What is going on with Celebrity pricing for next year ??

[barneymag]

Hi All

 

Only started cruising with X back in 2014 but have enjoyed 5 Cruises with them since.

 

 

Next cruise is Baltic cruise on Eclipse and have been tracking X pricing for 2019 for 6 months and every European itinerary I look at for next year is crazy pricing compared to our previous 5 cruises

 

 

Always booked a C3 Concierge (like the location rather than the supposed perks) and on every cruise we’ve always received a classic drinks package and usually OBC and/or pre paid grats inc in pricing

 

 

Here’s my rough pricing for 2 people for last 4 years inc classic drinks and grats

 

 

2014 - 11 night Canaries on Eclipse £3000 (£273 per night)

2016 - 14 night Baltic on Eclipse £4000 (£286 per night)

2017 - 10 night Greek Islands on Reflection £3200 (£320 per night)

2017 - 10 night Canaries on Eclipse £3300 (£330 per night)

2018 - 12 night Baltic on Eclipse £3560 (£297 per night)

 

 

So for the last 5 cruises we have paid between £273 and £330 per night inc classic drinks and grats in a C3 Concierge cabin

 

 

2019 price examples - 12 night Baltic on Reflection £5440 (£453 pn)

14 night Baltic on Silhouette £6740 (£481 pn)

14 night Med on Silhouette £7000 (£500 pn)

 

So these typically are £150 to £200 per night more expensive than anything before on X - don’t even dare look at Edge as its even more crazy pricing - this means a 10 night is working out at £1500 to £2000 more than last year and a 14 night Baltic or Med cruise around £3000 more than we have paid over the last couple of years !!! Why ???

 

Nothing extra included apart from classic drinks and WiFi this time, but tbh I’m not bothered about internet etc when on a cruise and always had the drinks included over last 5 cruises

 

Not sure if this is just a UK pricing issue or if the same for US pricing for European cruises - also just checked cabin availability for a June 2019 Baltic cruise and around 140 C3’s available out of the 150 on the ship !

 

Thoughts ? Do we predict a significant sale shortly for 2019 if they don’t start filling these cabins ??

 

Appreciate thoughts from experienced X cruisers who may have seen this before

[Lastdance]

Supply/demand is of course the biggest part. They are also targeting a younger clientele and have to pay for all the new ships coming. The economy is also doing well, so prices everywhere are higher. One has to be savvy and keep looking; there are deals out there, but not as many as before IMO. I have an S1 sky suite booked on Edge for its first TA. It was 10,000 the first hour it opened and now it is double...

[jimzgoldfinch]

Hi,

Agree that it is a supply/demand situation. On recent cruise, I asked the future cruise rep. why Med cruises were more expensive than Caribbean cruises. Answer greater demand and fewer ships.

 

Jim

[laslomas]

Yes it is so much cheaper to cruise in the Caribbean. I have been looking too, and the prices for Mediterranean itineraries are crazy. It still works out cheaper in the Caribbean even when you include the long haul flights and pre cruise accommodation, than sailing from Southampton, or other European ports. If it is a supply and demand situation, why don't they simply send more ships across to Europe?

[rose6]

The Equinox was moved from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean about a year ago and now there is less Celebrity inventory in the Mediterranean. Prices are considerably higher, and some of us may decide not to book at those higher rates. I believe in voting with my dollars.

[Duanerice1]

That is one of the reasons we pretty much stick to the Caribbean. That and we live close to the ports. But even then, prices have been pretty high. Found a decent deal during one of the sales so jumped on a 10 night in October. Keep an eye out because sometimes the sales really do pay off.

 

Love visiting Europe but take land vacations. One day in a port is not that much fun for us.

[AtlantaCruiser72]

Cruise pricing across the industry is on the rise, ships are sailing full and we are seeing very little in the way of discounting. The cruise lines seem to be very "bullish" on 2019 pricing right now. Time will tell if these fares will hold or not. I know for you all in the UK it is more difficult as you cannot re-fare once booked and lose full deposit if you cancel to rebook at a lower fare.

[Cruise Junky]

There are some deals out there. We have a great price on our Lisbon to Barcelona cruise. But I agree in general, they’re awfully high.

[dutchclogs]

Supply/demand is of course the biggest part. They are also targeting a younger clientele and have to pay for all the new ships coming. The economy is also doing well, so prices everywhere are higher. One has to be savvy and keep looking; there are deals out there, but not as many as before IMO. .

 

The Equinox was moved from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean about a year ago and now there is less Celebrity inventory in the Mediterranean. Prices are considerably higher, and some of us may decide not to book at those higher rates. I believe in voting with my dollars.

