Booking a cruise can be frustrating as the cruise lines use pricing that's a lot more variable than what land-based destinations use. Yes, Walt Disney uses variable pricing, as does every hotel chain, but prices on land tend to be more season-based.
Sure, a spring break or other vacation week will be higher, but non-vacation weeks during the same time of year tend to be priced pretty much the same. When you book a cruise, however, the pricing can be maddening. Two ships leaving from the same port, sailing similar itineraries owned by the same cruise line might have wildly different prices.
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There's some method to that madness, however, and if you read between the lines of Royal Caribbean (RCL) -) CEO Michael Bayley's comments during his company's second-quarter earnings call you can pick up some clear money-saving tips. Bayley, of course, is not in the business of saving passengers money but his remarks do show a path to booking cheaper cruises.
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These are the most expensive Royal Caribbean cruises
Bayley shared good news (for the cruise line) about its 2024 booking trends during the call.
"And what we've seen so far from our bookings, both volume and rate are incredibly encouraging. And we've been very thoughtful. As Jason (Liberty) mentioned earlier about the strategy of putting really outstanding hardware combined with excellent destination into the short product market because it truly is the on-ramp for new to cruise and also first to brand. So or indications as it relates to new product lineup coming online in '24 and exceptionally positive," he added.
The cruise line's CEO was talking about Royal Caribbean sailing its two newest ships -- Icon of the Seas and Utopia of the Seas -- out of Miami and Port Canaveral (Orlando) respectively. Utopia, an Oasis-class ship will be the first new ship to dail 3-4 day cruises.
"And I'd also like to add that Icon and Utopia and, in fact, wonder when you look at this gap between land-based resorts and land-based experiences versus some of our top products, particularly these products we're talking about, there really is no gap," he added.
It's that comment that tells people booking a cruise everything they need to know in order to save money.
How do you save money on a Royal Caribbean cruise?
Bayley noted that the price gap between cruises and land-based vacations disappears when people book the cruise line's latest ships. That means it still exists for older ships.
Utopia of the Seas will not be the only Royal Caribbean ship sailing 3-4 day itineraries from South Florida ports nor will Icon of the Seas be the only one sailing 7-day trips. For the shorter trips, the cruise line will also have a Freedom or Voyager-class ship sailing the exact same 3-4 day trip from Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
Those ships are smaller than Utopia of the Seas, but they're still very large and packed with more than enough to do on a short trip that includes a day at Royal Caribbean's private Island Perfect Day at Coco Cay. The same logic applies when it comes to booking longer trips on ships that are not Icon of the Seas.
Royal Caribbean will often have an Oasis-class ship sailing 6-8 day sailings out of one of the three South Florida ports. Yes, Icon is the first of a new class and will have things that are new to the cruise line, but those additions may not be worth prices that might be double or triple booking an older Oasis-class trip ship.
I've sailed on nearly all of the Oasis Class ships (all of them except for Oasis, which I will correct in September). Wonder of the Seas might be 5% better than Harmony of the Seas (my least favorite because the adult Solarium does not have a pool) and it's nearly identical to Symphony of the Seas, which often costs much less to book.
Even sailing a smaller, but still big, Quantum-class ship for a weeklong itinerary offers very little change in your actual experience often at a much lower cost. If you trade down in ships, first by age, then by size, prices for common itineraries come down. Yes, you won't get the absolute latest updates, but what you give up won't be noticeable and what you save could be very significant.
