Jump to content

Capacity in the month of Feb/Mar


mike2608

Recommended Posts

I am going on an Oasis class ship in late Feb to early Mar 2023 to the Caribbean and am curious what the usual ship capacity is during this time, whether it is pre-covid, during later stages of covid 2021 and 2022. Just curious and am looking forward to cruising🙂.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the pent up demand has made what usually were less-than-full shoulder season sailings more attractive. The fares are usually cheaper, however as demand rises, so will prices. I also agree that there will be times during spring break (which varies by schools and universities) when the ship can seem almost like a summer sailing capacity-wise. Except instead of just families with lots of youngsters, it’s also groups of spring breakers…with access to drink packages. Keeps security busy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Demand and capacity is related to pricing and vice versa.  Short of a proper sine wave cruise pricing traditionally goes through a series of peaks and troughs of unequal amplitude. 

In summary:

Prior to the shutdown ships sailed full.  Capacity was at or above 100% most of the time.  The only difference when viewed across 12 months of cruising was in the rates paid and how many guests on board were the result of last minute tactics to fill the ship.   

If you are only interested in how full the ships were (capacity) it's pretty simple.  They were always full prior to the shutdown, during the initial restart well under 50% and in the final phases of the restart (as in now) at or above full capacity, at least in the US but not in Europe.   Europe remains soft averaging 70% capacity so it does matter what region you are looking to sail.

 

The long story:

Cruise lines are constantly looking for ways to increase prices which can lower demand.  In the near term (2022-2024) I think we'll see cruise lines getting very narrow in the data and trend analysis as they try to test the market with higher rates and minimize the traditional troughs during the annual pricing trend saga.  I also think their efforts will eventually prove fruitless and we'll see traditional pricing trends return to the industry but they are going to try to increase rates as much as they can.

Traditionally spring break is period of moderate or medium demand as evidenced by the medium price trends.  In the US summer vacation represents the traditional high or market peak.  Christmas vacation represents a secondary but briefer spike in prices approaching that of the summer peak in amplitude.  Spring break represents an upward peak relative to the months before and after but usually half the amplitude of the summer peak.  The summer is really when cruise lines make bank.  For anyone purely interested in capacity all that is meaningless.  Ships will sail full.

Despite stating they don't Royal has traditionally used many tactics to fill the ships at the last minute.  The primary method is casino comps.  A secondary method involves promos like Going, Going, Gone.  Here is where demand and capacity can deviate from each other as they fill ships at lower prices but only for targeted demographics such as casino players.   Once again, for anyone purely interested in capacity all that is meaningless.  Ships will sail full.

Prior to the shutdown ships usually sailed full (capacity 100) while the demand and pricing didn't directly correlate.  Demand from vacation guests who book years in advance is different from increased capacity created by casino comps and last minutes promos to fill the ship.  The first accounts for pre-cruise revenue while the latter represents more of a shift towards on board revenue as a source while giving away the cruise fares to earn that on board revenue (lost leader).   For anyone purely interested in capacity all that is meaningless.  Ships will sail full.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Twangster is correct. One hundred percent capacity is almost a given during this time of high demand- a cruiser's worry should also be costs/availability of desirable cabins.  We booked four 2023 overseas B2B cruises very early - price increases now add up to over $5,000.00 for the four cruises.  For folks worried about later issues effecting the cruise, health, or other issues: the savings in the above example covered the cost of insurance several times over.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ll expand a little bit on @twangster comment that ships will sail at full capacity.  I’m pretty sure that he means cabin capacity, not necessarily ship capacity.  We have the flexibility as a family to sail when we want and not stuck to family vacation times.  Because of that we do notice small variations in total capacity.  There are small variations if you use that perspective.  

A ship may be totally occupied according to cabin capacity, and that is where the sales and comps help.  But there HAD BEEN some trends prior to the shutdown.  This was mostly due to less family trips and more singles and couples, which means cabins that could sleep more than two only had two.  Running through the prior peaks and valleys that we trended based on season starting at the winter holidays -

- post holidays there was usually a few weeks with a drop in total capacity.  

- presidents week and/or maradi gras (LA) would typically start the more unpredictable winter/spring/Easter breaks with the schools.  Therefore depending on where some of those holidays fell and which schools had time off capacity typically increased but exact demand was a little harder to predict on a specific week. 

- after Easter before Memorial Day was another pretty reliable waning period.  

- summer demand usually started right at the end of May and went right up to Labor Day.

- September to Thanksgiving was the next easing of demand.  As more schools have recently added a fall break we have noticed a little variety week to week but it is still less families as opposed to summer.

