The infamous Batchelorette is now airing!

[johnnylikely]

The big TV show is now airing - do people think it will drive more customers to VV (or put off?)

I don't really follow those shows but I know they are huge!

[cameronp12]

I watch the show with the wife…I’m mostly just there to laugh at the drama (and the trade off is that she watches some football with me in the fall…lol).

 

Anyhow, I think they did nice last night (the first episode the ship makes an appearance) on showing lots of beautiful shots of the ships and did a shoutout to VV.

 

We can’t predict whether this will drive more bookings, but the average demographic who watches the show is definitely who VV wants to market to, so this probably makes a lot of sense to them. I’m just not sure that demographic wants to cruise as much sadly.

[johnnylikely]

2 hours ago, cameronp12 said:

I watch the show with the wife…I’m mostly just there to laugh at the drama (and the trade off is that she watches some football with me in the fall…lol).

 

Anyhow, I think they did nice last night (the first episode the ship makes an appearance) on showing lots of beautiful shots of the ships and did a shoutout to VV.

 

We can’t predict whether this will drive more bookings, but the average demographic who watches the show is definitely who VV wants to market to, so this probably makes a lot of sense to them. I’m just not sure that demographic wants to cruise as much sadly.

That's the whole conundrum behind VV are they after the wrong market

 

That's cool- is the ship prominently featured thru the whole series? 

[cameronp12]

27 minutes ago, johnnylikely said:

That's the whole conundrum behind VV are they after the wrong market

 

That's cool- is the ship prominently featured thru the whole series? 

Agreed. And this was the 3rd week (?) of the show I think and the first episode it was featured. They started in Le Havre and are doing a private cruise through Northern Europe it seems. The preview for next week alluded to them being in Bruges next.

[johnnylikely]

55 minutes ago, cameronp12 said:

Agreed. And this was the 3rd week (?) of the show I think and the first episode it was featured. They started in Le Havre and are doing a private cruise through Northern Europe it seems. The preview for next week alluded to them being in Bruges next.

HAha the most glamourous of our northern europe itineraries LOL

I hope it out balances the p*ss off customers VV cancelled on, though not sure how many were booked on originally!

[_tacocat_]

7 hours ago, johnnylikely said:

though not sure how many were booked on originally!

my guess is that those voyages were woefully underbooked, so it made sense to make a small group of folks unhappy (although the compensation was pretty sweet) to be able to get more revenue + marketing exposure.

 

yeah, it sucks if you were impacted, but stuff like this happens at resorts on land ALL the time.  planned your honeymoon for years in the maldives?  ah, a sheikh wants to have a private vacation at the resort, that week so your stay gets bumped (with compensation - maybe).  relaxing weekend at a fancy pants resort in big sur?  oh, justin and hailey bieber want to have a quiet getaway, so they're bouncing everyone, or a tech company is bumping everyone's reservations so they can have their offsite there (also with generous compensation, and that happened a TON at the alila ventana last year, some with very little notice!).  at the end of the day, it's unfortunately a calculated business decision to optimize profits.

[johnnylikely]

10 hours ago, _tacocat_ said:

my guess is that those voyages were woefully underbooked, so it made sense to make a small group of folks unhappy (although the compensation was pretty sweet) to be able to get more revenue + marketing exposure.

 

yeah, it sucks if you were impacted, but stuff like this happens at resorts on land ALL the time.  planned your honeymoon for years in the maldives?  ah, a sheikh wants to have a private vacation at the resort, that week so your stay gets bumped (with compensation - maybe).  relaxing weekend at a fancy pants resort in big sur?  oh, justin and hailey bieber want to have a quiet getaway, so they're bouncing everyone, or a tech company is bumping everyone's reservations so they can have their offsite there (also with generous compensation, and that happened a TON at the alila ventana last year, some with very little notice!).  at the end of the day, it's unfortunately a calculated business decision to optimize profits.

Yeah it's a tricky for a brand new cruise line trying to earn loyalty.

Let's hope it their gamble pays off

[Cloud9 Bob]

On 8/2/2022 at 1:33 PM, johnnylikely said:

I hope it out balances the p*ss off customers VV cancelled on,

 

It's all about the algorithms. Virgin feels that even if every one of the passengers that were screwed on Valient never came back, that it would be worth it for the exposure and new revenue the TV exposure will produce.

 

Personally, if I were Richard, I would have refused to dump those that were showing good faith, and booked my new ship. I would have them cordon off areas to shoot in and that's that. Take it or leave it. He doesn't realize that the good generated by doing that would cement more loyal customers (and excellent word of mouth) than what he'd get from The Bachelorette demo. The ship looks like earth after a nuclear holocaust. It was downright eerie. There are literally thousands of crew just sitting in their cabins doing nothing. Go figure.

[drewdawg199]

28 minutes ago, Cloud9 Bob said:

 

It's all about the algorithms. Virgin feels that even if every one of the passengers that were screwed on Valient never came back, that it would be worth it for the exposure and new revenue the TV exposure will produce.

 

Personally, if I were Richard, I would have refused to dump those that were showing good faith, and booked my new ship. I would have them cordon off areas to shoot in and that's that. Take it or leave it. He doesn't realize that the good generated by doing that would cement more loyal customers (and excellent word of mouth) than what he'd get from The Bachelorette demo. The ship looks like earth after a nuclear holocaust. It was downright eerie. There are literally thousands of crew just sitting in their cabins doing nothing. Go figure.

I think if they tried to have paying customers and the production, neither would be happy with areas blocked off etc.  I’m sure they got an insane check to rent out the entire ship.