Holiday Cruise Room Holdbacks

[chiguypaul]

Was hoping to have a few of you muse on what you expect in terms of what occupancy rates will be like for holiday cruises in December (xmas/nye). Will RCL hold back rooms to make sure the ship isn't at full occupancy at one of their busiest and most profitable times of the year?

[smplybcause]

So I went on a Labor day cruise and the two ships running were running high. Mine was 50% of double capacity and the other was more like 67%. Before and after it was about half that. Royal also said they planned to up capacity by 10% per month until at full but that was a while ago. 

 

So basically yes the holiday cruises will be at higher capacity than the cruises before and there's a chance royal would have the capacity set at close to normal but who knows. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by smplybcause

[PhillyFan33579]

I don’t think anyone can tell you anything with any degree of certainty. Based on several comments I have heard from Richard Fain lately, I would be surprised if RCI ships were anywhere close to capacity the rest of 2021. But that is just my opinion, so take it for what it’s worth. 

[PhillyFan33579]

2 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

So I went on a Labor day cruise and the two ships running were running high. Mine was 50% of double capacity and the other was more like 67%. Before and after it was about half that. Royal also said they planned to up capacity by 10% per month until at full. 

 

So basically yes the holiday cruises will be at higher capacity than the cruises before and there's a chance royal would have the capacity set at close to normal but who knows. 

We have been on two cruises the last two months with 1400 and 900 passengers. We have two cruises booked in October, curious to see what the numbers will look like. From countless posts I have read on FB, it seems most ships are running with pretty low numbers, although I heard Freedom had close to 2000 passengers this past weekend. 

[smplybcause]

10 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

We have been on two cruises the last two months with 1400 and 900 passengers. We have two cruises booked in October, curious to see what the numbers will look like. From countless posts I have read on FB, it seems most ships are running with pretty low numbers, although I heard Freedom had close to 2000 passengers this past weekend. 

 

Labor Day was 1600 on Mariner and 2600 on Freedom. 

[LuCruise]

We have Anthem booked over xmas.  What I've noticed is that the past couple months, prices dropped...which were pretty good considering it was over xmas.  But starting the last couple days, prices are higher again (at least for our specific rooms booked).  So I'm thinking that they have sold rooms during that time so now raising prices to keep at "required" capacity during 2021.  Also expecting a xmas cruise to be higher capacity than current cruise numbers.

Edited September 28, 2021 by LuCruise

[PhillyFan33579]

7 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

 

Labor Day was 1600 on Mariner and 2600 on Freedom. 

We were on Mariner Labor Day weekend (cruise ended on Labor Day). According to the CD, Marcello who I have known since he was a CD on Carnival, there were 1457 passengers on the cruise. According to a bartender from Freedom who we talked to for awhile at the swim up bar at Coco Cay before it got crowded at the bar, there were only a few hundred more passengers on Freedom that weekend than on Mariner. Of course if you are talking about the cruises that departed on Labor Day we are talking about different cruises. 

[cynt]

12 hours ago, chiguypaul said:

Was hoping to have a few of you muse on what you expect in terms of what occupancy rates will be like for holiday cruises in December (xmas/nye). Will RCL hold back rooms to make sure the ship isn't at full occupancy at one of their busiest and most profitable times of the year?

 

I was wondering the same thing. We have a Christmas cruise booked out of Galveston. I believe it will be near normal capacity. I don't think it will be jam packed like normal Christmas/holiday cruises but I do think it will be near full capacity. My handy little Indy fact sheet says 3858 guests at double occupancy - 4560 guests total. So I'm going to venture out and say we'll be around 3000 guests. I think some families are still holding out cruising until the little ones can be vaccinated. Plus a lot of people will not cruise until they can leave the mask at home. 

 

I'm tempted to book a weekend Thanksgiving cruise just to test the waters nah, really to get the double points. But I would like to see the capacity over the Thanksgiving holiday. I believe that will be an indicator for the Christmas/NYE cruise.

[smplybcause]

2 hours ago, PhillyFan33579 said:

We were on Mariner Labor Day weekend (cruise ended on Labor Day). According to the CD, Marcello who I have known since he was a CD on Carnival, there were 1457 passengers on the cruise. According to a bartender from Freedom who we talked to for awhile at the swim up bar at Coco Cay before it got crowded at the bar, there were only a few hundred more passengers on Freedom that weekend than on Mariner. Of course if you are talking about the cruises that departed on Labor Day we are talking about different cruises. 

 

I dunno. I heard from several people Mariner was just under 1600 and wasn't on Freedom but saw at least one person on here mention 2600 and there were definitely more people on Freedom from friends that were on there. 

[PhillyFan33579]

3 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

 

I dunno. I heard from several people Mariner was just under 1600 and wasn't on Freedom but saw at least one person on here mention 2600 and there were definitely more people on Freedom from friends that were on there. 

When we were on Mariner I heard numbers ranging from 1300 to 1700 from various crew members, so they aren’t always the best source of information. The 1457 number I heard from the CD, so that number is likely fairly close to accurate. I had friends who were on Freedom this past weekend who were told it was the largest passenger load on Freedom so far with approximately 2000 passengers. They said the ship definitely felt a lot more crowded then previous cruises this Summer. Probably the only people who know the true actual numbers are RCI’s finance people and senior staff on a ship.