Will there come a time when there are no world cruises

[the english lady]

A thought I had recently.

They say the next generation down from ours (60's) will not be as well off as our generation.

They also state they will not be as wealthy.

Plus the retirement age is creeping ever upwards

So my thought , will there come a time when come January Aurora and Arcadia will not disappear for a few months as people will not have the money to afford those cruises. 

How long do we think they have got?

Edited August 8, 2019 by the english lady

[ann141]

I hope P and O will continue to offer World Cruises.I would like to do one eventually before the age of 70 when insurance goes up!I think segments of the world cruise e.g Southampton to San Francisco or to Sydney and flying back will always be popular so hopefully they will keep going for a while.

[Harry Peterson]

I'm sure they'll always exist - there are still plenty of people with plenty of money, and a generation currently dying off leaving pretty large sums in terms of houses - particularly in London and the south-east.

 

We may see much higher environmental taxes though to try to limit the damage caused by cruise ships.

 

The key to wealth these days does tend to depend on whether your parents are/were homeowners or not.  Also, perhaps, whether they choose to spend all their savings or pass some on to their children before IHT takes it.

[Britboys]

All the time P&O have Arcadia - and she is running cost-effectively - they will probably continue.  Aurora now seems to have dropped off the World Cruise itinerary, doing a maximum of 55 - 65 night 'Grand Tours' instead.  Even with the Australian market, I think they might struggle to get decent numbers on board the likes of Azura for a World Cruise.  If I remember rightly, they tried a World Cruise on Azura once but cancelled it???

[Denarius]

I suspect that the number of people taking a world cruise will reduce, but the number of people taking a segment of a world cruise will increase. The former because future generations may not have the money to do it, the latter because people weaned on mass market cruises will be looking for something different. There is a limit on the number of times you want to go to Livorno and Civitavechio.

[groovechick]

21 hours ago, the english lady said:

A thought I had recently.

They say the next generation down from ours (60's) will not be as well off as our generation.

They also state they will not be as wealthy.

Plus the retirement age is creeping ever upwards

So my thought , will there come a time when come January Aurora and Arcadia will not disappear for a few months as people will not have the money to afford those cruises. 

How long do we think they have got?

I think time will be a problem just as much as money. I was talking to a group of friends the other day and we all agreed that we work longer hours, for less money and have less leisure time than when we embarked on our careers, and that's leaving aside the demands of families, running a home, etc. We all hoped we would be retired by now, or nearing early retirement; we are all still working and expect to do so until retirement age and beyond. If you are not retired you don't have the time for extended holidays; it's virtually impossible now to get two weeks' consecutive holiday and the restrictions on when and how you can take holiday increase all the time.

[the english lady]

That was along the lines I was thinking. Of course the thing about doing a leg or 2of a world cruise is that flying would be involved somewhere. One of the reasons we like cruising I'd being able to take oodles of clothing and not have to worry about weights. I was thinking 10 years at the very tops.

[Clodia]

I would like to do a world cruise and am only 62 and retired so could do so, but my OH wouldn't do it and there's no way I'd leave him for that length of time. So I suppose I'd consider a shorter segment just to go somewhere different.

[john watson]

The majority of people on world cruises do not do the entire voyage. A guy at work did a whole voyage last year with his wife £100,000, cruise fares only, not many people can afford this.  They tend to do sectors or varying lengths. The cost is therefore significantly less.   The cruise lines and ships need to be selling cruises throughout the winter with attractive itineraries.  During Northern winters you have Southern summers occurring so repositioning the ships makes sense and for people who have been cruising a number of years the opportunity of doing a faraway short sector makes a lot of sense.  You can visit a series of places you would not otherwise be capable of doing.  Depending on which direction the ships are sailing Eastwards or Westwards you can for example book a week in Mumbai or Florida and embark there to sail back to Southampton.  The final leg of many world cruises is offered later on at very cheap prices as it is hard to sell for two reasons. Firstly the last sector usually only stops at ports which are often covered in short round trip cruises ex-Southampton and secondly they have a lot of consecutive sea days because of the foregoing.  If people cannot afford the whole voyage, shorter sectors are the answer followed by very short sectors which is the way cruise lines will go in my opinion.

