Freestyle catching on? - Holland America Line Introduces As You Wish Dining

[electricron]

In as much as Noordam only offers 10 & 11 nt cruises out of NYC, lets stick to those parameters.

 

Noordam Veranda 1/16 10 nts $957

NCL Gem Veranda 1/16 10 nts $2249

 

 

Noordam Veranda 2/06 10 nts $957

NCL Gem Veranda 2/06 10 nts $2399

 

Noordam Cat SY (389 sq ft) 1/16 10nts $1625 pp

NCL Gem Cat A4 (approx same size as Noordam ) $5399

 

WOW!!!! Big Differances to me (maybe not to you)

 

Your fares appear correct, but no way is an A4 equivalent in size to a SY. The Noordam's SY is 389 sq.ft. including the veranda, about the same size as a Gem's AD (284+100=384), which should be much cheaper than an A4 in the Courtyard area. On 1/16/08, an AD, which while I look, isn't available.

But you could get a larger AC for $3699, or AE with a slightly smaller balcony with the same size cabin as an AD for $3249. Much cheaper than the $5399 you quoted for the A4.

 

It's still more expensive than the Noordam's SY, but not twice or three times more expensive as you suggest.

 

Don't forget, the Gem is going further south than the Noordam.

[Droopy_Sails]

Don't you usually get the same drive thru person at your favorite eatery when you go?

 

I'm trying to envision any of the sophisticated, well traveled and affluent individuals I know--the ones who can live any way they like and have nothing to prove--saying this.

 

Nope, can't do it.

 

How about the need-to-feel-superior-to-the-neighbors, desperately climbing wannabes I know? Oh, yeah.

 

Thanks for another perfect illustration of my point.

[travage]

hotspur,

My cruising in an "artificial world" comment was referencing something Droopy_Sails had said. I also prefaced that comment with, "in general....."

Some cruises are truly traveling experiences, but I defend what I said in the context of this discussion about HAL and other big cruise lines that are generally doing the same runs every week and in general visiting very popular ports, some of which are more akin to shopping plazas than anything else.

Loosely related----was anyone else totally disappointed to see the exact same companies running the shops in Alaska and the Caribbean. I'm suprised they don't sell postcards showing a glacier covered in palms-it'd be a great economy of scale!

[fcorey]

Your fares appear correct, but no way is an A4 equivalent in size to a SY. The Noordam's SY is 389 sq.ft. including the veranda, about the same size as a Gem's AD (284+100=384), which should be much cheaper than an A4 in the Courtyard area. On 1/16/08, an AD, which while I look, isn't available.

But you could get a larger AC for $3699, or AE with a slightly smaller balcony with the same size cabin as an AD for $3249. Much cheaper than the $5399 you quoted for the A4.

 

It's still more expensive than the Noordam's SY, but not twice or three times more expensive as you suggest.

 

Don't forget, the Gem is going further south than the Noordam.

 

I looked closely at rates for Feb 08 sailings and booked Noordam

 

Noordam Veranda 2/06 10 nts $957

NCL Gem Veranda 2/06 10 nts $2399

 

my rate for my veranda room (not VE shown in quote) was about $1200 per person which is still half what NCL was. I am still not sure why she is so much more. We were considering trying NCL but she was even more than QM2. Maybe those rates are so high because she is nearly fully booked, I've seen that, when they are almost out of rooms in a category the rates look artificially high, GEM is a new ship so maybe the veranda rooms sold really quick?

[Host CMLA]

I guess its just too easy to easy to talk down to other members. Sorry guys. This thread is closed. Thanks to the OP for sharing this information.

[Droopy_Sails]

But you could get a larger AC for $3699, or AE with a slightly smaller balcony with the same size cabin as an AD for $3249. Much cheaper than the $5399 you quoted for the A4.

 

It's still more expensive than the Noordam's SY, but not twice or three times more expensive as you suggest.

 

$3249 is one dollar less than $3250, which is...twice as much as $1625.

[romy]

WOW, just went over to the HAL board to see what they were saying! It's amazing! You would think that this Anytime Dining idea was the end of the world and the death of cruising. There are people who are lifelong HAL cruisers willing to cancel cruises and swearing never to sail HAL if this happens! They really have their support hose in a bunch over there!!

 

And I thought things got nasty sometimes over here!

 

Okay, that's it! I nearly peed my pants Keystone! I'm going to have to jump over there before they start stroking out!:eek:

 

Happy Sails!!!

 

Romy

[KeystoneCruiser]

Okay, that's it! I nearly peed my pants Keystone!!:eek: I'm going to have to jump over there before they start stroking out

Happy Sails!!!

Romy

 

Well, if you do, just make sure that you are on a ship with a laundry.....:D

 

"stoking out over there".....oh that is waaayyyy to easy of a set-up.

[fcorey]

Gem may be more money simply because she's brand new. It doesnt enter service until later this year, it will only be a couple months old.

[Droopy_Sails]

Re: "stroking out over there"--gee, I hope not! They should practice deep-breathing techniques.

 

I wonder how the HAL onboard medical centers are. Busy, I'd guess.

 

On our recent Jewel transatlantic, the crowd was quite superannuated, as is usual on those long voyages. I kept ordering prune juice just because I like the taste. My husband kept teasing me that I should be saving it for "some of these people who may really need it."

 

Sure enough, they ran out of prune juice; it's pretty common to run out of a few things on a transatlantic, and you can't refill in mid-ocean. On the second-to-last day, we were sharing a big table at breakfast as is our custom, and everyone else at the table was up in years. They all started complaining angrily about how NCL hadn't laid in enough prune juice. My husband leaned over and whispered in my ear, "You. YOU did this to them."

[KeystoneCruiser]

I don't know who these "people" were, let alone whether they comprised any substantial body of informed opinion - but they were misinformed from the beginning. Skybus is not a new way of flying. By the time it was announced, its model had become tried and tested and found to be capable of being highly successful. The model was originally loosely based on Southwest (ironically) but has become much more intensely pared-down and evolved by its major proponent, which has arguably become the biggest international airline in the world as a result. Skybus' risks were not in its model. The big ones were in the usual areas for a startup airline: incomplete or incompetent execution, or inadequate capitalisation.

 

So this airline's initial success really doesn't have any read-across to the changes that the cruise lines are making, whether you think those changes to be good or bad.

 

Skybus was created by a group associated with Nationwide Insurance and that is why they are based out of Col. Oh.. We have been reading intently for the last 18 months about the upcoming launch of the airline earlier this spring. They even mentioned that they were trying to copy many things about Southwest but said that Southwest lost their focus as a no frills airline because they were trying to cater to the norms of air travel. As one exectutive said way back in the begining...."we threw out the book on how airlines have been run and basically started from scratch." Most good ideas that work are the result of borrowing things from other successes and that is what Skybus did.

 

As far as Skybus's fate, it will be interesting to see what happens once the bad weather sets in and people have to walk out to the plane. Also, as other airlines copy some of Skybus's successful ideas, it will be interesting to see how they adapt to keep the market share.

 

You did bring up a good point that ties in nicely with this discussion, Skybus was not the first with many of their concepts and ways of doing things...they borrowed ideas that worked from others. Pretty much the way all of the cruiselines are putting out various copies of Freestyle Dining and Automatic tipping.