Think the price will drop?

[JamieLogical]

For anyone who cares, NCL has finally dropped the price on a few categories, but not nearly to the level that I still expect them to fall. Last week they dropped the price on all Haven categories by $100. Sometime between yesterday morning and just now, they dropped the price on most inside categories by $20-50. So prices are still WAY too high to move inventory at the rate needed to fill the ship in the next 82 days.

 

Inventory has moved SOME since I last posted. In the last 11 days:

 

• Inventory for Inside rooms has declined by 28
• Inventory for Oceanview rooms has declined by 7
• Inventory for Balconies has declined by 40
• Inventory for Mini-suites has declined by 20
• Inventory for Havens has declined by 2

That means total inventory has declined by 97, which averages out to selling 8-9 rooms a day. If that holds, NCL could sell 664-747 more rooms by the sail date. However, there are still 1125 rooms still available.

 

Percentage-wise, there are still 63% of Insides, 37% of Oceanviews, 49% of Balconies, 65% of Mini-suites, and 81% of Havens available. In all, that is 55% of the ship still empty.

[ColeThornton]

Are you going on a cruise or planning the Invasion of Normandy?    LOL

 

Don't worry about NCL.  They, like every other line, are master strategists at getting the ships to sail full.  They know their job.

[JamieLogical]

2 minutes ago, ColeThornton said:

Are you going on a cruise or planning the Invasion of Normandy?    LOL

 

Don't worry about NCL.  They, like every other line, are master strategists at getting the ships to sail full.  They know their job.

 

Ha! I am just an analytical person. Believe it or not, tracking this stuff is a lot of fun for me. I am hoping that by doing this, I can gain a little more insight into NCL's pricing practices.

[ColeThornton]

Yea, I can tell you enjoy it.  I'm just messin' with ya. 

[JamieLogical]

Just updating with the lasted data. Prices haven't budged since my last post on the 15th. An average of about 9 rooms per day haven bee selling.

 

• Inventory for Inside rooms has declined by 30
• Inventory for Oceanview rooms has declined by 2
• Inventory for Balconies has declined by 66
• Inventory for Mini-suites has declined by 21
• Inventory for Havens has declined by 6

Total inventory has declined by 125. Currently there are exactly 1000 rooms remaining. At a rate of 9 rooms per day, at 68 days out, 612 more rooms would sell, leaving almost 400 empty rooms. So I still believe NCL will have to relent and lower prices at some point.

 

Percentage-wise, there are still 55% of Insides, 35% of Oceanviews, 43% of Balconies, 58% of Mini-suites, and 75% of Havens available. In all, that is 49% of the ship still empty.

 

[davy jones]

On 1/15/2019 at 9:55 AM, JamieLogical said:

 

Ha! I am just an analytical person. Believe it or not, tracking this stuff is a lot of fun for me. I am hoping that by doing this, I can gain a little more insight into NCL's pricing practices.

I salute your analytical leanings.  

 

I am curious of how and where you collect your data.  Is there a magic algorithm or site?  Or do you just grind it out?

[JamieLogical]

7 minutes ago, davy jones said:

I salute your analytical leanings.  

 

I am curious of how and where you collect your data.  Is there a magic algorithm or site?  Or do you just grind it out?

 

I look up cabin availability on a travel agency website (sorry, not allowed to name here) and then put all of that into a spreadsheet.

[davy jones]

I haven't read all of the replies.  Based on my experiences with NCL, not much will happen before final payment.  If anything does, it will not be very simple because they will adjust offers like OBC or perks.  After final payment, they will make significant drops to the sail away rates if they need to fill cabins.  Fares (balcony and above) with perks won't change much because they will be filled via the upgrade game, but you can get some seriously good sail away rates on insides and OV.  

[workingmom200112]

7 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I look up cabin availability on a travel agency website (sorry, not allowed to name here) and then put all of that into a spreadsheet.

Just curious....do you count the rooms or is there a sub-total somewhere?  I have tried counting, but I always loss my place

[ksmcdonald]

I've been tracking my March 24 cruise for 7 or 8 months.  Here's what I've noticed.

