Small Cutbacks Noticed

[CineGraphic]

1 hour ago, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

It's pure and simple math.  Of the $40, are you suggesting they're keeping the $15 that are for daily gratuities?  Perhaps being British and criticizing the concept of tipping such threads, you may be one of those that don't pay gratuities normally and you think now you're just paying $30-35 for the drink package, I don't know nor care.  As for wifi, what it costs them, that isn't the comparative basis.  The comparison is how much of it they were selling before. 

 

$15 of the Plus package goes to the Drinks portion for Princess.  Let's further assume that it costs them $5 per person per day to fill that obligation.  That assumes that they profit $10 per day for the drinks package under the Plus system.  $3 is imputed drink gratuities so the actual profit is $7. 

 

Previously, they would sell a drink package for $60, with about $11 being gratuities.  Assuming the same $5 in costs per day, that would mean the profit was $60-$11-$5 or $44.  They'd have to sell 6 times as much to profit the exact same amount.  And that doesn't take into consideration all of the incremental labor involved to service 6 times as much volume.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your numbers mean nothing. Prices of individual drinks or packages, or wifi mean nothing.

The only thing that matters is how much they are bringing in versus how much they are spending.

If selling the package wasn't making them money, they would have never continued the program.

More people buy the package now than ever before.

[Kineticoh20]

The only cut backs we care about are culinary. We found food on the Majestic in Dec to be sub standard in fact it was the worst we ever encountered, this was true in all specialty restaurants. We are booked in April on the Discovery and June on the Caribbean. If the food is still not to our liking we will move on from Princess. Other than food other cutbacks don’t bother us at all.

[Kmkub]

10 minutes ago, Kineticoh20 said:

The only cut backs we care about are culinary. We found food on the Majestic in Dec to be sub standard in fact it was the worst we ever encountered, this was true in all specialty restaurants. We are booked in April on the Discovery and June on the Caribbean. If the food is still not to our liking we will move on from Princess. Other than food other cutbacks don’t bother us at all.

we had some incredible food on Enchanted in January. We were on Regal in February and it was sub par. Princess is a mixed bag right now.

 

 

[tonit964]

29 minutes ago, CineGraphic said:

 

 

If selling the package wasn't making them money, they would have never continued the program.

 

This, 100%.

[mpdog42]

10 hours ago, julia said:

I'm just trying yo wrap my head around not having a pen in your purse or man-bag! Between the two of us, we probably have 6 or 8 easily (and the DH has a handy little notebook that gets used often!)

Man Bag? The only Man Bag i ever carried was called a Ruck Sack!! Even carried it on my back for 14 miles in Basic😜

[WAvoyager]

i’m guessing that a lot of the little things will come back over time.  Let’s all remember that we are just coming out of a global pandemic.  That pandemic had all of the following impacts to the cruise industry:  

18 months of no revenue, and ongoing costs.
Reductions in staffing due to employee availability and cost savings impacting the people who have to buy the items, get the items into warehouses, load up the ships, put the items in the cabins, and clean everything up.

Global supply chain issues, making it more difficult to source items, and get them brought to your warehouse.

ships sailing at 50% capacity due to regulatory requirements, and limited customers.

High fuel costs

lack of profitability due to all of the above.

 

given all of the headwinds, I’m almost surprised they’re not sailing with 1/2 staff, and charging for extra rolls of t.p.!  🤣

 

Im sure many of the things that are missing will return - they’re just not high enough of a priority for anyone to worry about yet.

[brisalta]

1 hour ago, WAvoyager said:

given all of the headwinds, I’m almost surprised they’re not sailing with 1/2 staff, and charging for extra rolls of t.p.!  🤣

 

 

Please do not give them any more revenue ideas!

[Kmkub]

40 minutes ago, brisalta said:

 

Please do not give them any more revenue ideas!

As a shareholder, I appreciate measures taken to reduce cost where there is not even profit enhancing.

[TBfrPH]

3 hours ago, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

...As for people continuing to pile on about cutbacks, you make it sound like right now is some sort of normal environment.  Let alone as if you're not getting HUGE discounts on cruise fares...

 

 

 

I have to agree with this.  Any comparison of current service and amenities with pre-Covid experience should at least acknowledge the discounts that Princess is offering now compared to before. 

[caribill]

1 hour ago, TBfrPH said:

I have to agree with this.  Any comparison of current service and amenities with pre-Covid experience should at least acknowledge the discounts that Princess is offering now compared to before. 

 

The discounts are only now while ships are still sailing with relatively low occupancy.

 

But I can give you an example of my own where pricing is way up if not sailing at the current time.

 

I had a 24-day cruise booked 2.5 years in advance for this March. It was a balcony cabin that had a Princess list price of $95/day/person before the additional taxes and fees. This did not include the Plus package. Cruise was cancelled due to Covid.

 

I now have a 33-day cruise booked 22 months in advance for May of next year. It is an equivalent balcony cabin that had a Princess list price of $211/day/person (and the price has increased to $217/day/person since I booked it) before the additional taxes and fees. This does not include the Plus package.

