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Editor: Daniel A. Hoffman, MCC  

This newsletter contains current news and information on the "Cruise" industry. It will also contain the "Views" of the editor on different issues within the industry. The editor owns and operates a cruise oriented travel agency located in South Central Pennsylvania. This newsletter will serve several purposes, including but not limited to, keeping you up to date on current events in the industry, offering views and opinions of the newsletter staff as well as views submitted by readers, providing information about cruise offerings and specials as well as cruise related products.

Anyone Seen This Man Lately?

In This Issue

#1 Independent Shore Excursions

#2 Capacity Growth Slows
Fares Increasing

#3 More New York City News

PLUS
-Capt. Lou-Where are you???-
-Cruise Specials-
- Q & A-

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Is this the best way to do it? That depends! If you followed the great articles written by Capt. Lou about our South America cruise, you know our preference is to “go it alone”. This is by far the cheapest method, especially if you have three or four people in your group. It also gives you complete freedom to go where you want and see exactly what you want. However, it does take some advance research to know what is available in the different cities. Remembering that many of the ports of call you will visit is a far cry from a New York City, Miami, San Diego, or any other major city you are used to. Also, quite often, a language barrier may be present if you are not fluent in the local language. So this method, though loved by us, is not for everyone.

So what else is available? As almost everyone knows, the cruise lines themselves offer a wide range of shore excursions covering many different preferences at every port of call. The pros of using these shore excursions are that they are arranged by the cruise line. If there are problems encountered, the cruise line will get things corrected. If a tour runs late, the ship will wait until all of their shore excursions are back. The cons of using a cruise line’s shore excursions are basically two. One is that they are very regimented and leave little time for any personal interests seen along the way. Number two, and the bigger con, is the price. Cruise line’s excursions tend to be rather pricey, some are outright expensive! Once again, if you read the articles by Capt. Lou on South America, several of the ships excursions were compared to what we put together on our own and then prices were compared. There were huge differences at times.

So between these two options, both have pros and cons, and come down to a personal preference many times.

Is there any other options? Now there is! Anytime there seems to be a demand for something, it doesn’t take long for a person or a company to come forward to fill that void. This is the case here. There are several independent companies who offer shore excursions for cruise ship passengers. Of these companies, two are considered reliable major players and have earned the respect and trust of the travel agent community. These companies are Shore Trips and Port Promotions.

It took several years for these companies to be able to prove to the travel community that they were reliable, dependable, and had the ability to handle last minute issues with cruise port of call problems such as delays, canceled ports, etc. Both of these companies have done that.

These companies are constantly expanding their available options as well as the ports in which they provide excursions. Shore Trips currently offers over 1,400 different excursions options. They offer many excursions that are very similar to what the cruise lines offer themselves, but they also offer many varied and different excursions that the cruise lines simply can not offer due to the number of passengers and the logistics of handling all of them.

Another item of concern is the actual provider of the shore excursions. In the case of Shore Trips, company staff personally travel to every location where they are considering offering excursions. In these locations they personally explore all options, make direct contact with excursion providers, establish policies and procedures, and arrange all other needed details. The company then deals directly with these excursion providers and does not use any third party intermediaries. This results in a lot of additional work for Shore Trips, but also assures all involved that the service provided will be consistent and reliable and any and all issues will be resolved promptly. Shore Trips deals with over 550 excursion operators in 30 Caribbean destinations and more than 950 operators globally.

All excursions with these companies are booked in advance of the cruise. You save a considerable amount of money compared to the prices charged by the cruise lines themselves. You can take your time and select the excursions in advance. By doing this, you do not use up 1/2 of your first day on the ship trying to pick excursions and get them turned in quickly to get your 1st choice..

Many cruise lines now offer the ability to review their excursions in advance and some even allow you to place your reservation in advance. In case you are wondering, yes this was partially in response to the independent companies offering the same!

So, next time you book a cruise, be sure to ask your travel agent (hopefully Dynamic Dream Cruises!) about these independent shore excursions. You can get a nice variety and save a chunk of money!

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#2 CAPACITY GROWTH SLOWS
FARES INCREASING

There are 12 new ships scheduled to enter service this year. This increase is down from some of the past years and is also the last year with a large increase planned for at least the next four years.

Future schedule capacity increases will run at approximately 5% annually, which is well below the average 7% to 8% annual capacity increases the industry has been experiencing for the past decade. While at the same time, cruise demand has been steadily increasing the past 10 years, and has continued to do so even with the 9/11 events.

Both Carnival Corporation and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. have reported a slow gradual rise in pricing. This has also been noticed by us in our own cruise bookings for our clients. The trend has been more dramatic on the shorter cruises, especially the 3, 4 and 5 day cruises. 7 day cruise pricing has remained fairly stable over the past six months. Longer cruises, especially in the Caribbean, 8 plus days, is actually down slightly over the past 6 months. Panama Canal cruises as well as Alaska cruises are heading higher in their pricing as demands continues to grow for those cruises.

Another change that is taking place, as the average traveler is regaining confidence and is planning ahead, the “booking curve” is increasing. This refers to the lead time that passengers book cruises. Since 9/11, many people have delayed plans and then when they do decide to take a cruise, they book at the last minute. This makes pricing and planning very hard for the cruise industry and is the reason there has been so many last minute price reductions to fill the ships. Cruise lines do not like to do this but were forced into it as a result of delayed bookings.

Now that passengers are starting to plan ahead, they are booking their cruises further out in the future. This allows the cruise line to better handle their inventory and therefore is resulting in much fewer “fire sales” of last minute cabins. Many passengers are being surprised when they try to book cruises with little lead time. They are finding that the ship is already sold out or that the pricing for the remaining cabins is not nearly as low as it had been in the past 2 years or so.

What does this mean for you? If you are looking at a specific date or a specific cruise, book it as soon as you can. You get a better selection of cabins by booking early and passengers tend to enjoy their cruises more if they have been looking forward in anticipation. If you are extremely flexible on dates, and even maybe ships, then you may still be able to get a great last minute deal on a cruise.

In either case, cruises continue to be a great vacation value, so pick your date, ship, destination, or whatever is important to you, and BOOK IT NOW and ENJOY IT THEN!

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#3 MORE
NEW YORK CITY
NEWS

The Republican National Committee had planned to charter the Norwegian Dawn, anchored in the New York City Port, as their base for next summer’s Republican National Convention. This had been in the planning stages for months. A little over one month ago the plan was killed.

The person responsible for this action, none other than Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg! After a November poll which showed only 23% of New York’s voters said they would vote for Bloomberg for re-election. It seems Michael is trying to get anybody on his side.

The New York Hotel Trades Council, the Building and Construction Trades Council of New York City, and the Hotel Association of New York City all put pressure on the Mayor to oppose this charter. Obviously if the National Convention was held on board the Norwegian Dawn, there would be a major loss of hotel room bookings for the convention. Mayor Bloomberg decided that appeasing these councils, and obviously hoping in turn to get their recommendations come re-election time, that he would turn on his own political party and “sink” the convention plans to use the Norwegian Dawn.

For a city that has major port problems and some very upset cruise lines, this could have been a fantastic opportunity to showcase plans and projections for the city’s ports to the cruise industry. But as I, and a lot of other people have come to expect from this city lately, they blew it! AGAIN!!

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