Someone earlier in this thread mentioned the importance of keeping pricing in perspective...and I agree.
Solely from my perspective, we (the passengers) have benefited greatly from the "glut" of new ships and pressures within the respective cruise lines to fill empty berths. This was not always the case.
Case(s) in point....when my wife and I got married way back in 1979, we spent our honeymoon on NCL's Sunward II...at 14,000 ton ship. We had an outside stateroom on Biscayne Deck and sailed in early August of that year on a 4 day "Bahamarama" cruise. 32 years ago, we paid $600/person for that cruise. A year later, we sailed on NCL's Skyward on a 7 day cruise for our first anniversary and paid $899/person (cruise only).
Again, in 1982, we sailed on the lowly Veracruz 1 (a 10,000 ton ship) from Tampa and paid (what I thought was a bargain at the time) $545/person for that cruise.
Bear in mind that all of these cruises were in the Fall and during Hurricane Season when cruises are usually significantly discounted.
Bottom line, in my mind, cruising illustrates one of those rare situations in life where the product actually has gotten much, much better over the years, but the relative costs (even with inflation NOT factored in) have actually been reduced or remained remarkably stable.
Garnett
|
Linear Mode