 

I have no reason to believe that the cutbacks of today will be restored when I am on my more costly cruise next year.

[caribill]

1 hour ago, Kmkub said:

As a shareholder, I appreciate measures taken to reduce cost where there is not even profit enhancing.

 

Such as the development of Medallion technology?

[cheezenip]

5 hours ago, Kineticoh20 said:

The only cut backs we care about are culinary. We found food on the Majestic in Dec to be sub standard in fact it was the worst we ever encountered, this was true in all specialty restaurants. We are booked in April on the Discovery and June on the Caribbean. If the food is still not to our liking we will move on from Princess. Other than food other cutbacks don’t bother us at all.

We had started cutting back on Princess pre-COVID because of this. Although we don't expect the food quality to be on par with the upscale lines,  the deterioration of the food  through the years have been frustrating. One glimmer of hope is the decision of bringing Rudi Sodamin from Holland America to oversea Princess food operations. From out recent experiences (pre-COVID), HAL's food quality is much better. We'll give him 1 year to see if any improvements have been made (he came over this year).

[caribill]

4 hours ago, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

All speculation on your part without a scintilla of fact.  At the end of the day, numbers are the ONLY thing that matters to corporations.  They rolled the program out not that long ago so they don't have hardly any history with it let alone under "normal" circumstances. 

 

 

 

 

Actually there is more than a scintilla of fact.

 

From the CCL Corp stock analysts call last fall referencing programs such as the Plus pricing (the $40/day/person with Plus is for accounting purposes considered onboard revenue):

 

"Our Yield Managers price them appropriately to achieve occupancy targets very wholesome, and coupled them with bundled packages to drive exceptionally strong revenue onboard."

 

"Our onboard and other revenue per diems were up significantly in the Third quarter 2021 versus the third quarter of 2019, in part due to the bundled packages"

[jeno]

19 hours ago, Coral said:

I think the biggest cuts is in food. Both the items offered and the quality. Some menus on my 10 night cruise were un-inspiring. I didn't go hungry by any means.

I agree that the menus are uninspiring.  We were on a 15 day Panama Canal cruise and many nights I had a hard time selecting something to order.  We also noticed the lack of Beef on the menu.
 One of our table mates mentioned she was surprised we were going on a 111 day World Cruise on Princess after the food and menus we had for 15 days.  

I noticed the odd menus (IMHO) on Princess years ago, long before covid. Maybe with this new guy from HAL things will start to improve. 

[jeno]

12 hours ago, c-boy said:

been on the menu every night this week

On our 15 day Panama Canal cruise we had Prime Rib only one night.  Many nights with no Beef at all. 

[Coral]

19 minutes ago, jeno said:

I agree that the menus are uninspiring.  We were on a 15 day Panama Canal cruise and many nights I had a hard time selecting something to order.  We also noticed the lack of Beef on the menu.
 One of our table mates mentioned she was surprised we were going on a 111 day World Cruise on Princess after the food and menus we had for 15 days.  

I noticed the odd menus (IMHO) on Princess years ago, long before covid. Maybe with this new guy from HAL things will start to improve. 

I used to love going on cruises longer than 7 nights to get the unusual menus. They used to be very desirable and they no longer are. I had taken pictures of my last cruise which was 10 nights and shared them with a friend and they agreed - there were nights that nothing stood out as a good choice. I did not starve but ordered spaghetti off of the kids menu. Heck - even my go to salad that I order a larger version of on Italian night (with pine nuts and cheese) was missing on my cruise in December. The beef was very poor quality even in the Crown Grill.

 

 

[dickinson]

10 hours ago, Kmkub said:

we had some incredible food on Enchanted in January. We were on Regal in February and it was sub par. Princess is a mixed bag right now.

 

 

 

We too were on Regal in February but liked the food.  Maybe we ordered different stuff.  Food is very subjective.  Our evening in Crown Grill with the filet mignon steak was fabulous.

[1965]

1 hour ago, jeno said:

I agree that the menus are uninspiring.  We were on a 15 day Panama Canal cruise and many nights I had a hard time selecting something to order.  We also noticed the lack of Beef on the menu.
 One of our table mates mentioned she was surprised we were going on a 111 day World Cruise on Princess after the food and menus we had for 15 days.  

I noticed the odd menus (IMHO) on Princess years ago, long before covid. Maybe with this new guy from HAL things will start to improve. 

Oh my goodness! A 111 day world cruise! How wonderful. They could serve me bologna sandwiches & I'd be ok. Lol. When do you set sail? Which ship? 😃

[MsSoCalCruiser]

2 hours ago, Coral said:

I used to love going on cruises longer than 7 nights to get the unusual menus. They used to be very desirable and they no longer are. I had taken pictures of my last cruise which was 10 nights and shared them with a friend and they agreed - there were nights that nothing stood out as a good choice. I did not starve but ordered spaghetti off of the kids menu. Heck - even my go to salad that I order a larger version of on Italian night (with pine nuts and cheese) was missing on my cruise in December. The beef was very poor quality even in the Crown Grill.