 

The irony is that several cruise lines moved ships to Europe because of perceived oversupply in the Caribbean. Then unrest in Europe caused a downturn in North Americans coming to Europe, resulting in soft pricing and in turn relocation of ships back to the Caribbean.

 

The 2019 pricing in Europe is unquestionably very high. I'm not sure I understand how high prices will attract a younger clientele though. OK, shorter cruises (7 v. 10+ nights ) cost more per night but is the sustained demand there?

[chemmo]

We have also noticed the massive price hike for next year. Not only is one Canary Islands cruise substantially more expensive than last year it is a day shorter too!

 

We have done a couple of ‘mock’ bookings and the good news for us is suites seem to still be widely available....last year when we had to change a booking there were very few suites left a year out.

 

We will be monitoring for any real offers. We did do well on a second person half price offer in Europe a couple of years ago. Failing that we have a Caribbean cruise booked at a good price for 2020 and there are lots of other holiday types we can enjoy next year.

[mickey89]

We have already walked away and booked land based resorts for 2019 due to Celebrity silly prices.

[anniegb]

We have already walked away and booked land based resorts for 2019 due to Celebrity silly prices.

 

Ditto.

 

Annie

[QE2_Fan]

I’ve also noticed the crazy prices, we are from Down Under and even Sth Pacific and New Zealand Itineraries are so high.

 

And don’t mention the Transpacific cruises between Australia and Hawaii - they used to be a bargain due classed as a relocation cruise (without any perks) but are now priced outrageously higher than even 'regular' cruises yet they still do not include any perks.

 

Demand is high obviously but will be interesting If some of these inflated prices will hold.

 

If they do it sadly means Celebrity will be out of our budget for future cruises. [emoji22]

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[PelicanLvr]

To many in the UK (such as the OP) the value of your currency (Pound) have greatly effected prices for you. Pound hit a 20 year high in 2014 of $1.70.....today it's $1.33.

 

That has to figure into the mix.

[4774Papa]

Yes, we still love Celebrity, but find its prices have increased much more than we like. We started checking out Royal Caribbean prices, which generally are lower than Celebrity. For one reason, Royal doesn't bundle drink packages that we don't want.

 

Elite Celebrity cruises can automatically pickup Diamond membership on Royal. On our 23 day Explorer of the Seas TransPacific from Sydney to Seattle, we loved the Diamond Happy Hour (from 4:30 to 8) and you can order as many drinks as you want in the lounge as well as three in bars, even in the Main Dining Room. We spent ZERO on alcohol on that cruise.

 

Royal has many things in common with Celebrity (they are owned by same company) and the entertainment is better on Royal. We saw two wonderful ice shows. MDR is almost as good as Celebrity, but the buffet is not as good. Still, check out Royal.

[Bo1953]

Yes, we still love Celebrity, but find its prices have increased much more than we like. We started checking out Royal Caribbean prices, which generally are lower than Celebrity. For one reason, Royal doesn't bundle drink packages that we don't want.

 

Elite Celebrity cruises can automatically pickup Diamond membership on Royal. On our 23 day Explorer of the Seas TransPacific from Sydney to Seattle, we loved the Diamond Happy Hour (from 4:30 to 8) and you can order as many drinks as you want in the lounge as well as three in bars, even in the Main Dining Room. We spent ZERO on alcohol on that cruise.

 

Royal has many things in common with Celebrity (they are owned by same company) and the entertainment is better on Royal. We saw two wonderful ice shows. MDR is almost as good as Celebrity, but the buffet is not as good. Still, check out Royal.

 

Good reasons, yet not compelling for us to try RC... ship size, service and passenger demographics are some of our main desires to stay with X.

 

bon voyage

[Orator]

We have already walked away and booked land based resorts for 2019 due to Celebrity silly prices.

really not "silly prices" if they are getting them. What would be silly for any business would be to get less than the market would dictate for their product. At this point the demand appears to support the price. Who knows what the future might bring?

[Hlitner]

I will bring up a very delicate issue which is that there is more than one cruise line in the Med :). Those folks that limit themselves to 1 or 2 cruise lines really do limit both their itinerary and pricing options. We like X (Elite Plus) but have also cruised on 13 other cruise lines (with a 14th booked) and have enjoyed every cruise. Is Celebrity better than their competition? Overall the quick answer is NO. And keep in mind that most Med cruises are port intensive which means that you spend less time on the ship. Even cruise ship night life seems to wane on Med cruises because passengers run themselves ragged in the ports and are often exhausted in the evening. While Caribbean cruises can often take on a late night party atmosphere, in the Med many of the party crowd are sound asleep :).

