Falling Canadian Dollar

[fuzzywuzzy]

Has the falling Canadian dollar affected anyone with regard to booking a cruise?

 

Do you find the expense now is changing your plans to cruise at least at the current time?:confused:

[calliopecruiser]

Not changing the plans I already have, but it is making me think twice about planning any US vacations in the next year (my upcoming cruise is 2017).

[LHT28]

no change here for our Nov cruise

 

If I want to cruise I will have to pay the price or stay home

 

time will tell

[T.O.cruisers]

I just made final payment on the cruise I booked back in March for Christmas week. The dollar fell a bit more since I booked. Now I'm looking at booking for May 2016 in the Mediterranean. The dollar may or may not continue to fall but that's the price I have to pay to cruise. Whatsa girl to do?

[ger_77]

We booked our cruise for Jan/2016 a number of months ago. Since then the Canadian dollar has taken a real beating, but we aren't about to cancel our escape from the frozen tundra; we are just increasing our budget to accommodate the difference. You can't put a price on sanity. :D

 

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

[Nic6318]

I have a few strategies that have kept costs down over the years.

 

Being relatively close to the border I will almost always fly out of Detroit instead of Toronto. I realize this isn't a viable option for a lot of people.

 

Even flying out of a U.S. airport looking for best prices will save hundreds $$ per person. For instance currently prices for flights to Florida destinations are easily found for under $200 return while looking at anything after the second week in Feb. the same flights are over $350. Looking at B2B cruises will make the daily cost come down.

 

When that happens I look at avoiding flights. Fortunately we are also within driving distance for a number of ports. Boston, Baltimore, Bayonne, Montreal, Quebec city, and N.Y. are all reasonable drives. I have also driven once to Norfolk, and New Orleans, but those were in combination with other plans.

 

Other than that apart from just spending less on extras there is not much you can do. I much prefer cruises to A.I's so if I just have to go on fewer trips, so be it.

 

good luck

who knows maybe another ten years and the CDN$ might go back up again:):rolleyes:

[lamchops]

I took advantage of NCL's $1.11 exchange rate offer for a Hawaiian cruise this year and will look to Europe again in the near future. The Euro is about $.12 more than the USD so another $500 in airfare gets you there for some bargain cruises.

[buggins0402]

I used to be a Canadian corporate loan officer in previous work life. So I went looking for a few currencies that the C$ has gained on in the last five years. Land trips to Australia, Norway and Russia (all heavy commodity based economies) look to be the best bang for the Canadian buck right now.)

 

 

 

http://www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates/

[buggins0402]

Following up on my previous comment here's an interesting article from the A$ perspective:

 

http://www.cruisepassenger.com.au/aussie-dollar/

[Putterdude]

The CAD seems to have stabilized at present and our cruises for 2016 are booked in CAD and were booked some time ago so we are in pretty good shape for next year. Going into 2017 and beyond is the question for us. Many believe that that there will be an uptick in oil and commodity prices which will have a positive impact on the CAD however that aside I am certain that the cruise lines will be offering specials and promotions to the Canadian market in fact there are some right now. Having been caught 5 or 6 years ago in a serious downward adjustment of the CAD with a cruise booked in USD I have since then always booked in CAD on the theory that I can afford it today I can afford it tomorrow.

[cbr663]

We have neighbours who have cancelled their cruise and are not planning on cursing again anytime soon. We are fortunate that we have a great promo for our cruise and able to pay in CAD$. The exchange rate challenge is money spent on board and trying to get to the ship.

 

The hotel costs, transportation and meals while in the US are impacted. We booked a hotel with a shuttle service, so that lessens the impact. We are not big spenders while onboard, so I don't anticipate anything changing there. However, I can certainly understand why some people may wish to cut back on their onboard spending. Having a spa treatment that costs an extra 18% - 20% with tip and now another 35% more with exchange may lead some to consider other options.

[CowPrincess]

>SNIP<

 

Having been caught 5 or 6 years ago in a serious downward adjustment of the CAD with a cruise booked in USD I have since then always booked in CAD on the theory that I can afford it today I can afford it tomorrow.

 

We always "do the math" before we book. Always. Sometimes it is to our advantage to pay in $US, other times it is not. But we always check. Right now everything we have booked is booked in Cdn, but I will continue to check when/if there are price decreases to make certain that Cdn $ is still favorable.

[CowPrincess]

We have neighbours who have cancelled their cruise and are not planning on cursing again anytime soon. We are fortunate that we have a great promo for our cruise and able to pay in CAD$. The exchange rate challenge is money spent on board and trying to get to the ship.