 

Regards John

Edited August 9, 2019 by john watson

[jeanlyon]

I did just the first leg of a Worldie on Balmoral with Fred.  It was 30 days plus 2 in a hotel in Dubai.  There is no way I would want to be either on a ship or away for longer than that.  The menus repeat, and it would get very samey being on board any longer than that for me.  19 nighters are plenty.  I'm ready to go home after that1

[yorkshirephil]

I find the menus at home repeat and it can get a bit samey, especially in winter, if I was minted I could quite easily take a world cruise from November to March every year.

[BrianI]

We have done two world cruise sectors, one was on the QE2 from Los Angeles back to Southampton via Panama and New York which was 19 nights, plus one night hotel in LA.

The other was on Aurora from San Francisco via Panama to Southampton which was 24 nights. 

The advantage of these  were that the flights were daytime flights it was March/April time.

Most world cruises sail west so you can do the same in the opposite direction but this means sailing in January with overnight flights to come back.

 

Brian

[Clodia]

2 hours ago, jeanlyon said:

I did just the first leg of a Worldie on Balmoral with Fred.  It was 30 days plus 2 in a hotel in Dubai.  There is no way I would want to be either on a ship or away for longer than that.  The menus repeat, and it would get very samey being on board any longer than that for me.  19 nighters are plenty.  I'm ready to go home after that1

Yes, rather to my surprise, when I did 2 back to backs totalling 28 nights, I was ready to go home after about 24 nights. So maybe a world cruise wouldn't be such a good idea after all!

[Angel57]

Having done two full World cruises in 2012 and 2013 on Aurora I have to say I loved every moment. How anyone could be bored visiting new countries and new ports is beyond me. I would agree the food gets a little monotonous, but then so does my weekly food rota at home. I believe in 2012 there were 800 passengers doing the full World Cruise and the following year there were less. 

 

 

[jeanlyon]

I wasn't bored exactly, I just wanted to get home and get off the ship.   It's too long.  Couldn't possibly do 55 nights or more.

[NSWP]

5 hours ago, Angel57 said:

Having done two full World cruises in 2012 and 2013 on Aurora I have to say I loved every moment. How anyone could be bored visiting new countries and new ports is beyond me. I would agree the food gets a little monotonous, but then so does my weekly food rota at home. I believe in 2012 there were 800 passengers doing the full World Cruise and the following year there were less. 

 

 

A lot of Brit pax disembark in Sydney and the ships like Arcadia, loads up Aussies at reduced prices, 'the old fill the cabins strategy.'   The Aussies then go on to the Fare East or UK.  As we do.

Edited August 10, 2019 by NSWP

[IDB37]

We recently did a 37 day repositioning cruise, which we enjoyed immensely and could happily have stayed on board for another 2-3 weeks or so. Not so sure about 90+ days though.

 

However, unless resources are such that money is completely irrelevant, there is also the small matter of the cruise cost per day, which is invariably higher for very long cruises.

 

By way of example, a search of a well known web site just revealed the following, (all for balcony accomodation on ships rates minimum 5*😞

 

30-60 days - minimum cost US$102/day (H.A. - Noordam), or e.g. US$119/day (Cunard - QE).

 

60-90 days - minimum cost US$170/day (Cunard - QM2).

 

90 days+    - minimum cost US$182/day (Cunard - QM2).

 

So, the saving of c $80/day by taking a 30-60 day cruise, as opposed to 90+ days. This amounts to many $thousands over a long timescale and these savings are per person.

 

With the above on mind, I can't see much advantage (unless, ahem, snobbery becomes a consideration !), of doing an individual cruise, as opposed to doing two or more cruises, which in total amount to the same number of days ? With a bit of planning you should be able to cover broadly the same itineraries either way.

 

I guess the cameraderie of 'going all the way' with fellow passengers might be an attraction. Equally however, I'm sure there are times when it might be good for all concerned to finish the cruise while the going is still good !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Harry Peterson]

7 hours ago, IDB37 said:

We recently did a 37 day repositioning cruise, which we enjoyed immensely and could happily have stayed on board for another 2-3 weeks or so. Not so sure about 90+ days though.

