Ship Fully Booked...Then Not

[advocado]

For the past two months, Maasdam (January 25th, Ft. Lauderdale to San Diego) has been fully booked on HAL's website. Today, every category except penthouse, deluxe verandah and verandah suites are available. That's 13 categories that suddenly opened up. Similar thing shows up on the return voyage from San Diego to Ft. Lauderdale on February 9th. No charters were booked on these dates, so what's up with this???:confused:

[RuthC]

Maybe you caught it in the blip while guarantees are being assigned?

Who knows. But I am aware that HAL does strange and mysterious things with its computer over the weekends.

[Cruise Raider]

Last year, this exact same situation happened to us when trying to book a cruise from Ft Laud to San Fran. When they finally opened, they said it was closed until the final itinerary details could be addressed. I believe in our case it was due to scheduling a dry dock for the pod problems on one of the Celebrity Millenium Class ships. Our friends were already booked on it and then it closed to all new bookings. I think sometimes they are changing itineraries and scheduling dry dock repairs and when all is known, they will open it back up for booking. Sounds like this is what happened in your case.

[PurpleCow]

Perhaps cabins that were set aside for certain travel agents were just released.

[CroozeAddict]

Same has happened to us on the Westerdam 4-5 times. I have no idea why. There are no groups booked on it.

[Jsipes]

It is possible they were holding out for a possible charter cruise, and due to the current non-existent U.S. economy, the charter group fell out...:)

[CroozeAddict]

It is possible they were holding out for a possible charter cruise, and due to the current non-existent U.S. economy, the charter group fell out...:)

 

NO ... to the entire statement.

[navybankerteacher]

I have heard tht cruise lines monitor the rate at which cabins are booked --if sales are ahead of the curve, they will slow things down by pulling numbers off the market - thus permitting higher fares as sailing date nears, as well as maintaining availibility for preferred agents/desireable groups. Their models, developed over many years, allow fairly tight projections. An other primary reason may be that preferred agents are able to "conditionally" reserve blocks of cabins - and then can release them if sales targets are not met. This differs somewhat from airlines' practice of re-setting fares as frequently as daily to maximize revenue and loads - always saving some seats for those last-minute fliers who must fly on short notice and will pay almost any fare. I imagine HAL probably also could "find" a couple of unsold cabins as little as a week before any sailing.

[hammybee]

It looks like there are only about 12 (about 1.9% of all cabins) specific cabins available, although guarantees are being sold in every inside/outside catagory.

 

This could have been a small group cancellation, just accumulated individual cancellations or a very last minute return to inventory of unsold cabins.

 

Prices do not seem to reflect a fire sale, by any means.

 

Curious.

[billroddy]

HAL's booking system for travel agents, Polar, allows them to easily reserve group space. Usually six cabins will be assigned to them. There is a cut-off date if no cabins are sold and the cabins are returned to HAL.

Bill

[angela256z]

This happened once with me and found out that a large group that had booked on the ship cancelled at the last minute. Another situation that happened was a Travel Agent's group space was not released back to the public on the 90 day mark like it was suppose to. This happened on the Ryndam in 2004.

[cruiseco]

Believe it or not, just one cabin cancelling can open up multiple cabin categories.

 

For example, imagine on this ship there's 10 cabin categories (1 thru 10, 1 the highest, 10 the lowest) and that the cruise line has been selling guarantee cabins in all of those caregories.

 

Shortly before sailing a couple booked in a Cat(3) cabin have to cancel. There's only a few days to fill that cabin. The cruise line has the choice of only selling a Cat(3) cabin or, if they're desperate they'll try to sell a cabin to anyone who wants a Cat(10) through Cat(3) cabin -- many more potential buyers and a much greater chance of selling out the ship.

 

So let's say they finally sell that cabin at the Cat(7) rate. The ship is now again sold out,

 

The folks in the Cat(4) cabin will be moved into that open Cat(3)

The folks in Cat(5) will go up to Cat(4)

The folks in Cat(6) will go up to Cat(5)

The folks originally in Cat(7) are now moved to Cat(6) with the newly booked guests taking their cabin.

 

Those in Cat(10) thru Cat(8) are unaffected as are those in Cat(2) and Cat(1).

