Oversold?

[futaba951]

Has anyone checked with the cruise lines to see if they will let you sail for free if you promise not to use the life boats in the event of a sinking when they are overbooked?

[cruiser1465]

Has anyone checked with the cruise lines to see if they will let you sail for free if you promise not to use the life boats in the event of a sinking when they are overbooked?

 

I like that idea:p

[cruiser1465]

1) Take a look at the post about HAL overbooking. Do you think HAL would offer a full refund AND give away a 10 day cruise AND offer an OBC if it had a spare cabin to put them into?

 

2) If a cruise line wants to add lifeboat space it has to add lifeboats. Where are they going to put the extra lifeboats?

 

I was on the Freedom of the Seas at the end of June 2007. As we got closer to the cruise date RCI started restricting booking to two per cabin. Even one of the family cabins was being limited to two. The reason was if RCI sold more than two per cabin, it would run out of room in its lifeboats.

 

Also, the ship might not be able to handle more people. Sure one or two more people will not make a difference (except in the lifeboats). But at a certain point you have to start adding more tables in the dining room and add more room in other areas. If the cruise line knows it will never have more than X number of people on its ship, it can plan accordingly.

 

No argument here. However, when the ship is designed, I would think when designing the layout of the ship, the design team would make sure the ship was designed to hold enough lifeboats to match at least as many berths as the ship has. Same with dining room space, etc. Otherwise there is no reason to have all those berths. Having a 3rd and 4th berths in some cabins have to work the the benefit of the cruiseline since the 3rd and 4th person in each cabin is significantly cheaper than the first two. If putting a third and fourth person in my cabin means that the cruiseline must theoretically leave another cabin empty or look to sell it to a solo person, why would the cruiseline do this?

 

But, to add to your thoughts, I believe the newer ships have fewer cabins that hold 3 or 4 people than the older ships. This may be the reason for this new design. There are many more balcony cabins on the newer ships and probably less space along the ship for lifeboats. Hence the reduction of cabins that hold up to 4 people.

 

Now my other post about reasons for overbooking a HAL cruise may explain why this happens on HAL and not on Carnival.