Tracking occupancy rates

[bots33]

Hi again

 

Looking at a trans atlantic cruise with Royal Carribean later this year. Is there a way to track how many cabins have been booked on their, or other cruise liner's, ships?

 

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[*Luv2Cruz*]

I'm pretty sure that information is only available to the cruise lines. The only way we can tell is if the prices go up they're booking cabins, if they go down, they need to sell more!;) Let's see if anyone else has any insight on this?

[ray98]

Not that I know.

[chasetf]

Hi again Looking at a trans atlantic cruise with Royal Carribean later this year. Is there a way to track how many cabins have been booked on their, or other cruise liner's, ships? Thanks in advance for any responses.

Why would you expect the cruise lines to provide their confidential sales information to you. :confused:

 

If they did that then folks would lay back waiting for the fire sales on those cruises that were lagging in sales. :rolleyes: ..... just like you want to do. ;)

[RatherBFishin]

Looking at a trans atlantic cruise with Royal Carribean later this year. Is there a way to track how many cabins have been booked on their, or other cruise liner's, ships?

 

It's easy to get a rough estimate as the sailing date gets closer if a ship is getting full. You'll see on the online travel sites that cabin categories begin to become unavailable for booking. Generally (IMO) the cheapest and most expensive go first. The ones in the middle sell out the slowest.

 

The opposite is not true. The online travel sites are limited by the reservation systems they use in how many free cabins they show you at a time. It's not a conspiracy though. It's the way the reservations systems were designed, to minimize the load on the system, and reduce the potential for collisions/rollbacks. (ie When it shows a cabin free, you choose it, and you get the message that it's no longer available because in the interim it was booked by someone else).

 

Basically what everyone else is saying is correct. Only the cruise line knows for sure, and they don't share that info.

[98Charlie]

I've never heard of anyone other than the cruise line knowing the actual occupancy percentage. Even if you call the cruise line direct to book the agent will only see a specific number of cabins in each category.

 

If there is a specific cabin that you'd like that is not listed you can ask and they can check to see if it is available. If you are using a TA they can contact the cruise line and check also.

 

The best bet is to have an agent that has a clear policy on price reductions. When the price is at a level that you are happy with, book the cruise. If the price goes down ask the TA for a price adjustment. If the price goes up, be content with the price you originally paid.

 

Do understand that after final payment you may not be eligible for price reductions. That's when the empty cabins are sold off at whatever price the cruise lines thinks will fill the ship and are generally listed as "new bookings only".

 

Charlie

[Teetype]

There's at least one very well known website, which I cannot name, but which does indeed show the current vacancies. After you have chosen what category you want to purchase, the next screen will be a deck which shows blinking rooms for those available in that category.

 

It would be tedious as you would have to go through all categories a deck at a time, at it would all change by the time you'd accomplished it, but yes, you could see availability.

 

Tee

[RatherBFishin]

There's at least one very well known website, which I cannot name, but which does indeed show the current vacancies. After you have chosen what category you want to purchase, the next screen will be a deck which shows blinking rooms for those available in that category.

 

It won't show all the cabins available. Probably less than 10 for any giver combination of cabin class and deck. It's a limitation of the 4 major reservations systems. And all web sites (and travel agents too) use those same reservation systems.

 

If you don't believe that, do an experiment. Try booking a cabin the very first day a cruise becomes available for booking. If the web site showed every single cabin that was available, you should see 99% of them free for selection. Instead you'll see the max ... probably less than 10 for a given cabin class and a given deck.

 

By the way, if you want really in-depth explanation of how this all works under the covers, there's an industry trade group called the Open Travel Alliance that works toward making sure all the computer systems work seamlessly between the different parties. Here is a link to the their specs:

 

http://www.opentravel.org/Specifications/SchemaIndex.aspx?FolderName=2008A

 

So when you search for a cabin, the web site you're using is probably calling: OTA_CruiseCategoryAvailRQ. The documentation for the response to that function says:

 

The Category Availability Response message contains category availability for a given sailing with a specific Mode of Transportation/GatewayCity pair and currency for 1 to multiple fares (depending on the cruise line). For each category the following information may be returned: - Berthed category code - Priced category code - Status code - Category indicator - Cruise package information - Group code - Fare code - Currency code This message returns the fare amounts available in the different categories. At this point in the process the customer has selected the fare code and has queried the different category offerings for that fare code.

 

I'd be glad to go into this deeper, in as much gory technical detail as you wish. It's alot more interesting than arguing about Dress Codes and such :)

[boereseun]

:confused: my two cents worth: my ta supplied me with (on request) availability for three catogories of cabins in total 150 cabins to choose from and a note to say i could request for one of my choice waiting confirmation . the cruise is for nov 08. as mentioned above there is obviously a system in place and they sound like they know what they r talking about, neverthe less making my choice from 150 cabins was easy in this instance and my ta is a star for mailing the info. looking at the footend of the page the system they r using is Amadeus if that helps.

[SeattleCruiselover]

There's at least one very well known website, which I cannot name, but which does indeed show the current vacancies. After you have chosen what category you want to purchase, the next screen will be a deck which shows blinking rooms for those available in that category.

 

It would be tedious as you would have to go through all categories a deck at a time, at it would all change by the time you'd accomplished it, but yes, you could see availability.

 

Tee

 

That particular online agency, for whom I used to work, does not show the true inventory either..but a closer approximation than some.

[RatherBFishin]

:confused: my two cents worth: my ta supplied me with (on request) availability for three catogories of cabins in total 150 cabins to choose from and a note to say i could request for one of my choice waiting confirmation . the cruise is for nov 08. as mentioned above there is obviously a system in place and they sound like they know what they r talking about, neverthe less making my choice from 150 cabins was easy in this instance and my ta is a star for mailing the info. looking at the footend of the page the system they r using is Amadeus if that helps.

 

Do the math.

 

If you got back 10 results per Deck x 3 Cabin Categories x 5 different Decks = roughly 150.

 

That's not hard to do, even on the web. It's still not what the OP was asking for. Especially since they specifically use the word "track" (ie to measure repeatedly over time).