 

 

My Ribeye steak that I had in the Crown Grill on my December cruise tasted good but it was very thin.  The steak was cut thin like a cut you would be served at a diner.  I have the fork placed at the thickest portion of my steak.  I stated that I did not know if it was a supply issue or if this was the way it was from now on but I did not receive a response.

[JF - retired RRT]

22 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

As for the stamps, which are basically worthless. I believe that the program was discontinued long before Covid disrupted everything.

Agree!! We started cruising in 2013. Got a stamp (no passport). Asked about the passport got 🥴.

Got a couple more stamps in the next couple of cruises, then they stopped altogether. Certainly didn't miss them, since I never could figure out what their purpose was.

[JF - retired RRT]

16 hours ago, brisalta said:

 

Princess organizes towel animals if a passenger is celebrating a special event such as wedding anniversary, birthday, etc..

Done anniversay & birthdays and never got a towel animal. Balloons (no verboten), a sign on the door & cake in the MDR. Other than that...nada.

[PescadoAmarillo]

I seriously miss nightly turn down service. I didn’t realize how much coming back to an invitingly turned down bed and bedside light turned on meant to me until I lost it. I know it exists on the app, but on two out of three cruises, we were told it wasn’t available. Yet our steward was still in our cabin every night placing a Patter on the bed. 
 

But what I really want to know is how some of y’all get your towels to dry.  There is overlap of the towels when hanging on the towel bars, and I think they could hang there for days and not dry. And if I’m going to re-use damp towels, I might as well be camping. 

[USCcruisecrazy]

2 hours ago, CarelessAndConfused said:

 

First off, I've listened to plenty of earnings calls and given them myself.   That's a whole lot of vague generalities, which is par for the course.  And those comments, particular in red render more questions than answers.  Like, how much does "in part" constitute?

 

Quite frankly I don't see any answers in there.  What I do know looking at the actual SEC 10-Q filings for the third quarters of 2021 and 2019 is that the non-cruise fare revenue breaks down like this:

 

2021-Q3 = $   243 million

2019-Q3 = $2,055 million

 

Do you see a pretty big disparity there?  I can only imagine that they were talking perhaps in terms of the % of overall revenue that onboard revenue constitutes in both years.  In which case, yes, onboard constitutes a way larger % in 2021 than in 2019 because the cruise fares were abysmally low.  Not because they were generating a ton of onboard revenue.  

 

 

Been following this discussion...I do like how you explain your thought process.  I have no idea if Princess makes more or less per cruiser with this package.  I will say, we have never gotten the wi-fi package or the drink package until this combo.  It seems like a great deal for the cruiser.  Yeah, I'm sure Princess gets their pound of flesh, but I see it this way: 10 day cruise...extra $400 per person...$40 per day...$5 is OBC so down to $45 cost...$15 is grats, so down to $30...$10 is wi-fi so down to $20, but since we never used wi-fi, I will stay with $30 for this comparison...3 x $10 drinks per day and we are even from our normal cost.  Since we usually average 6-8 drinks a day based on port day or not, it's a great deal for us.  Bottom Line:  I'm good with Princess making whatever they make form this deal, because I am getting a great deal compared to past cruises...and I would expect them to make $$$.  However, I would guess their profit margin per person may actually be lower now but their reasoning is to get more people on board in a time of uncertainty.  Win/Win!! 

[2 cruises a year]

12 minutes ago, USCcruisecrazy said:

Been following this discussion...I do like how you explain your thought process.  I have no idea if Princess makes more or less per cruiser with this package.  I will say, we have never gotten the wi-fi package or the drink package until this combo.  It seems like a great deal for the cruiser.  Yeah, I'm sure Princess gets their pound of flesh, but I see it this way: 10 day cruise...extra $400 per person...$40 per day...$5 is OBC so down to $45 cost...$15 is grats, so down to $30...$10 is wi-fi so down to $20, but since we never used wi-fi, I will stay with $30 for this comparison...3 x $10 drinks per day and we are even from our normal cost.  Since we usually average 6-8 drinks a day based on port day or not, it's a great deal for us.  Bottom Line:  I'm good with Princess making whatever they make form this deal, because I am getting a great deal compared to past cruises...and I would expect them to make $$$.  However, I would guess their profit margin per person may actually be lower now but their reasoning is to get more people on board in a time of uncertainty.  Win/Win!! 

The profit margin may be lower, but it is much more than made up for in increased volume.  You, yourself are an example of increased volume.  As you say, Win/Win.

[GloriaF]

15 hours ago, MsSoCalCruiser said:

@caribillI agree with you 💯.  Princess has always been our favorite line but I’m thinking of trying another cruiseline if the prices are lower.  It actually makes me sad.  

I'm thinking the same thing and it makes me sad, too!