Southern Caribbean Cruises

[mworkman]

Why are there so few cruises over 10 nights that leave from Florida? I see 3-10 Nights cruises and 5-11 night cruises. The time frame that i searched was from 1 Jan 2018 - 30 Apr 2019.  There are 5-12 night cruised from Baltimore and 3-12 nights from jersey.

[JLMoran]

I noticed this, too. Yet sister line Celebrity has many 14-night itineraries to southern and western caribbean. Even from the northeast, there are no itineraries that run 14 nights, even to the "southern caribbean" or "northeast and Canada". The cap there appears to be 12 nights. But here, too, I see 14-night itineraries from Celebrity that cover the same regions.

 

Maybe there's an agreement between the two lines that RC keeps to under 14 nights so that Celebrity can hold those itineraries without major competition from the mass-market sister? Or maybe the Royal Caribbean ships that run these itineraries are too large now to fit in all the ports that Celebrity visits, so they're naturally limited?

[mworkman]

I would like to sail with RC, i particularly don't care for their other sister line..we've sailed one time and decided that RC would be our cruise line of choice out of the two.

[arebee]

Yup, I wish they had longer ones also.

[Matt]

I suspect it has to do with how RC sells cruises. Specifically, Americans are leery of vacations longer than 7 days (as opposed to Europeans who take vacations of at least 2 weeks at a time), so cruises longer than 7 nights are a bit elusive from USA.

[JLMoran]

I suspect it has to do with how RC sells cruises. Specifically, Americans are leery of vacations longer than 7 days (as opposed to Europeans who take vacations of at least 2 weeks at a time), so cruises longer than 7 nights are a bit elusive from USA.

 

Maybe true for RC, as they're the "mass market" line, but as I'd noted earlier you can find a pretty good number of 14-night or longer itineraries on sister line Celebrity that depart from US ports for Canada & Northeast, Southern Caribbean, Western Caribbean, etc. And they're not disguised back-to-backs, the routes clearly show return to the port of origin only on the last day.

 

[edited to note departure specifically from US ports]

[cjappert]

this is the exact reason we are thinking of switching our 12 night from NJ to a 14 night from FL with Celebrity. We loved our last sailing with celebrity, but both agreed that RC had better options for our kids...

[Matt]

Maybe true for RC, as they're the "mass market" line, but as I'd noted earlier you can find a pretty good number of 14-night or longer itineraries on sister line Celebrity that depart from US ports for Canada & Northeast, Southern Caribbean, Western Caribbean, etc. And they're not disguised back-to-backs, the routes clearly show return to the port of origin only on the last day.

 

[edited to note departure specifically from US ports]

That's a fair point.  I can only speak to how RC markets itself

[mworkman]

RCCL has released the Seasonal Caribbean cruises 

[DocLC]

I'm sure that a lot of market research is done before these schedules are released. My best guess is that the demographic drawn to Royal is much different than Princess and Holland America, which is where you often see these "combined" itineraries. These lines also skew older and from personal experience less families. When I last died Holland American, my son was only one of 32 kids (1-17 years) onboard.

 

If there was an overwhelming demand, it would be offered.