Its no secret that cruise lines do not really have the interests of single passengers at heart when they build or sell cruise ship cabins - fair enough - single passengers I'm estimating do not make up a massive amount of their capacity but there is an ever growing market of passengers wanting single cabins.
Why Is There A Single Supplement?
Its purely a money thing!!! the cruise lines do not like to sell a cabin that can hold 2 paying passengers to 1 passenger without that passenger paying a hefty supplement - who will then only buy 1 drink at the bar and pay one set of gratuities. But in fairness to the cruise lines - they are running a business and most hotels charge a supplement on a double room when there is one guest so why should a cabin on a cruise line be any different?
Even when the cruise line has "single cabins" they are still priced in a way where there is still a supplement like my beloved Fred Olsen - yes they have single cabins but the single guest is still penalised for being on their own - but leaping to the defence of Fred Olsen they do organise single get togethers on board and make a very good effort for their single following.
The P&O new ship Azura does have a few single cabins which I believe a reasonably priced - but they sell out so fast! based on the success of these single cabins why don't they roll this out across the whole fleet - the good publicity they would get would be great.
Royal Caribbean have a strange single policy, many of their sailings they charge double single supplement but when they have a guaranteed offer (where the guest does not get to pick a cabin number or grade for a reduced fare) they will not allow single passengers to book into these cabins??? why?
Will This Change In The Future?
I doubt it, I have not seen a cruise lines policy on single passengers change to benefit the single guest - but what is happening is that more cruise lines are getting single cabins and I have seen more sailings with no single supplement - and for all of you single guests I have sourced one for you!!!!!!
MSC Magnifica - 14th January & 23rd January 2012 - 9 nights Eastern Mediterranean.
Venice - Bari - Rhodes - Haifa (Israel) overnight - Athens - Venice
Inside £699
Outside £699
Balcony £699
No its not a mistake! you do get an upgrade to a balcony from an inside and yes it includes flights from London & Transfers
About Me
- Tony
- My journey into travel and cruising was purely by accident! This was 10 years ago when I turned up at the doorstep of Cruise.co.uk eager and ready to work - I was told that I would be loading booking forms and undertaking general administration duties - within 18 months I had travelled to Florida, Hawaii and the Mediterranean and seen that cruising was the most exciting part of travel there was. My very first cruise experience was on a 2* all inclusive cruise ship called the Thomson Topaz that some may still remember - this really opened my eyes to cruising - luckily my second cruise was the Norwegian Star to Hawaii so I kind of went from one extreme to the other! In 10 years the cruise industry has exploded and I'm looking forward to what the next 10 years in cruising brings.
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Do they at least do last minute deals for single passengers or would they rather sail with empty cabins?
ReplyDeleteI would go every year if it was fair pricing but currently go every four or five years because I have to wait for someone else to become interested or save up!
Yes, very raw deal and unless single travellers who are mainly women start screaming at governments - in particular the EUCHR - at this rank and revolting discrimination - it wont change. I have participated in several forums and letter writing campaigns in US/Can and from that have now had several cruises at less than 50% single supp - but it wears off and the cruise lines have a good winter and their prices creep back up - dont sit around complaining, write/email/blog - its discrimination pure and simple
ReplyDeleteTake silversea cruises 2012 now and you'll avail their awesome holiday deals. They have a very safe facility and nice accommodations.
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