 

I booked in May at $1359 cruise fare (with two perks drink and dining pkg)

 

June - price dropped to $1149 cruise fare (with two perks plus double latitudes point, plus $100 OBC past guest)

 

July  31 - cruise fare and perks stayed the same but now they added an additional $100 which they labeled Free Onboard Spending.  So basically now we have $200 OBC

 

August 29 - cruise far dropped to $1029.  Still two perks, $100 OBC past guest, $100 OBC Free Onboard Spending, plus double latitudes points

 

I check the March 24th cruise price daily and it has not gone down once since August 29th.  I did pay my final balance in Nov. and continue to check if the prices go down.  I did have the choice to change to 5 free perks before my final, but didn't think that was worth giving up my $200 OBC plus giving up my double latitudes points.  The excursion perk was not appealing to me, but I probably would of enjoyed the wifi.  My husband is totally against wifi on a cruise, he wants to unplug, so that probably would not be worth giving up my OBC.  So to sum this up, my cruise has not went down at all since Aug. 29th.

 

 

[TPgal]

41 minutes ago, workingmom200112 said:

I look up cabin availability on a travel agency website (sorry, not allowed to name here) and then put all of that into a spreadsheet.

 

I'm super impressed but the cabin availability doesn't equate to passenger count.   They could have many cabins that are filled to capacity and therefore the need for more passengers isn't there. 

 

I would think that if the passenger count was maxed then they would stop selling altogether, but that's my theory on why they aren't pushing better prices.  

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, workingmom200112 said:

Just curious....do you count the rooms or is there a sub-total somewhere?  I have tried counting, but I always loss my place

 

I copy/paste the list of available rooms into a line counter to get the total count.

[workingmom200112]

10 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I copy/paste the list of available rooms into a line counter to get the total count.

Thanks!  great idea

[JamieLogical]

It's been a while since I updated the data on the April 7th Escape Sailing. There has been some movement on price in the last week or so. Still no real improvement in the pace at which rooms are selling. There are currently 44 days left until sailing. The last time I posted was 22 days ago. In that time:

 

• Inventory for Inside rooms has declined by 75
• Inventory for Oceanview rooms has declined by 15
• Inventory for Balconies has declined by 86
• Inventory for Mini-suites has declined by 24
• Inventory for Havens has declined by 2

Overall inventory has declined by 202. That's an average of just over 9 rooms per day. At that rate, 396 more rooms should sell before sailing. However, there are still 798 available rooms. Leaving potentially 402 unsold rooms.

 

Percentage-wise there are still 35% of insides, 21% of oceanviews, 36% of balconies, 50% of mini-suites, and 73% of Havens still unsold. In all that is 39% of the ship still empty.

 

Price-wise, there has been a little movement since my last post:

 

• The price for IF has dropped by $50
• The price for ID has dropped by $30
• The price for OX has dropped by $120
• The price for OB has dropped $50
• The price for BX has dropped $130
• The price for BF has dropped $120
• The price for BE has dropped $50
• The price for MX has dropped $120
• The price for MC has dropped $250
• The price for H3 has dropped $400

So, for the most part, sail-away and guarantee category prices have dropped some. The higher levels within each meta remain unchanged. I am VERY surprised there has been so little movement on Haven prices, since the inventory has basically been stagnant for months. I expect to see prices drop again around the 30-day mark.

[dcipjr]

I happened to see the April 7th sailing when I was researching prices. I've been keeping an eye on "last-minute" cruises out of NYC, because we're planning on doing one later this year, booking maybe 4-8 weeks in advance.

 

It's very interesting, the difference between sailaway rates and standard (with perks) rates. I saw the sailaway rate ($699) and re-read this thread, thinking that the price did go down -- but then when I looked at a standard rate balcony, it looks like it didn't go down after all.

 

Next time around, it's going to be hard to decline the sailaway rate. It's so much cheaper than the rate with perks, and although I do like to be able to order pretty much any drink I want for a week, I don't know if I like it that much.

 

The Haven does seem abnormally high for this sailing, as compared to others. Are you thinking of bidding up?

[JamieLogical]

3 minutes ago, dcipjr said:

The Haven does seem abnormally high for this sailing, as compared to others. Are you thinking of bidding up?

 

I already have very low bids in on a couple of Haven categories. I was originally hoping that low sales would force them to drop prices to a level I might be able to afford to pay outright, but they really aren't budging on their Haven prices, despite so many unsold rooms.

[Alegeeter]

Does your count take into account those who have booked guarantee cabins and haven't been assigned cabins yet?

Your website may show, for example, 100 balcony cabins available for you to choose from but if there are 50 booked awaiting assignment there are really only 50 balcony cabins available.

[JamieLogical]

5 minutes ago, Alegeeter said:

Does your count take into account those who have booked guarantee cabins and haven't been assigned cabins yet?