- Thanksgiving is the next big increase

- post Thanksgiving there was a pretty reliable drop up to the Christmas and New Year holidays. 

That was all pre-COVID and as mentioned there are quite a few factors that are shifting demand. Remember that I am referring to total capacity, so many times every room may still be full but every room may not be full to it’s individual capacity.  

There are other factors that can also influence total capacity.  I know the OP was referring to the Oasis class but ship can make a small difference, newer or amped ships might draw more than others, but some of the smaller ships might also have less families.   Itineraries are another thing that will create fluctuations in total capacity, with round trips usually having more demand than repositioning.  (Pretty sure that the cruise lines know the demands I mentioned and that is why more TA’s and other repositioning cruises happen in May, October, and December across the different lines).  
 

Just a different perspective, and this is not going to be reliable at this time.  Things might start to fall back into these patterns sometime into the future but my crystal ball is not telling me when or if, LOL.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Prior to the shutdown I had long considered 100% capacity to mean the absolute maximum a ship was capable of carrying when they reached the SOLAS capacity or every cabin that could hold more than two guests was actually sailing with it's maximum number of guests.  Apparently I was wrong.

 During the restart the industry and the CDC has been referencing a ship's capacity as the documented double occupancy capacity which is always lower than the maximum SOLAS capacity.

In recent calls with investors Royal has stated their ships are running at an average of 100% of capacity in the Caribbean.  How do you average 100%?  You must exceed 100% at times if that is the average and indeed Royal reported to investors some ships were at 108% capacity or higher at times.   How do you achieve 108%?  By filling those cabins that have berths for more than two guests with more than two guests.  Since Royal has standardized on using double occupancy as the reference point it is possible to exceed 100% capacity.

In the past most ships sailed at above 100% capacity.  No one was laser focused on it so it wasn't widely documented except during top tier events.  None the less it only became notable when ships reached their SOLAS capacity and had to deal with turning away someone.  That's wasn't something that occurred too often but there were rare cases of it.  

All this to say this new focus on capacity is something that isn't precise with long standing historical references or documented trends.  When using double occupancy as the standard or reference most of the time in the past Royal ships sailed exceeding 100% prior to the shutdown even though they weren't generally labelled as being full.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As for capacity….I think 100% can be interpreted in several ways.
1. The maximum number of passengers as per SOLAS is the highest allowable. 
2. Having the full double-occupancy number of passengers onboard can also be considered 100%. 
3. Lastly, having every sellable cabin occupied can also be considered 100%…even if many of those cabins are occupied by solos, thus decreasing the number of passengers. Plus (pre Covid-quarantine cabins) I do believe that they keep several cabins in different categories open. This is in the event something happens, such as a plumbing or electrical issue, and passengers must relocate. I have seen this happen several times. I heard of one instance where an officer was relocated to give up his passenger cabin.

I also define capacity not only as a number, but a perception.
Sometimes I have sailed during periods where, even though capacity was above 100%, it didn’t seem crowded because most passengers were, well…shall I say, not as spry as they once were. Myself included. Other times, particularly during Spring Break…capacity may have been at or less than 100%, but the ship felt overcrowded. Exuberant, excited and happy partygoers enjoying themselves and releasing some pent-up academic stress can make for some lively scenes throughout the day and into the late night. 
Either way…I’m happy. I’m on a cruise! 😎

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the secret from Royal's perspective is to have multiple activities simultaneously to spread guests out among the various venues.  As guests, we feel the ship is crowded if the activity we choose has "too many" people. 

I can recall being on the Grandeur, which has limited capacity as a Vision Class ship, but at midnight there was a special chocolate tasting event.  Everyone stood in line for that - it wrapped down the hallways by the Centrum around the ship.  I took one look and decided to give it a pass.  What else was there to do at midnight, other than perhaps go to the night club. Hence the overcrowding for that event.

I hope Royal continues to hire the staff to conduct multiple types of activities throughout the day and night to disperse the increasing number of guests who are sailing, regardless of the time of year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Capacity is a fickle number.

When they amped Indy they added 105 cabins and increased the guest count by 204.  Indy went from 3,654 to 3,858 guest capacity.

Once it was known that new cabins were being added the stories of overcrowding began even before she left the shipyard.  Human nature - If you look for something you will likely find it and guests who boarded the ship looking to find evidence of overcrowding did indeed find evidence when any of their activities had any sort of queue.  They posted pictures of a line at the flowrider - "Look how crowded it is!" like flowriders never had a queue before.  Somehow 200 more people on a ship of nearly 4,000 destroyed the ship and it was "over capacity".   

This was declared without knowing how many were actually sailing on the ship.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...