DreamingBig1 Posted April 16, 2016 #1 Share Posted April 16, 2016 I was looking to schedule a cruise out of Tampa in December 2017, and noticed that there are not any offerings. Is NCL going to stop sailing out of Tampa in the future? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welove2cruise* Posted April 17, 2016 #2 Share Posted April 17, 2016 NCL is extremely late in posting itineraries. It may be they just haven't posted those yet. I keep watching as normally I already have my February cruise booked for 2018 and so far they only have a few ships on the schedule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtlantaCruiser72 Posted April 17, 2016 #3 Share Posted April 17, 2016 NCL did a LOT of shuffling of ships last fall and even has messed around with the Jewel and Sun itineraries in the last few months. I get the feeling the CEO is watching yields on seasonal homeports like Tampa, New Orleans, LA, etc and they may change those strategies for 2017/18. They have had to dump a LOT of cabins last minute at VERY low pricing from those ports, which hurts their bottom line. Frankie is a Bean Counter by nature so he may want to make some changes to improve performance. They already announced they would not be returning to Houston, moved to a significantly smaller ship in the Med for winter 2017/18 (and changed itinerary patterns), moved a ship to Asia, so who knows what else they will decide to do. There have been rumors of them putting a ship in Port Canaveral again for 3&4 nt cruises - could they possibly do those on the Sun and go all-inclusive like the Sky? Or maybe they are waiting to see what happens with Cuba, as that could open a whole host of options. With the exception of a few itineraries like South America, the average cruiser books less than 8 months out. They may feel it's prudent to see how this fall/winter shapes up and release fall/winter 2017/18 later in the summer/early fall. Really all a guessing game now as they have stated no definitive release dates for the missing ships in the schedule. Welcome to the new NCL - "you'll get your Deployments when we are good and ready to give em to ya" - for your convenience Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welove2cruise* Posted April 17, 2016 #4 Share Posted April 17, 2016 Welcome to the new NCL - "you'll get your Deployments when we are good and ready to give em to ya" - for your convenience Sad, but true. [emoji6] Now..if they added a ship out of Charleston again I wouldn't mind the wait! I'm hoping for more varied Caribbean itineraries...Turks and Caicos, longer Southern itineraries, etc. I prefer booking as early as possible. Gives me more time to plan and look forward to my trips. [emoji41] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dna529 Posted April 18, 2016 #5 Share Posted April 18, 2016 Sad, but true. [emoji6] Now..if they added a ship out of Charleston again I wouldn't mind the wait! I'm hoping for more varied Caribbean itineraries...Turks and Caicos, longer Southern itineraries, etc. I prefer booking as early as possible. Gives me more time to plan and look forward to my trips. [emoji41] All of the above would be nice. I have a cruise certificate I want to use but I need to book for 2017. Hope they release them soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welove2cruise* Posted April 18, 2016 #6 Share Posted April 18, 2016 All of the above would be nice. I have a cruise certificate I want to use but I need to book for 2017. Hope they release them soon! I do too. Mine is good to 2019 but I would like to apply it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmele999 Posted April 18, 2016 #7 Share Posted April 18, 2016 (edited) NCL did a LOT of shuffling of ships last fall and even has messed around with the Jewel and Sun itineraries in the last few months. I get the feeling the CEO is watching yields on seasonal homeports like Tampa, New Orleans, LA, etc and they may change those strategies for 2017/18. They have had to dump a LOT of cabins last minute at VERY low pricing from those ports, which hurts their bottom line. Frankie is a Bean Counter by nature so he may want to make some changes to improve performance. They already announced they would not be returning to Houston, moved to a significantly smaller ship in the Med for winter 2017/18 (and changed itinerary patterns), moved a ship to Asia, so who knows what else they will decide to do. There have been rumors of them putting a ship in Port Canaveral again for 3&4 nt cruises - could they possibly do those on the Sun and go all-inclusive like the Sky? Or maybe they are waiting to see what happens with Cuba, as that could open a whole host of options. With the exception of a few itineraries like South America, the average cruiser books less than 8 months out. They may feel it's prudent to see how this fall/winter shapes up and release fall/winter 2017/18 later in the summer/early fall. Really all a guessing game now as they have stated no definitive release dates for the missing ships in the schedule. Welcome to the new NCL - "you'll get your Deployments when we are good and ready to give em to ya" - for your convenience Very interesting observations as to why NCL has not released the rest of the winter 2018 itineraries. However, NCL needs to be careful if they are going to, once again, deploy a large numbers of ships to the Caribbean. We have already booked a trip for January 2018 on MSC partly because NCL did not have anything new available and also the prices for the suites have significantly increased on NCL. There is also a small number of cruises who like to book cruise early and NCL might lose those customers. Edited April 18, 2016 by jmele999 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dna529 Posted April 18, 2016 #8 Share Posted April 18, 2016 Very interesting observations as to why NCL has not released the rest of the winter 2018 itineraries. However, NCL needs to be careful if they are going to, once again, deploy a large numbers of ships to the Caribbean. We have already booked a trip for January 2018 on MSC partly because NCL did not have anything new available and also the prices for the suites have significantly increased on NCL. There is also a small number of cruises who like to book cruise early and NCL might lose those customers.[/quote I agree. If I didn't have a certicate I would have already booked elsewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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