Will Celebrity go back to trying to completely book ships in the Caribbean in January?

[stipmom]

For those traveling now how booked are the ships now?

Thanks

[Fouremco]

Ships currently vary in numbers but in general have less than anticipated and probably less than whatever cap Celebrity has in place. As for January, no one knows and Celebrity isn't saying. 

[LGW59]

9 minutes ago, stipmom said:

For those traveling now how booked are the ships now?

Thanks

You’ve asked two separate questions.  No one knows the answer to the question posed in your thread title.  Lots and lots of threads here from recent and current cruisers who address question #2 thoroughly.

[davekathy]

To answer the thread title question. My Magic 8 Ball says, "cannot predict now". 🎱

[WestLakeGirl]

Mine says this

[REEtired]

1 hour ago, stipmom said:

For those traveling now how booked are the ships now?

Thanks

We were on the 9/25 Summit sailing with 743 crew and 251 pax. It was heaven!

[Brews'n'Cruise]

I would imagine that once we get to the regular Caribbean season in November the numbers on board will increase as there will be a lot of people, myself included, who have done a lift and shift from last year. The majority, of itineraries currently operating were not available when lift and shift was on offer 12 months ago.

 

Andy.

[RICCruisers]

I have been checking our Silhouette cruise on 1/24/22 using mock bookings and it appears the numbers are looking pretty good (for Celebrity). Concierge is totally sold out and Suites are getting there. It could be due to the fact that this cruise was a L&S from the original Edge ABC cruise for the same dates. 
 

I don’t know how this specific cruise compares other January cruises.
 

We are on Edge next Saturday, 10/16 and my guess is it will be about 1,100 passengers. 

[canderson]

@RICCruisers

This counting strategy has been discussed in other threads.  What it gives you is a rough % for availability, but for a variety of reasons, a count of unavailable cabins cannot accurately predict % occupancy.

[RICCruisers]

59 minutes ago, canderson said:

@RICCruisers

This counting strategy has been discussed in other threads.  What it gives you is a rough % for availability, but for a variety of reasons, a count of unavailable cabins cannot accurately predict % occupancy.

Agree especially since X has been blocking off and moving people to new cabins to account for taking on new crew that needs to isolate for 2 weeks. I do however feel that it gives an indication of how many passengers may be onboard. I’ve been doing mock bookings on many cruises that I have no interest in and when I read about the numbers that actual passengers report on these boards I’m able to get a feel for what type of capacity a given cruise will have.
 

As an FYI, I retired after 30+ years from a business where I could look at our parking lot and make a pretty good guess on how much attendance we were doing. This was making estimates ranging from 10,000 on a slower day to 35,000+ on a busier day. Figuring out 600 passengers to 1,800 passengers after looking at all “available” cabins is not that tough, but certainly not an exact science. Simply too much time on my hands and not enough time cruising. 

[canderson]

I think I recall the last one coming in at 938, so you may be close.

[Pennstatedj]

We just got off the edge today. 'there were only 1000 passengers. Cruise was great. Never was on an elevator with more than 6 people and that happened only 3 times all week. One was the last day leaving. I asked the HD when they would open up reservations. He said no plans that he knows until US lets them. I think it will be at least July. My opinion. 

[Ipeeinthepools]

Yep, that's what I would expect.  

[jelayne]

4 hours ago, RICCruisers said:

I have been checking our Silhouette cruise on 1/24/22 using mock bookings and it appears the numbers are looking pretty good (for Celebrity). Concierge is totally sold out and Suites are getting there. It could be due to the fact that this cruise was a L&S from the original Edge ABC cruise for the same dates. 
 

I don’t know how this specific cruise compares other January cruises.
 

We are on Edge next Saturday, 10/16 and my guess is it will be about 1,100 passengers. 

Good guess, the Captain said that would be the # for the departure today.  The unknown is the last minute (within 48 hrs) cancellations.  A couple of weeks ago the last minute drop outs were reported to be in the 150 range 

[NBliving]

5 hours ago, Brews'n'Cruise said:

I would imagine that once we get to the regular Caribbean season in November the numbers on board will increase as there will be a lot of people, myself included, who have done a lift and shift from last year. The majority, of itineraries currently operating were not available when lift and shift was on offer 12 months ago.

 

Andy.

Good point. If the Lift and Shift sail by date is still April  (maybe it moved to September?) I would expect passenger numbers to increase closer to pre-pandemic numbers.  

[NBliving]

8 minutes ago, jelayne said:

Good guess, the Captain said that would be the # for the departure today.  The unknown is the last minute (within 48 hrs) cancellations.  A couple of weeks ago the last minute drop outs were reported to be in the 150 range 

I’ve been wondering what that number looks like. It will be interesting if it’s lessened recently. 

[Ipeeinthepools]

I'll be on the Millennium in a few weeks for the Panama Canal Cruise and I'll be surprised if the ship is only booked at 30 - 40% capacity.

[jelayne]

23 minutes ago, NBliving said:

Good point. If the Lift and Shift sail by date is still April  (maybe it moved to September?) I would expect passenger numbers to increase closer to pre-pandemic numbers.  

Lift and Shift did not have a defined end date.  L & S moved the booking to the same time +/-4 weeks weeks of the original sail date.  FCCs have to be used for a booking made by April 30,2022 booking and sail by 12/31/22.  

[NBliving]

4 minutes ago, jelayne said:

Lift and Shift did not have a defined end date.  L & S moved the booking to the same time +/-4 weeks weeks of the original sail date.  FCCs have to be used for a booking made by April 30,2022 booking and sail by 12/31/22.  

Thanks for clarifying. 

[TeeRick]

@stipmom

To get to the your thread title question about January-

 

Are you asking if Celebrity will start selling/booking more capacity in January 2022 for later cruises that year?  Or are you asking if the current cruises booked already to sail in January 2022 will have increased capacity over those sailing right now?  For the latter, most of these upcoming Jan cruises will approach final payment pretty soon and they are probably limited in capacity already (50-60%?).  And I'm not thinking that the pandemic will change much between now and 3 months from now so I would expect operations and capacity on Celebrity to not change much either.

[phoenix_dream]

Celebrity doesn't even tell you how many cruisers will be on your cruise when you board.  They are being very tight lipped about what their targets are, and of course we would expect that to change as the virus situation changes.   So bottom line, other than telling you how many are aboard now, no one knows what the future numbers are.

[djh]

I will say that when we were onboard the Edge a couple of weeks ago, the numbers seemed to be increasing a bit every week. 750 our first week, 850 our second, and they were scheduled to have over 1000 the next two weeks after we debarked. I can tell you that the crew is being told that they are gearing up for Christmas and expect the numbers to really increase then. That being said, we are booked again in January and there seems to be plenty of availability.

Edited October 10, 2021 by djh

[Yvonne]

We are booked on the 1/4 sailing of the Silhouette, I would love it if the ship was only at half capacity 🙂