 

The hotel costs, transportation and meals while in the US are impacted. We booked a hotel with a shuttle service, so that lessens the impact. We are not big spenders while onboard, so I don't anticipate anything changing there. However, I can certainly understand why some people may wish to cut back on their onboard spending. Having a spa treatment that costs an extra 18% - 20% with tip and now another 35% more with exchange may lead some to consider other options.

 

We are going to be looking at all our options for pre-cruise expenses. We leave home 3 days pre-cruise, and spend 2 days in the embarkation city. To be honest, if I can find a decent grocery store with a decent selection of fruits, some cooked chicken in the deli section, and some buns, we will be doing that for breakfasts and lunches pre-cruise. Maybe even for dinners. Shuttles, yes. Public transit, yes. Between hotels and meals and transportation we easily drop $500/day pre-cruise. Not an enormous amount but at the current exchange rate it only makes sense to try to get that lower ;)

[sail7seas]

I'm surprised we aren't reading of more from U.S. traveling to Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto etc on East Coast and great locations in Canada on West Coast. What an opportunity to enjoy some fabulous stays in Canada.

 

 

 

[ronandannette]

Has the falling Canadian dollar affected anyone with regard to booking a cruise?

 

Do you find the expense now is changing your plans to cruise at least at the current time?:confused:

 

We booked our cruise for Jan/2016 a number of months ago. Since then the Canadian dollar has taken a real beating, but we aren't about to cancel our escape from the frozen tundra; we are just increasing our budget to accommodate the difference. You can't put a price on sanity. :D

 

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

Unfortunately, that just wasn't in the cards for us. For years we'd planned a trip to Europe with a Med cruise for our 20th Anniversary this September. We deposited more than a year ago and by the time final payment rolled around, exchange plus breath-takingly high airfares pushed the cost into low-5 figures. :( We ended up on a cheap cruise to Alaska instead.

 

Awhile ago I agreed to accompany a friend on a quick 3-day Pacific Coastal. Great rates; $199/pp for a deluxe balcony with full Beverage Package and speciality dining included. With airfare, service charges, surcharge for beverage & dining perks, port fees and taxes, I'm almost $800 in. Way more that it's going to be worth and if I wasn't obligated to my friend I would have bailed for sure.

Edited September 25, 2015 by ronandannette

[iancal]

Yes. We will not buy a last minute cruise while travelling in Europe this month or next month if it is priced in USD.

 

We do not have anything booked at the moment. The low CAD means that we will avoid any cruises or vacations priced in USD or US travel in general. There are other places on our collective bucket lists that can fill the void.

 

We are switching to more land trips. Extended sun vacation will be somewhere like Thailand or Central America. We did lots of cruising when the CAD was high.

We do a lot of last minutes however we always take currency into account. Several years ago we delayed an extended South African trip by one year because of their falling currency. Doing this made our travel budget go much further.

[notentirelynormal]

It sure makes a difference for how I pay for my trip to Vancouver. I'm liking the price difference :D. Before I get jumped on, I am a Canadian and American. It just makes it sweeter to come home for a few days. I'm using my Canadian credit cards because it is so much cheaper for me.

[iancal]

buggins0402..you are so right.

 

We did two cruises in Australia this spring. The first, a Princess cruise, used AUD as the on board currency. A martini was $10. AUD/CAD. Travelling in Australia wa expensive, but it was still less expensive (in CAD) than travelling in the U.S.

 

The second, an RCI cruise, used USD as the on board currency. The same drink was priced at $12-14USD, 15-20 CAD. We did not spend any money at the bar! Mind you. The unexpected $400 USD OBC was a real bonus!

Edited September 25, 2015 by iancal

[koss78b2]

i m just biting the bullet and going, one thing that if you can afford the TIME then best to go , then wait, as there might not be a tomorrow to consider

[Hammer61]

Not just the Canadian dollar that have taken a hit against the greenback, add just about every other major currency in the world has to some extent, the Australian dollar was worth more than the $US a couple of years ago, but go back a few more years before that and it very nearly got to 2 Aussie for 1 $US :eek: thankfully it was very short lived and the Aussie climbed back up.

 

Quite why we get such big fluctuations in the value of currency’s in this day and age is a mystery to me, although currency’s like the Canadian and Australian are very much linked to the price of commodity’s particularly Oil and Iron Ore and both have been going down and down and further down, so both currency’s are down about 30% in less than a year.

 

Must be a constant problem for the big Cruise lines, would imagine when the Aussie dollar was on par with the $US the costs of running the ships out of Australia was much higher but revenue was better with customers paying with Australian dollars, now its the opposite so to a certain extent it will even out but that doesn’t help the customer who may have paid only a small fare rise to last year in the local currency but has to pay for everything onboard with $US.