Bookings for luxury cruises this summer on Seabourn are tightening up and prices are rising. Regent has recently announced the strongest bookings ever. Oceania has quite a number of soldout sailings. The discounts and incentives may have done their job...but for those of you that didn't listen to me, you may be out of luck if you were planning on taking a luxury cruise this summer at rock bottom prices...at least on some lines.
I heard today that some travel agents are asking the cruise lines to protect their now gone lower prices and they are not finding any success. (I can't imagine they ever would.) That does not mean all the deals are gone or every cruise is sold out. What it does mean is that if you didn't listen to me you may be getting the same percentage off, but on a higher category. (I told you to book and cancel later if you had to, but to protect the lowest available category.)
As a bit of an aside, I am having more clients being offered upgrades at reduced prices on some of the premium lines. All of a sudden those who wouldn't pay more than X for their cruise are now feeling a bit more comfortable about the economy and their future so they are upgrading at a cost of thousands. I find this quite encouraging because months ago the concerns were so great that $200 was a deal breaker, now it is 10% or less of the upgrade cost.
I am not sure how this all plays out, but one thing is for certain: People are coming out to play...err, cruise.
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