A
super value (buy) for an international vacation is now available in
the marketplace. Cruise deals are available for as little as $50 a
day per person for comfortable well-maintained accommodations with
maid service, 3 meals daily, plus shipboard activities and nightly
entertainment.
Cruise trips are a super bargain and the ship lines can provide
outstanding value because of the efficiency with which they deliver
their service. For example, the typical cruise ship has teams of
room stewards, chefs and waiters working 7 days a week to clean
1,000 cabins per day and prepare and serve three or four meals a day
to 2,000 passengers.
When the ship sails from the port of departure, they know exactly
how many meals will be served for the entire cruise and the ship has
been provisioned accordingly. Every cabin, table and employee is
fully utilized, every day. That�s much more efficient and less
wasteful than the system land-based hotels and restaurants that must
employ to serve a much smaller group of customers who vary in number
daily.
As ships have gotten larger and cruise lines have grown into
billion-dollar enterprises, feeding and transporting more than 15
million passengers every year, the cruise lines� huge buying power
has reduced their costs for everything consumed on the ship. Plus,
larger ships and show lounges spread the cost of entertainers, the
captain, officers and cruise director over more people.
And unlike airlines and hotels that accept empty seats and rooms
during slow periods, cruise lines will do whatever it takes to sail
full.
All lines, except the four 6-star cruise lines, will slash prices as
low as they need to in order to fill every cabin. Even the 6-star
lines are now offering discounts that were once unheard of.
They do this for two reasons. First, on most lines, a significant
percentage of the crews� compensation comes from gratuities � and
there are no gratuities from empty cabins. Second, venues such as
casinos, spas, boutiques, photography studios, and excursion desks
are completely dependent on onboard purchases, which of course are
directly related to the number of people onboard.
All of this has resulted in the best bargains ever for people
cruising today.