 

However, unless resources are such that money is completely irrelevant, there is also the small matter of the cruise cost per day, which is invariably higher for very long cruises.

 

By way of example, a search of a well known web site just revealed the following, (all for balcony accomodation on ships rates minimum 5*😞

 

30-60 days - minimum cost US$102/day (H.A. - Noordam), or e.g. US$119/day (Cunard - QE).

 

60-90 days - minimum cost US$170/day (Cunard - QM2).

 

90 days+    - minimum cost US$182/day (Cunard - QM2).

 

So, the saving of c $80/day by taking a 30-60 day cruise, as opposed to 90+ days. This amounts to many $thousands over a long timescale and these savings are per person.

 

With the above on mind, I can't see much advantage (unless, ahem, snobbery becomes a consideration !), of doing an individual cruise, as opposed to doing two or more cruises, which in total amount to the same number of days ? With a bit of planning you should be able to cover broadly the same itineraries either way.

 

I guess the cameraderie of 'going all the way' with fellow passengers might be an attraction. Equally however, I'm sure there are times when it might be good for all concerned to finish the cruise while the going is still good !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are very interesting and illuminating figures.  Not at all what I'd have expected. 

[Son of Anarchy]

We did a Grand Voyage sector on Artemis just before she left the fleet and a sector on Arcadia's worldie a couple of years ago.  

 

Revcently retired, and are booked on Arcadia's full worldie for 2021. I would like to think that we will remain in a position to do either future sectors or worldie/grand voyage at some point in the future.

 

Also looking forward to other longer cruises like USA and round-trip Caribbean, when the price is right. 

[davecttr]

World cruises may continue for a while until sea level rise drowns most of the ports and billions are subject to war/famine/pestilence. enjoy it while you can

[Beltonian]

I did the 2018 world cruise with CMV on the MV Columbus.  Total cost including insurance, gratuities, 20 shorexs, gifts etc in a solo cabin was £15K.  Money well worth it as, being a confirmed non-flyer, I saw places I would never have got to by land such as Australia/NZ/Polynesia/Vietnam/India/Oman/Petra etc etc.  I can honestly say I never got bored once even on the long haul from the Panama Canal to the Marquesas.  There were so many activities going on daily and I managed not to get too tied down counting how many times I had the same food.  There weren't so many repeats.

[Host Sharon]

I did the 2017 Aurora worldie, with a friend in an outside cabin for around £104 pp per day. I could happily have stayed on and gone round again. I didn't find the food monotonous - it would have been worse at home - and the ports were amazing. I was fortunate to be able to take a sabbatical from work for the 3 months. I would like to do it again now I am retired but wish they would fit in a few new ports - there is so much to see, I don't want the identical itinerary.

[Dermotsgirl]

We were also on the Aurora 2017 World Cruise, from Singapore to San Francisco.

 

I was told that about 400 people were doing the whole world cruise.

 

We were on board for about 45 nights, and it was just about the right length for us. When we left in San Francisco, it was strange  to think that people who had got on more than two months ago, were still staying on for another three weeks.

 

It was a great experience for us.  The highlights for us were Kangaroo Island, Sydney ( especially the first day, it was perfect) and sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge on a wonderful sunny morning. Unexpected pleasures were the endless Pacific sea days, it seemed like day after day of perfect, calm sunny weather.  Oh, and  not to mention spending my birthday in Fiji!

 

I'd like to do something similar again, but I'm not keen on flying, so I don't know if we will.  I'm not sure about the full world cruise - I'm sure I'd love it if we did it, but I'm not sure about being away from home for so long. 

[SargassoPirate]

Ringing in from across the pond here.  I think world cruises will continue as long as they can fill the cabins. I am waiting to fit one into our busy travel schedule, so it's likely to be 2022.

 

Regarding the younger generations not having the money to cruise - they do seem to find the money for things they want, like cigarettes, electronic equipment, the latest mobile, and beach trips. It's a matter of priority. They also appear to be hooked on immediate gratification.

 

We lived below our means all of our working lives, had a regular savings and investment plan, and now, being of sound mind, we are spending our kids inheritance.  With any luck, we'll zero out and the last check will bounce.