Price differences within Europe

[magrat42]

Please can anyone explain and justify why the UK gets charged higher prices than the rest of Europe for cruises? I have access to Princess cruises european site and cruise prices are given in euros.However when my husband logs in he gets GB Pound prices which, often as not are at least 1/3 higher.:( Does anyone else think this is totally unfair? Also, why when i log into site for cruise deals in the USA I can get prices for 2011 cruises but on UK sites pricicng is not available? We have done a fair number of cruises using different lines but nearly always seem to end up paying more than the rest of the passengers. - guess we'll just have to move to US!!

[Goldryder]

The cost differences I have managed to narrow down to being caused by taxes, pre-paid service charges and a variety of other bits of red tape snuck in here and there.

 

Costa, for example, in the UK do not include the service charge with the final total, whereas in Australia they do...we pay it on the ship at the end of the cruise instead.

 

It is a minefield trying to sort out the cost differences tween countries...the exchange rate also has a bearing too, when the brochures and online itineraries are released and priced up, they don't change if the exchange rate does...so more often than not, you are paying the price that might not be too good purely on the fact of a bad exchange rate at the time of publishing.

[sverigecruiser]

Please can anyone explain and justify why the UK gets charged higher prices than the rest of Europe for cruises? I have access to Princess cruises european site and cruise prices are given in euros.However when my husband logs in he gets GB Pound prices which, often as not are at least 1/3 higher.:( Does anyone else think this is totally unfair? Also, why when i log into site for cruise deals in the USA I can get prices for 2011 cruises but on UK sites pricicng is not available? We have done a fair number of cruises using different lines but nearly always seem to end up paying more than the rest of the passengers. - guess we'll just have to move to US!!

 

I booked my latest cruise on ncl.eu and depending on when I logged in I got the price in Euro or GB Pound, don't know why! The cruise was around $700 cheaper if I booked the cruise in GB Pound instead of in Euro!

[Moeve]

Those are often what the US call residency specials. Jus tin Europe or the UK the passeger bases are not THAT big so doing individual areas in particular countries don't pay off so here they do them via country. No real difference to the US res specials.