Your website may show, for example, 100 balcony cabins available for you to choose from but if there are 50 booked awaiting assignment there are really only 50 balcony cabins available.

 

 

No, I have no way of knowing how many GTYs are unassigned. Since I monitor inventory daily, though, I can usually tell when a "batch" of GTYs get assigned because there will be a sudden large drop in the number of available rooms in the lowest categories for a given meta. From day-to-day, normal inventory movement is usually two or fewer rooms in a given category. But there are days where it will suddenly drop 15-16 rooms in a low category and I assume that is a batch of GTYs getting assigned.

Edited February 22, 2019 by JamieLogical

[dcipjr]

2 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I already have very low bids in on a couple of Haven categories. I was originally hoping that low sales would force them to drop prices to a level I might be able to afford to pay outright, but they really aren't budging on their Haven prices, despite so many unsold rooms.

 

On the positive side, you probably stand a pretty good chance of bidding if there's a lot of unsold inventory. If you bid a price that you'd be comfortable upgrading outright for, you'd probably get it. The trick will to be not bid more than you want.

 

Part of me misses the days where I'd just call in. We had a 14-day cruise on the Escape almost three years ago, and I called in two weeks before, and got quoted $1500 per person to upgrade (nah). Then I called in one week before, and it was $1000 (why not...)

 

Haven sailings before yours are in the $2.5k per person range. I would imagine that a $1k bid might get you the upgrade. Hard to say though, if there's a lot of unsold inventory you might get it for less.

 

[dcipjr]

How are you monitoring inventory? NCL's website doesn't seem to give as much info as you have. Any hints? 😉

[JamieLogical]

Just now, dcipjr said:

How are you monitoring inventory? NCL's website doesn't seem to give as much info as you have. Any hints? 😉

 

 

Unfortunately, it is against the TOS to name specific TA sites here on Cruise Critic. But there are TA sites that will show a full list of inventory (more than the 15 rooms per category that NCL shows). The one I use actually caps out at 100 rooms in a single category, so my numbers may be off slightly. Currently it shows 100 rooms available in the BD category, so there may actually be more unsold rooms. In total, there are 120 BD rooms on the Escape. So if 100 of them are showing as available, it's possible there are as many as 20 unsold rooms not reflected in my numbers.

[Alegeeter]

5 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

 

No, I have no way of knowing how many GTYs are unassigned. Since I monitor inventory daily, though, I can usually tell when a "batch" of GTYs get assigned because there will be a sudden large drop in the number of available rooms in the lowest categories for a given meta. From day-to-day, normal inventory movement is usually two or fewer rooms in a given category. But there are days where it will suddenly drop 15-16 rooms in a low category and I assume that is a batch of GTYs getting assigned.

 

But you still have no way of knowing how many unassigned guarantees are left even after there is a batch drop. Plus, the drop could be due to any number of other things, like if a group won bidding upgrades. All of this to say that you can have a decent idea as to how many cabins are left but your count will be an overestimation of the true number remaining no matter what.

[JamieLogical]

1 minute ago, Alegeeter said:

 

But you still have no way of knowing how many unassigned guarantees are left even after there is a batch drop. Plus, the drop could be due to any number of other things, like if a group won bidding upgrades. All of this to say that you can have a decent idea as to how many cabins are left but your count will be an overestimation of the true number remaining no matter what.

 

This is not news to me. I always assume there are some number of GTYs waiting to be assigned. Seriously doubt it's 798 rooms though... Also, there are no GTY Havens and 73% of those are still unbooked...

[dcipjr]

Just now, JamieLogical said:

 

 

Unfortunately, it is against the TOS to name specific TA sites here on Cruise Critic. But there are TA sites that will show a full list of inventory (more than the 15 rooms per category that NCL shows). The one I use actually caps out at 100 rooms in a single category, so my numbers may be off slightly. Currently it shows 100 rooms available in the BD category, so there may actually be more unsold rooms. In total, there are 120 BD rooms on the Escape. So if 100 of them are showing as available, it's possible there are as many as 20 unsold rooms not reflected in my numbers.

 

Right -- I understand, I don't want to violate any rules. Would you be willing to email it to me? I'm trying to track inventory myself and haven't found many sites that are that comprehensive on what's available. I could post my email (and then remove it).

[JamieLogical]

Just now, dcipjr said:

 

Right -- I understand, I don't want to violate any rules. Would you be willing to email it to me? I'm trying to track inventory myself and haven't found many sites that are that comprehensive on what's available. I could post my email (and then remove it).

Sure. I think what wouldn't be a violation.