Open Booking Deposit Program

[KenzSailing]

2 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

I see also that New Crystal will be charging for Specialty dining venues. 

 

Well, I know DRS(Department of Rampant Speculation) is the busiest department at Cruise Critic, but I think we could throttle back on this one. A fairly bare bones statement about the possibility of using OBCs for specialty dining could be implemented along very different lines:

 

Maybe it's just the VR

 

Maybe it's the old system of pay after two visits for crowd control reasons(and I'm not sure we even know how many specialty venues the 2.0 ships will have)

 

And yes, maybe it's pay for specialties first-time-every-time, just like SS

 

This one I'm content to wait and see.

 

However, I have it on very good authority that the pillow chocolates and trash can doilies are making a come back.

 

Also, the paddle tennis court is being converted into a Senor Frog's.

[Roland4]

58 minutes ago, Mr Luxury said:

Who knows,time will tell. 😁

 

Could be a restaurant named Le Champagne 😉

Except for PH and above, each guest was entitled to one visit in each specialty. Additional visits, on a space available basis, required a cover charge. This was done as way of controlling the demand. Keep in mind that on the Explorer-Class ships, BOTH Prego and Umi Uma would fit comfortably in either of Prime 7 or Chartreuse with room left over! This charge is what I suspect they are referring to.

[PaulMCO]

So as a member of the DRS team here are the itineraries as created by the speculation team --

 

Late July Serenity come out of rehab.  It is tough when your in the ICU for over a year.  Longest case of COVID in history.   Starts in Rome, does the usual Rome - Italy - Marseilles - Barcelona cruise.  Then heads to Portugal - Bordeaux ending Southampton. Southampton up to Scotland - Shetlands to Iceland (end of August). Then onward to Canada and Montreal, Montreal to New York and then a big welcome to Miami.  Miami Nov/December holiday cruises and then 14th of January 2024 World Cruise (Caribbean, Panama Canal, Easter Island, Fiji, NZ, Australia, Indonesia, South East Asia, Middle East through the Suez and to Athens)

 

Late November -- the old gal takes longer to recover.  Needed more work done.  We really need to get her to the warm sun to aid those aching bones and bring in much needed revenue.  We are doing a TA from Rome to Miami. Winter 2024 spending the time in the sun -- because winter is coming as in May we make our way up through the Canal to Alaska.   Alaska is where the Money is so Crystal needs to be here and these are always sold out.

 

So just my guess...

[lesliehr]

Our Open Booking email said $125 AsYou Wish credit pp and/or max $250 per suite.  👎👎

[Keith1010]

6 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

I see also that New Crystal will be charging for Specialty dining venues. 

 

The old. Crystal  did too after two visits.  
 

 

[Keith1010]

2 hours ago, lesliehr said:

Our Open Booking email said $125 AsYou Wish credit pp and/or max $250 per suite.  👎👎

It was a mistake.  The new ones have it corrected

 

Keith

[Keith1010]

5 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

Will they also offer Door to Door or Port to Port booking options?

And your point. 

[KenzSailing]

4 hours ago, PaulMCO said:

So as a member of the DRS team here are the itineraries as created by the speculation team --

 

Late July Serenity come out of rehab.  It is tough when your in the ICU for over a year.  Longest case of COVID in history.   Starts in Rome, does the usual Rome - Italy - Marseilles - Barcelona cruise.  Then heads to Portugal - Bordeaux ending Southampton. Southampton up to Scotland - Shetlands to Iceland (end of August). Then onward to Canada and Montreal, Montreal to New York and then a big welcome to Miami.  Miami Nov/December holiday cruises and then 14th of January 2024 World Cruise (Caribbean, Panama Canal, Easter Island, Fiji, NZ, Australia, Indonesia, South East Asia, Middle East through the Suez and to Athens)

 

Late November -- the old gal takes longer to recover.  Needed more work done.  We really need to get her to the warm sun to aid those aching bones and bring in much needed revenue.  We are doing a TA from Rome to Miami. Winter 2024 spending the time in the sun -- because winter is coming as in May we make our way up through the Canal to Alaska.   Alaska is where the Money is so Crystal needs to be here and these are always sold out.