 

One cabin available but multiple categories open to sell.

[AECrowell]

I've been watching this one at Hal's web-site because we're on the second trip the OP mentioned - the Maasdam's Panama Canal San Diego back to Ft. Lauderdale Feb. 9th. Our ship's been fully booked for quite some time and then over the weekend I guess travel agents returned unbooked rooms. It seems to be a volatile situation! There were 12 rooms (bottom categories); then it returned to showing no availability; and now today it's showing 30 cabins in inside staterooms thru mid-range outside DD staterooms. (As Hammybee mentioned, these are not sale prices they're offering!)

 

We're hoping to be offered an upsell from a DA outside cabin but have heard nothing thus far. I don't know whether this means our chances are good or not!

[hammybee]

 

It seems to be a volatile situation!

 

A cabin is a commodity and therefore like any, subject to market volitility.

 

Good luck on that upsell.:)

[RuthC]

This close to sailing I highly doubt that it's travel agencies turning in unsold cabins. Those would have been turned in long ago.

 

Rather, I suspect that someone (or two) had to cancel at the last minute. That opened up a cabin (or two), and opened up the possibility of some upgrades to that (or those) cabins---as cruiseco explained.

[cruiseco]

This close to sailing I highly doubt that it's travel agencies turning in unsold cabins. Those would have been turned in long ago.

 

 

Once in my youth I neglected to return some unsold group cabins to the cruise line by the final payment date -- I'm pretty sure it was HAL. Anyway, I had to plead and beg not to have to pay out a few thousand bucks since I was now cancelling cabins inside the penalty period. I got my hand slapped pretty hard but they let it go with the warning to never do that again. HAL under Kirk Lanterman was STRICT.

[BruceMuzz]

On nearly every cruise with every mass market cruise ship, every cabin is sold an average of 8 times before the cruise starts. The cruising public is very fickle, changing their minds many times about categories, dates, and ships.

A ship can be fully booked for a particular cruise many different times, and then have available cabins just as many times over the course of the year before your cruise. This is just normal procedure for the cruise industry.

[RuthC]

This is just normal procedure for the cruise industry.

Two weeks or less before sailing? :confused: The OP referred to a sailing within 5 days; another poster referred to another sailing in two weeks.

This is "normal" turnover? This late in the game that does not make sense to me.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

I believe the answer for the original OP is that HAL will show all categories closed a few weeks before sailing to start to sort out and assign Guarantee bookings. Once this has been done and offers to pay for an upgrade are done then if there are open cabins they reopen them for any last minute bookings. This does not happen often that there are left over cabins but it can happen which it was it looked like in this case.

[mamadot]

Where do you look to find if your cruise is fully booked? Our cruise in May is said to be sold out but I would like to look at it.

[Spender Nui]

Two weeks or less before sailing? :confused: The OP referred to a sailing within 5 days; another poster referred to another sailing in two weeks.

This is "normal" turnover? This late in the game that does not make sense to me.

 

Amen!

[advocado]

Where do you look to find if your cruise is fully booked? Our cruise in May is said to be sold out but I would like to look at it.

Go to HAL`s website and navigate through the destinations until you find your cruise. Then try to price any cabin category. If it`s sold out, a message to that effect will be displayed in red.

[advocado]

I have heard tht cruise lines monitor the rate at which cabins are booked --if sales are ahead of the curve, they will slow things down by pulling numbers off the market - thus permitting higher fares as sailing date nears, as well as maintaining availibility for preferred agents/desireable groups. Their models, developed over many years, allow fairly tight projections. An other primary reason may be that preferred agents are able to "conditionally" reserve blocks of cabins - and then can release them if sales targets are not met. This differs somewhat from airlines' practice of re-setting fares as frequently as daily to maximize revenue and loads - always saving some seats for those last-minute fliers who must fly on short notice and will pay almost any fare. I imagine HAL probably also could "find" a couple of unsold cabins as little as a week before any sailing.

I`m about to board the Maasdam for our Canal cruise. I`ll ask around to see if there is a defintive answer to this conundrum. However, in the few days that I have been in Ft. Lauderdale I have discussed this issue with some people in the industry and their explanation is pretty much the same as yours. Hmmm...