Pricing based on your country of origin...

[CarlyDawwg's Ma]

Hi all!

 

Am in the research process for an upcoming river cruise and am leading towards Emerald Waterways for their Jewels of the Rhine cruise. I'm an American, but for laughs I changed my country of origin to Canada and I was quite shocked when I discovered the quoted price in CAD, after conversion to USD, was about $600 pp cheaper than the straight US price.

 

Anyone experience this before or have any explanation? I did notice in the fine print that the CAD price quoted did not include $200 port charges, whereas the US price didn't mention port charges at all. I don't know if that means they're included in the base price or not.

 

Would love to hear from anyone who's encountered/researched this issue.

 

Thanks!

[Host Jazzbeau]

There are two things that might explain this: (1) Exchange rates change rapidly and cruise lines only update their prices occasionally, so sometimes the conversion will favor one country and sometimes the other. (2) Different countries have different consumer protection laws, which raise the cost of the cruises.

[Ozjohnno]

I think our "Host" has hit the nail on the head here. We've been on only two river cruises and are Australian. In 2011 our dollar was very strong against the US dollar and we found Tauck to be cheaper than APT, Scenic and less than $100 dearer than Uniworld. In 2014 our trip was much the same. This time it was $300 odd dearer than Uniworld, around the same price as APT and was still cheaper than Scenic. Since then our dollar has collapsed and I have no idea what the comparison would be if we were planning a trip for 2016 which unfortunately without a visit from the Lotto fairy will not happen.

 

From our spreadsheets I can honestly say that when comparing apples with apples Tauck gave us the very best value for our dollar, at that time.

[CarlyDawwg's Ma]

Thanks for the comments. I have noticed a significant difference in CAD v USD while planning a trip to Toronto this May, from the last time we were in Canada, which was about 1 1/2 yrs ago. Hoping the prices for the 2016 cruises look good when we book our (first) river cruise this spring.

[Summerl30]

Our CAD has devalued quite a lot in the last 6 months, unfortunately. In the end, we are probably paying more once you factor in the exchange rate.