 

So just my guess...

 

Great work, but remember the Department doesn't pay over-time. 

 

[BWIVince]

8 hours ago, Mr Luxury said:

I see also that New Crystal will be charging for Specialty dining venues. 

 

 

I think this was expected by many (most?) of us given the timing.

 

Given the extremely tight window they're giving themselves to refit the ships (assuming they stick to them), there is no way they're going to be able to blow up the general arrangement to such a degree as to overcome the capacity issues for the former Prego and Umi Uma spaces.  They could shuffle the venues and move the more popular concepts to Marketplace or some larger venue, but that would have a seriously negative impact on atmosphere.  

 

Until they have a couple of years to plan a proper future refit, or until they build new ships (more likely), it was hard to imagine how they were going to get away from the extra-visit surcharges.  Cutting capacity a bit only goes so far, and at least on Symphony, they only have so many more rooms they can combine. 

 

Vince

Edited December 16, 2022 by BWIVince

[ctjon]

I agree with you Vince but it always struck me strange you pay thousands of dollars for a cruise but are reluctant to pay an additional $30 per person for a special meal - I guess it isn't the money but "i won't pay for anything on all-inclusive".

[KenzSailing]

2 hours ago, ctjon said:

I agree with you Vince but it always struck me strange you pay thousands of dollars for a cruise but are reluctant to pay an additional $30 per person for a special meal - I guess it isn't the money but "i won't pay for anything on all-inclusive".

 

I agree with you completely but, as I recall, it was even a bit more extreme than that.  In the pre-AI days, there was a surcharge for the specialties.  I remember it as $7pp, something to do with the distribution of the tip pool(I'm fuzzy on that last point.)  Then Crystal went AI, including the specialties, and demand for those seats exploded.  The maitre'ds were overwhelmed, lots of unhappy passengers.  I remember the Sushi Bar as being a particularly sore point, as the same pax would descend on it every evening of their cruise.  So, on a cruise line where you had to pay additional for a lot of things(pre-AI), there had been a sizeable cohort of folks who wouldn't pony up $7 when they had "already paid for the MDR."   

[Mr Luxury]

18 hours ago, Keith1010 said:

And your point. 

Pretty easy for you to understand Keith.

I was wondering whether they might adopt either or both of these options.

I realise not even you would be able to answer this one.

[Keith1010]

2 minutes ago, Mr Luxury said:

Pretty easy for you to understand Keith.

I was wondering whether they might adopt either or both of these options.

I realise not even you would be able to answer this one.

Since we are only in the "open booking" phase certainly an unknown.

 

When we can book the actual cruise I would suspect it will be known.

 

Certainly won't play a role in most of us booking a cruise or doing an open booking with the latter being the subject of this thread.

 

Keith

[Mr Luxury]

1 minute ago, Keith1010 said:

Since we are only in the "open booking" phase certainly an unknown.

 

When we can book the actual cruise I would suspect it will be known.

 

Certainly won't play a role in most of us booking a cruise or doing an open booking with the latter being the subject of this thread.

 

Keith

I like to book my own flights and Chauffeur service and do not like having them included on my cruise booking.

I'll have a look at itineraries on the Serenity when they emerge and see if suites are better than before.

[Roland4]

19 minutes ago, Mr Luxury said:

Pretty easy for you to understand Keith.

I was wondering whether they might adopt either or both of these options.

I realise not even you would be able to answer this one.

Those strategies were a post-RCI project as I understand it. No particular reason Crystal 2.0 should follow it as well.

 

Silversea appear to have loosened the "Door-to-Door" policy a bit, at least according to an industry video I saw recently. They now allow you to drop the flights in exchange for an air credit in the same way that Regent/Oceania do. That was not an option when we booked our Silver Moon sailing for this February. They are also now offering something called "Port-to-Port Pre-Paid" at a lower price on select sailings. The catch is it is 100% non-refundable!

