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Is spring break time crazy?


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Spring break tends to see increased families with kids.  School is on break so the natural conclusion is that more kids will be vacationing and that includes cruises.  

Consequently ships tend to run higher volume than the double occupancy capacity numbers that are often used to measure ship guest counts.  

Since the travel industry largely follows supply and demand principals the "in demand" aspect of spring break can lead to higher prices.

The result is the ship may seem full and the price may be higher than a month before or after for the same cruise.

Personally I don't mind well behaved kids but sometimes, some parents vacate their parenting responsibilities while on vacation.  With the current pandemic normal supply and demand peaks may not be realized next year so pricing may not follow past spring break trends.

The shorter cruises such as 3 & 4 nights can often see a younger college crowd looking for a party spring break cruise but that is somewhat less of an effect on 7 night Oasis class cruises during this time which are often beyond a college friendly budget.

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I agree w/ @twangster.  While I wouldn’t avoid any particular cruise if I really wanted to sail, I would lean towards longer sailings of 6+ nights.  3/4 nighters are always a bit more wild, but during that timeframe they have a tendency to ramp up.

I don’t mind sailings with lots of kids, especially on larger ships.  Ideally, most are well behaved but there are so many places to spread out.  Obviously on any of these ships the key common areas like the pool will always be crowded. 
 

Bottom line, sail the ship you want to sail.  As long as you set expectations of what the atmosphere could be like, you can have a great sailing anywhere!

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Other thing several of us here have learned about cruising during spring break time is that airfare prices don't drop at all leading up to the actual travel dates. Usually there is some kind of drop around 90 days out, but several of us who've tracked airfares for our trips found that spring break / Easter-timed flights never go lower than they were when first released.

So if switching to a spring break cruise and you need airfare, make sure to book that as early as possible, or else factor in the elevated costs when reworking your budget.

You'll also need to factor in a lot more for hotel money, or plan to book a hotel further away from the cruise port, if it's sailing out of a popular destination like Fort Lauderdale or Miami.

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3 hours ago, JLMoran said:

Other thing several of us here have learned about cruising during spring break time is that airfare prices don't drop at all leading up to the actual travel dates. Usually there is some kind of drop around 90 days out, but several of us who've tracked airfares for our trips found that spring break / Easter-timed flights never go lower than they were when first released.

So if switching to a spring break cruise and you need airfare, make sure to book that as early as possible, or else factor in the elevated costs when reworking your budget.

You'll also need to factor in a lot more for hotel money, or plan to book a hotel further away from the cruise port, if it's sailing out of a popular destination like Fort Lauderdale or Miami.

A little off topic but this is what we're struggling with now.  As you say, spring break (or Ontario March break for us), is a specific week and airlines know it....so the price is $$$.  We always book opening day as the price only goes up from there. (Last year we even booked the two ways separately).  But with everything so up in the air now, what do we do?  Will the March cruise even go ahead? And so, do we wait on flights?  Or if it goes ahead, will we switch cruises to juggle another cruise that was cancelled?  Flights open up very soon.  Don't know what to do...

One thing with spring break as it's a different week for different places (e.g. unlike Christmas)....so it probably covers a large range.  We were on Symphony last March break. Yes there were lots of kids...including ours... but the ship is so large and with multiple activities going on, that it never felt crowded or overrun by kids.  So it may also depend on the ship.

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On 4/12/2020 at 4:07 PM, WannaCruise said:

A little off topic but this is what we're struggling with now.  As you say, spring break (or Ontario March break for us), is a specific week and airlines know it....so the price is $$$.  We always book opening day as the price only goes up from there. (Last year we even booked the two ways separately).  But with everything so up in the air now, what do we do?  Will the March cruise even go ahead? And so, do we wait on flights?  Or if it goes ahead, will we switch cruises to juggle another cruise that was cancelled?  Flights open up very soon.  Don't know what to do...

One thing with spring break as it's a different week for different places (e.g. unlike Christmas)....so it probably covers a large range.  We were on Symphony last March break. Yes there were lots of kids...including ours... but the ship is so large and with multiple activities going on, that it never felt crowded or overrun by kids.  So it may also depend on the ship.

We’re in the same boat but for reading week. We booked the Freedom out of San Juan. Flights have opened up and they’re  astronomical.  More than the cruise. typically flights are cheapest on opening. We’re going to hold off and hope for a price drop. 

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