Will Cruise lines start optional pricing!

[784caroline]

Many cruise lines already have an additional cost to go to their speciality dinig areas and from what I can see from various reviews, people do not mind paying the $15-30 per person extra for you do get something different in terms of better food and service. But recently NCL announced for one of their new ships comming out in 2010, they will have an exclusive 'Ice bar" where patrons will pay a cover charge to enter the area. This bar/nightclub reportly only accomodates up to 25 patrons, but is this the forerunner to crusing as we used to know it?? Some say the pricing model of "all-inclusive" is broken and you may see extra fees to be seated in a different resturant that provides supposidly better quality food and service or even to attend a show in the evening for what is now included in the price of your cruise passage. Are luggage handling charges far away??

For the cruisers out there, I'm sure no one is pleased with increased costs but it may be the future. How would such charges effect your vacation habits specifically cruising??

[dadspet]

To be honest we don't dine in the optional restaurants when we cruise. The price seems high and the one time we tried it we weren't overly impressed to spend the extra money. We really don't cruise for the food. The service in the standard restaurants we find is superior to all restaurants in the states and food in the is good enough for us in most cases. We cruise with RCL, NCL, Princess, Orient Lines and have the same opinion on them all. An extra fee bar would be in the same category for us. We don't drink much and when we do it generally when the band is playing dance music. The standard bars really seem very very nice to us and I doubt if we would spend any extra money to frequent one that charged an entry fee.

BTW we also don't mind a inside cabin since everthing else in the ship is the same for any passengers, if that concept changed I guess we would have 2nd thoughts about our cabin .

What we did hear on our last cruise to the Baltic and Russia with RCL is the cost of fuel for that 12 night cruise increased from $1 Million last year (when many of the cabins were booked) to $2 Million...... WOW. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the the cruise line needs to make up that money some how and they are looking at ways that may indeed change the current idea of cruising. A few examples we heard from a good source were:

1.Shorter stays in ports so the ship could go slower and save money on fuel.
2.Some kind of overnight stays in ports not requiring nearly as much fuel, and of course not as many ports.

Cruising we believe still remains a great bargain and great bang for you $. And if you go to Europe its even better since the $ is a joke there compared to the Euro and you can save a lot by cruising by not requiring a hotel or as much for food.

[swrinfla]

I'd worry that NCL may be trying to set some new trend. If the cruise lines are at all like the airlines (and, so far, I think they are definitely NOT), then the rest will follow along like sheep :(

I've paid extra once to eat in the up-scale dining venue. Mostly at the urging of my table mates in the normal dining room. Indeed, the whole table ate together "upstairs," and enjoyed it. But, I'm not inclined to do so on a regular basis.

If we start being nickeled and dimed to death, which is what the airlines are now doing, then I will seriously reconsider how I cruise and with whom! I'll go along with fuel surcharges (now as high as $11 per person per day, I hear) at least for a while. I'll expect 2009 and beyond cruises to just be somewhat more expensive, without an annoying additional fee. And, of course, if fuel costs should happen to go down (unlikely), I'll expect the lines to drop their surcharge.

SWR

[Hyacinth Bucket]

From my own experience they started this some time ago.

Two examples of this would be, HAL - coffee bar used to be free - now they charge, RCCL soda with dinner used to be free now they charge.

I have booked group cruises in the past and there were not charges for additional items for the group. For the group that I am doing that is leaving this Sunday, I planned a birthday party. The cost for the cake including set up fee and serving would have cost me over $130 for about 30 people. We will celebrate the birthday but in a different venue.

Fortunately I work with excellent reps from the various cruise line and they will assist me in finding alternative ways of doing things.

One area I hope they never charge for or cut back is room service. I enjoy getting my coffee brought to me in the morning and having tea before I go to sleep.

HB

[784caroline]

HB
Maybe the key is as along as Room Service does not require fuel or oil it will remain as a free service!!

[Hyacinth Bucket]

784, excellent point! I will never, and I mean never, request fuel or oil when I have room service.

As of today, I have never requested either item so this will not cause a hardship for me. ;)

HB