Are Celebrity’s Exciting Deals promotions getting a lot less exciting?

[Stockjock]

It’s been my understanding that the pricing offered under Celebrity’s exciting deals promotion is about as good as it gets. In fact, I grabbed a discounted cruise out of Los Angeles last year, and they refused to honor my usual American Express cruise privilege benefit on that sailing because exciting deals are supposedly their rock-bottom prices, and don’t qualify for perks like that. 
 

I got their most recent exciting deals today, and they don’t seem exciting at all. They seem to be about what I would usually expect for a regular sailing that wasn’t part of a promotion. So is it just my imagination, or are the exciting deals a lot less exciting?

[D. B.]

25 minutes ago, Stockjock said:

It’s been my understanding that the pricing offered under Celebrity’s exciting deals promotion is about as good as it gets. In fact, I grabbed a discounted cruise out of Los Angeles last year, and they refused to honor my usual American Express cruise privilege benefit on that sailing because exciting deals are supposedly their rock-bottom prices, and don’t qualify for perks like that. 
 

I got their most recent exciting deals today, and they don’t seem exciting at all. They seem to be about what I would usually expect for a regular sailing that wasn’t part of a promotion. So is it just my imagination, or are the exciting deals a lot less exciting?

With the popularity of Cruises post Covid exploding in record bookings the cruise line’s have found themselves in a position of strength that no longer requires them to offer great deals to fill ships.

  It’s the old rule of supply and demand.

the best deals are for booking close to the sale date but cabin selection is more limited.

  

[RichYak]

I would think that the algorithmic maturation of the move-up program is largely to blame.

[Orator]

Prices reflect the market.

[horseymike]

I don't thinks these advertised "sales " are really sales at all.

They just manipulate the numbers.

[Jeremiah1212]

Look at RCG's first quarter numbers. They don't need to do offer fire sale rates right now. Occupancy is higher than it was back in 2019, for 2024 they are quoting having ~12% capacity left to sell for the year. Deposits held are up by $770 million since Q1 2023. 

[Orator]

3 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

Look at RCG's first quarter numbers. They don't need to do offer fire sale rates right now. Occupancy is higher than it was back in 2019, for 2024 they are quoting having ~12% capacity left to sell for the year. Deposits held are up by $770 million since Q1 2023. 

Onboard spending is also up. 

[lv2cruisgrl]

They don't need to advertise as much as they do people are booking cruises like crazy.  No deals available as far as we can see.  

[Georgia_Peaches]

3 hours ago, Stockjock said:

They seem to be about what I would usually expect for a regular sailing that wasn’t part of a promotion.

TBH I’m just happy with getting what I expect to pay because so often days what I expect to pay and what’s being charged are 2 different things. 

[D. B.]

43 minutes ago, lv2cruisgrl said:

They don't need to advertise as much as they do people are booking cruises like crazy.  No deals available as far as we can see.  

I have 9 future Celebrity cruises booked but I run dummy bookings for them on Celebrities web site every so often and just Found 3 of them Now have lower Prices then when I originally booked them!

 I called my TA and they were able to have Celebrity change My bookings to the lower Price while keeping my same cabin. These are All on bookings Before final payment has been made.

 The savings were about $700.00 on each.

 Checking some of my bookings the Cost had Gone Up so no savings there.

 My TA's website lists current prices so I check them for price drops and that leads me to do the dummy bookings on the cruise lines site.

   The biggest change I see since 2023 has been the reduction in OBC's. It makes it more important to take advantage of Celebrities onboard offer to pay a $100 deposit and have 6 months to decide on a future cruise And get the OBC that comes with that offer.

 

[lv2cruisgrl]

51 minutes ago, D. B. said:

I have 9 future Celebrity cruises booked but I run dummy bookings for them on Celebrities web site every so often and just Found 3 of them Now have lower Prices then when I originally booked them!

 I called my TA and they were able to have Celebrity change My bookings to the lower Price while keeping my same cabin. These are All on bookings Before final payment has been made.

 The savings were about $700.00 on each.

 Checking some of my bookings the Cost had Gone Up so no savings there.

 My TA's website lists current prices so I check them for price drops and that leads me to do the dummy bookings on the cruise lines site.

   The biggest change I see since 2023 has been the reduction in OBC's. It makes it more important to take advantage of Celebrities onboard offer to pay a $100 deposit and have 6 months to decide on a future cruise And get the OBC that comes with that offer.

 

Good job I never find that the cruises I book go down in price!

Edited April 30 by lv2cruisgrl

[Team Stag]

In 2019, my wife & I were looking for a short weekend getaway cruise.  We chose another line due time restrictions and needing to be able to sail from Port Canaveral.  We found an NCL cruise that we throught was a really good deal but expired at 12:00 mid.  So we called our travel agent (who was traveling) and at 11:00 p.m. when we didn't hear back we booked it online.  The next morning - we woke up to a 48 hour Flash sale and shocker - it was the same exact price 🙄

I feel like Celebrity has taken a page from that book.  They have their price & now play a constant shell game with how they advertise their price.  Buy one get one 75.  But one - other passenger 50%, etc etc but at the end they all come out the same price.  My recent cruise (before final payment), I saw it was $100 cheaper.  So I call the TA & she confirms it but it reduces my current OBC form $200 to $75.  So basically a net $25 gain to stay with what we had (knowing my wife will spend at least $200 on board).  I feel like it's just trying to create confusion and force the customer into a sense of urgency to book "to get the best deal".