[Keith1010]

27 minutes ago, Mr Luxury said:

I like to book my own flights and Chauffeur service and do not like having them included on my cruise booking.

I'll have a look at itineraries on the Serenity when they emerge and see if suites are better than before.

I do too.

 

Not sure what the worry is.  As Larry notes, this was not part of SS until after RCI arrived. Also choice is good so if there are options where you could have the service if you want or unbundle it could be a nice option.

 

Either way, not sure what this has to do with open bookings which prompted my original comment your point.

 

Keith

[KenzSailing]

1 hour ago, Roland4 said:

Those strategies were a post-RCI project as I understand it. No particular reason Crystal 2.0 should follow it as well.

 

Silversea appear to have loosened the "Door-to-Door" policy a bit, at least according to an industry video I saw recently. They now allow you to drop the flights in exchange for an air credit in the same way that Regent/Oceania do. That was not an option when we booked our Silver Moon sailing for this February. They are also now offering something called "Port-to-Port Pre-Paid" at a lower price on select sailings. The catch is it is 100% non-refundable!

 

That caught my eye when they announced it.  It smacks of pulling forward revenue to help drive the RCI stock price.

[Roland4]

41 minutes ago, KenzSailing said:

 

That caught my eye when they announced it.  It smacks of pulling forward revenue to help drive the RCI stock price.

Except that is only on "select" sailings and "limited time only". I have not found a sailing with the pre-paid fare, but then I have not been looking that hard, so I have no idea what the savings would be.

[AtA]

3 hours ago, Roland4 said:

Except that is only on "select" sailings and "limited time only". I have not found a sailing with the pre-paid fare, but then I have not been looking that hard, so I have no idea what the savings would be.

The savings were minimal. Still was more than the P2P fare.

[Stickman1990]

4 hours ago, KenzSailing said:

 

That caught my eye when they announced it.  It smacks of pulling forward revenue to help drive the RCI stock price.

Gee - a sale to drive sales - now that’s a first 😉

 

At least they’re selling a deliverable rather than thin air promises of the future…

[Stickman1990]

6 hours ago, Keith1010 said:

so if there are options where you could have the service if you want or unbundle it could be a nice option.

You can certainly do that on Silversea  - it is an option to cash out certain elements of Door to Door on Silversea if you want. We didn’t as they presented great value for us eg door to door and business class air included 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Stickman1990

[cruisr]

Now I am confused.  When I look at the page it says $250.00 per person for Crystal Society Members (I am) and it says $125.00 per person for first time guests.  So is this wrong?  That is what seems to be stated on this forum.

[Keith1010]

8 minutes ago, cruisr said:

Now I am confused.  When I look at the page it says $250.00 per person for Crystal Society Members (I am) and it says $125.00 per person for first time guests.  So is this wrong?  That is what seems to be stated on this forum.

That is right. Up to $500.00 per suite 2 people crystal society and up to  250.00 per suite new to Crystal 

[cruisr]

15 minutes ago, Keith1010 said:

That is right. Up to $500.00 per suite 2 people crystal society and up to  250.00 per suite new to Crystal 

Thanks.  I thought someone posted that it was incorrect.

[Roland4]

56 minutes ago, Stickman1990 said:

You can certainly do that on Silversea  - it is an option to cash out certain elements of Door to Door on Silversea if you want. We didn’t as they presented great value for us eg door to door and business class air included 

But you, or your TA, do have to keep a very close eye on their Air Dept as that appears to be a weak link. Our original flights from YYZ had us flying out at 6:00 AM, connecting in Miami to a flight departing at 9:45 PM. That was bad enough, but they had us flying into Santiago, Chile, for a cruise departing from Buenos Aires!!! That's one heck of an airport to ship transfer, and no one in their Air Dept saw anything wrong until I pointed it out! Based on some of the posts on the CC Silversea board, this is not an unusual problem!