Always dreamed of a Caribbean cruise? This is the year to do it.
Cruise lines have slashed prices for 2007 voyages to rarely seen levels as low as $399 a week for February sailings in an aggressive effort to jump start sagging sales as the busiest booking period of the year begins.
The strategy for the make or break wave season,which starts this week and continues through March, seems to be to “lower prices now, fill up inventory with bargain hunters and then raise rates back to traditional levels,” says Mike Driscoll of Cruise Week newsletter.
Driscoll says fares are as much as 15% below last years levels for peak summer trips and are the best since 2002, when the industry was reeling from the collapse in travel after 9/11. Of course, back then land resorts also were discounting heavily. Todays deals are even more significant when compared with soaring prices for land trips, he says.
The cruise industry has struggled to fill ships in the Caribbean the past year even as voyages in Europe and Alaska sold briskly at high prices, a conundrum blamed on everything from growing financial troubles among less affluent vacationers who favor Caribbean cruises to elevated worries about hurricanes.
People were really scared off after the 2005 hurricane season, says Carolyn Spencer Brown, the editor of cruise critic.com. But she says longer-term factors also are at work, including a growing glut of big ships in the Caribbean and “not enough fresh itineraries.
Lingering confusion over new passport rules that take effect this month also have been a problem. An early draft required Caribbean cruisers to carry passports to re-enter the USA, but Congress later voted to postpone the requirement after heavy lobbying by the cruise industry. (Only fliers to Caribbean islands will need passports for now.) Many would-be cruisers who didn’t have passports, however, booked alternative trips prior to the postponement.
Cruise lines also are discounting in Hawaii, says Spencer Brown. NCL America’s seven-night trips in February cost as little as $449, “a fantastic deal.
Prices for summer cruises to Alaska and Europe are about the same as last year, says David Brams, president of World Wide Cruises in Fort Lauderdale. Availability for all is good, but that can change in a heartbeat. This is a big booking month, he says.
Thinking of booking? Do not wait long if you covet a specific ship or specific cabin type, Spencer Brown says. Over the past year, the post 9/11 trend to last minute bookings has reversed, resulting in less last-minute availability.
There has been a “return to normal patterns of booking,” she says. “We’re seeing passengers planning ahead about eight to 12 months.”
Courtesy of grouptravelblog.com
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