 

Hank

[mickey89]

really not "silly prices" if they are getting them. What would be silly for any business would be to get less than the market would dictate for their product. At this point the demand appears to support the price. Who knows what the future might bring?

Far too early to say Demand support the price point as many, many cabin are yet to be sold for 2019. Watch for the price drops for sure but will be too late for us, we have 2019 covered and it's not Celebrity.

[barneymag]

To many in the UK (such as the OP) the value of your currency (Pound) have greatly effected prices for you. Pound hit a 20 year high in 2014 of $1.70.....today it's $1.33.

 

That has to figure into the mix.

 

Totally agree and most of the product my business uses is imported from US or Europe so I have to monitor currency constantly. However the £ started dropping pre-brexit vote and was trading around $1.45/£1.00 at the start of 2016 and crashed June 2016 after the Brexit result and was trading in the £1.2x/£1 region for over 12 months following the vote.

 

In my opinion everything eventually hits a point where the vendor passes on what they want to achieve and the buyer chooses if this is acceptable - looking at X's 2019 European pricing i for one will not buy the product at 50-60% inflated pricing compared to the last 2 to 3 years and checking cabin availability (on the X UK site you see EVERY available cabin in each category) the 2 or 3 itineries we were looking at have between 90-95% cabin availability .... Thats a lot ! Normally when we're booking a year out and cruises have been on sale between 6 to 12 months I have a choice of around 30-40% of the cabins.

 

I honestly don't believe the UK market will entertain these prices for European cruises and as others have said I can fly to the US and take a Caribbean cruise for a chunk less than driving to Southampton and sailing to the Med or Baltic.

 

I will keep monitoring but if X don't start filling the huge volume of cabins showing on some of these European cruises next year they will be forced to dump them or sail half full.

[TeeRick]

Good reasons, yet not compelling for us to try RC... ship size, service and passenger demographics are some of our main desires to stay with X.

 

bon voyage

 

Bo- we have sailed a lot on RCCL. You can find smaller more intimate ships if you try the Radiance Class which are similar in size (and age) to M-Class. They are not amusement parks filled with kids especially on longer itineraries outside the Caribbean. We did RCCL Brilliance a couple of years ago in the Baltics and it was very enjoyable. Demographics sometimes depends on where and when you cruise.

[Cruise Junky]

Good reasons, yet not compelling for us to try RC... ship size, service and passenger demographics are some of our main desires to stay with X.

 

bon voyage

You don’t have to go huge to go RCL. Radiance’s TP was more than $1;000 pp cheaper than Solstice’s.

[ggo85]

Still, check out Royal.

 

As a 20-year RCCL cruiser, I agree that in many ways you get much more bang for your buck on RCCL vs. Celebrity. However, it's important to realize that RCCL is now the "family division" of the parent company, meaning it caters to and markets to families with children.

 

We've moved away from RCCL after several negative experiences with (unsupervised, uncontrolled) kids. I realize there are kids on Celebrity, but the vibe is different. [Not trying to start a debate about kids on cruise ships, merely stating our personal experiences and decisions.]

 

Thus, if you are in the "families with children" demographic or have no issues being on a ship where more than 1/3 of the passengers are under age 18, then RCCL can be a terrific, cheaper alternative to Celebrity. But if you don't want to be inundated with kids, think twice before booking on RCCL -- especially during the summer, Christmas/New Year, and spring break.

[Bo1953]

Bo- we have sailed a lot on RCCL. You can find smaller more intimate ships if you try the Radiance Class which are similar in size (and age) to M-Class. They are not amusement parks filled with kids especially on longer itineraries outside the Caribbean. We did RCCL Brilliance a couple of years ago in the Baltics and it was very enjoyable. Demographics sometimes depends on where and when you cruise.

 

t - thanks for the info. I will follow up on that, yet with our next M class sailing will be on Summit and after that Edge, not sure if spouse will stand for going back, as it were... LOL

 

If Edge is a hit for our group of 21 next year, 2020 we will be on Edge for a Med sailing...

 

Something about new ships this group loves to relish in... we shall see.

 

I will try to push the Radiance Class, but just about any line with Royal in it is almost a no go.... :eek:

 

LOL - thank you again and bon voyage

[Bo1953]

You don’t have to go huge to go RCL. Radiance’s TP was more than $1;000 pp cheaper than Solstice’s.

 

cj - Thanks, yet sometimes in my house it is thought that I have more money than sense and if there is a radical change in sailing lines, then I might have none by the end of the day! LOL

 

I have suggested Crystal and Windstar in the past few years to try, and it sounded like I was calling for the third apocalypse to arrive surpassing one and two... LOL

 

I will recommend for sure for consideration...

 

bon voyage