interface (Polar Online), from my understanding of how it works is:

 

1. Cabin catagories that are close to selling out, go to gnt only

2. You can always pick a gnt, if you want, when there are plenty of cabins to purchase but it wont push that catagory to be listed as gnt. you can still seee how many are available even when it has gone to gnt.

 

You can look to see how close a ship is to selling out, by 1. Looking at how many cabins are available, 2. Seeing what catagories have gone to a gnt only offer.

 

I hope this makes sense. They will sell cabins to travle agents, (kind of like standby) at interline, and they may never be able to get on the ship. Those will be bumped.

 

Sorry Surfiegirl I disagree completely. Many, many people take guarantees on certain ships - there is no way to know who (your TA might know but you can't tell from looking at the website). As an example our last Prinsendam cruise showed 62% available (my TA had told me it was 75% sold out earlier) with tons of cabins - why? people were taking guarantees. People can elect to guarantees and on this ship they did . We don't have any way of knowing that.

 

And then bang the ship was sold out - they had hit the number and they were filling the ship and moving people, upselling whatever.

 

So you can't go by the cabins only and what's guarantee only. Sometimes that's a mini sale as well.

 

anyways that's just my experience. Our ship was sold out well in advance and if you looked HAl or that website the day before there were tons of cabins

 

btw - as John said you can book a guarantee anytime - many of these people on our cruise booked their guarantees months if not a year or more in advance. There is no way to see that on the HAL website or the other sites people talk about. At least, none that I have found.

[lovetocruise2020]

Sorry Surfiegirl I disagree completely. Many, many people take guarantees on certain ships - there is no way to know who (your TA might know but you can't tell from looking at the website). As an example our last Prinsendam cruise showed 62% available (my TA had told me it was 75% sold out earlier) with tons of cabins - why? people were taking guarantees. People can elect to guarantees and on this ship they did . We don't have any way of knowing that.

 

And then bang the ship was sold out - they had hit the number and they were filling the ship and moving people, upselling whatever.

 

So you can't go by the cabins only and what's guarantee only. Sometimes that's a mini sale as well.

 

anyways that's just my experience. Our ship was sold out well in advance and if you looked HAl or that website the day before there were tons of cabins

 

Its just an estimate, by looking at what has been pushed to a gnt, someone whith access to Polar Online can most likely judge what catagories are close to selling out. That can let you know that a ship is close to selling out. 75% to me is close to selling out.

 

There is no way to tell by looking at the public website, one has to look at Polar Online. I am not talking about sites available to the general public.

[kazu]

Its just an estimate, by looking at what has been pushed to a gnt, someone whith access to Polar Online can most likely judge what catagories are close to selling out. That can let you know that a ship is close to selling out. 75% to me is close to selling out.

 

There is no way to tell my looking at the public website, one has to look at Polar Online. I am not talking about sites available to the general public.

 

ok - we'll just agree to disagree - I don't think it reflects all the guarantees and those are cabins that are going to be filled - but that's ok. ;)

[lovetocruise2020]

ok - we'll just agree to disagree - I don't think it reflects all the guarantees and those are cabins that are going to be filled - but that's ok. ;)

 

Like I said, just an estimate, but I will really be able to tell about my particular sailing when almost all categories have gone to gnt, and the the SZ becomes public at much cheaper than what is listed right now, (almost 6k) and that will be a gnt too lol.

 

That's how I will know. I hope that makes sense. I am having a hard time using my brain today and articulating what I want to say,.. :x

[jtl513]

If you can't look at Polar and tell how many GTY have been sold then you really can't tell how many are available. You can only see how many have not been chosen by somebody.

[kazu]

Like I said, just an estimate, but I will really be able to tell about my particular sailing when almost all categories have gone to gnt, and the the SZ becomes public at much cheaper than what is listed right now, (almost 6k) and that will be a gnt too lol.

 

That's how I will know. I hope that makes sense. I am having a hard time using my brain today and articulating what I want to say,.. :x

 

you absolutely make sense and that works sometimes - especially on the larger ships - but on the Prinsendam - nearly every category was available with tons of cabins and then BANG it was sold out. So all I was trying to say is - it doesn't work all of the time. No one knows how many people have booked guarantees. there can be guarantees sold even in suites if it's a collectors' cruise - they don't let everyone choose - so there's just no guarantee - but I think on the larger ships you like it probably works most times. The key word is MOST.

[lovetocruise2020]

you absolutely make sense and that works sometimes - especially on the larger ships - but on the Prinsendam - nearly every category was available with tons of cabins and then BANG it was sold out. So all I was trying to say is - it doesn't work all of the time. No one knows how many people have booked guarantees. there can be guarantees sold even in suites if it's a collectors' cruise - they don't let everyone choose - so there's just no guarantee - but I think on the larger ships you like it probably works most times. The key word is MOST.

 

Yes, that makes sense. I only do the Eurodam & NA.