Edited April 30 by Team Stag

[Jeremiah1212]

18 minutes ago, Team Stag said:

I feel like Celebrity has taken a page from that book.  They have their price & now play a constant shell game with how they advertise their price.  Buy one get one 75.  But one - other passenger 50%, etc etc but at the end they all come out the same price.  My recent cruise (before final payment), I saw it was $100 cheaper.  So I call the TA & she confirms it but it reduces my current OBC form $200 to $75.  So basically a net $25 gain to stay with what we had (knowing my wife will spend at least $200 on board).  I feel like it's just trying to create confusion and force the customer into a sense of urgency to book "to get the best deal".

 

Luckily Celebrity's current promotion has been the same since December and will run through at least June. 75% off the second guest with bonus OBC every day except Thursdays. The base rate fluctuations are drive by demand as always. You can also find a TA that has discounted group rates to avoid the price swings. 

 

[Georgia_Peaches]

42 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

You can also find a TA that has discounted group rates to avoid the price swings. 

Yes!  My TA saved me. 1000k over the published price with a group rate discount. 

[Stockjock]

5 hours ago, horseymike said:

I don't thinks these advertised "sales " are really sales at all.

They just manipulate the numbers.

Some of them are legit sales.  The short cruise out of L.A. was pretty much Carnival cheap even on Concierge Class.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

11 hours ago, Stockjock said:

It’s been my understanding that the pricing offered under Celebrity’s exciting deals promotion is about as good as it gets. In fact, I grabbed a discounted cruise out of Los Angeles last year, and they refused to honor my usual American Express cruise privilege benefit on that sailing because exciting deals are supposedly their rock-bottom prices, and don’t qualify for perks like that. 
 

I got their most recent exciting deals today, and they don’t seem exciting at all. They seem to be about what I would usually expect for a regular sailing that wasn’t part of a promotion. So is it just my imagination, or are the exciting deals a lot less exciting?

 

Dunno as they have stopped sending me the emails.

[bikerunner]

Always find it curious people complain about the prices but when people mention that they work with a travel agent and get great prices, Ie group bookings thru TA.  But the people complaining won’t go to a travel agent because they want to “keep control of the reservation”.   It does take some work initially to find a very good travel agent. Been using my 2 for many years and always gotten great service and incredible savings.  
 

like jerimah pointed out celebrity/royal has no reason to give large discounts at the moment.   The ships are full, people are spending money.  They seem to have positioned the ships to profitable routes now.  

[Ex-Airbalancer]

I don’t like the new format they using , it has more graphics but harder to find cruises easily 

also they removed the Canadian pricing 

[pete_coach]

Celebrity's (and other cruise lines too) "exciting deals", sales. deals. offers, promotions or whatever other name are the same yesterday as were 3 months ago, 6 months ago , one year ago etc etc.

They just change the name but the deal remains the same 🙂

[NMTraveller]

The pickings are slim due to demand.

 

The only discount I am seeing is on the Beyond for a 6 day cruise.  I don't do E class or cruises shorter than 12 days.

[Oceangoer2]

1 hour ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

I don’t like the new format they using , it has more graphics but harder to find cruises easily 

also they removed the Canadian pricing 

Who has removed the Canadian pricing?  Are you speaking of a TA or X?  My screen comes up with Can. $$s.  Perhaps your location indicator (at the bottom of the home page) has been changed somehow to US? The page for finding cruises hasn't changed for me. 

[wrk2cruise]

Poster was referring to this link to the deals where the format has changed to be much harder to read.

 

https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Celebrity/Exciting_Deals/CEL_Exciting_Deals.pdf

[Jeremiah1212]

18 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

Poster was referring to this link to the deals where the format has changed to be much harder to read.

 

https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Celebrity/Exciting_Deals/CEL_Exciting_Deals.pdf

 

That format has always been available to travel agents (who it is intended for). For the public the sailings are easily identified through the link in the email or on the website. However you can't easily identify which stateroom categories qualify. 

 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/promo-controller?contentPromotionId=promotion-217. 

[horseymike]

15 hours ago, Stockjock said:

Some of them are legit sales.  The short cruise out of L.A. was pretty much Carnival cheap even on Concierge Class.

Glad to hear it 👍

[Ex-Airbalancer]

4 hours ago, Oceangoer2 said:

Who has removed the Canadian pricing?  Are you speaking of a TA or X?  My screen comes up with Can. $$s.  Perhaps your location indicator (at the bottom of the home page) has been changed somehow to US? The page for finding cruises hasn't changed for me. 

I been using this link for a couple years and before it would show both CAD and USD pricing 

https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Celebrity/Exciting_Deals/CEL_Exciting_Deals.pdf

the format for the  public is crap

Edited May 1 by Ex-Airbalancer