Tag Archives: shore excursions

Carnival introduces price guarantee for shore excursions

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By Tom Stieghorst

Carnival horseback ridingCarnival Cruise Lines is offering a best-price guarantee on its shore excursions.

Carnival said the guarantee is unprecedented and is available now fleet-wide.

Guests who find the same tour offered by another operator at a lower price than their booked excursion (before or during their cruise) can complete a claim form to receive 110% of the difference in the form of a shipboard credit.

Claims are typically processed within 24 to 48 hours, Carnival said.

Mico Cascais, Carnival’s vice president of tour operations, said the guarantee was developed based on research findings that passengers, particularly first-time cruisers, are concerned about whether they are getting the best deal.

Companies that represent excursion operators independent of the cruise lines say they can offer better prices because they work on lower markups. In many cases, passengers can buy excursions directly from excursion operators.

Carnival said that by booking through the cruise line, passengers get tickets delivered to their staterooms and “an assurance that they will receive a refund or the excursion time will be adjusted as needed based on weather or other issues affecting a ship’s scheduled port of call visit.”

To file a claim, Carnival said passengers should provide the name of the competitor offering the comparable tour, the excursion name, where the tour was advertised, the duration, price and any included items such as lunch, drinks, transportation and admission fees.

Royal Caribbean’s increase in on-board revenue attributed to cruise ship revitalizations

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Royal Caribbean’s increase in on-board revenue attributed to cruise ship revitalizations

Royal Caribbean reported third quarter financial results today and the big “star” of the results was the onboard spending, with a 7% increase overall.  So what is Royal Caribbean’s secret?  They think it’s all about the revitalization program.

During the financial results conference call, Royal Caribbean Chief Financial Officer Jason Liberty pointed to a few key factors that are part of the fleet-wide renovations to why the company is seeing better guest spending onboard their ships.

  • Specialty Restaurants
  • Casino
  • Internet
  • Unlimited alcohol packages
  • Shore excursions

“We benefited from new onboard venues introduced as a result of our revitalizations, and we saw further strength in spending from our U.S. customers, which helped generate improvement in gaming, beverage, specialty dining and shore excursions,” Liberty said during the conference call.Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein elaborated on how the company is looking to get more onboard spending, “So as I believe we mentioned earlier, gaming, beverage, shore excursions, retail and also some of the smaller revenue streams, internet has been doing well for us, which we wanted to see because we made a significant investment in, I think, 7 or 8x more bandwidth to the ships this year, and that seems to be paying off.

So a number of the investments that we have already made, we would expect to continue to pay dividends and revenue growth into 2014 and beyond. And we continue to look under every stone for onboard revenue opportunities that don’t conflict with the satisfaction of the product offering.”Basically, guests are spending more money in all these aspects and most of these venues are areas of the cruise ships that get upgraded or added as part of the revitalization program.  When each ship is refurbished, more restaurants are added and wifi is spread out to more areas across the ship. Add to that the new drink packages and Royal Caribbean is offering its guests more opportunities to spend money.

Costa to market boutique cruising under new brand

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Costa to market boutique cruising under new brand

By Tom Stieghorst
Costa Cruises said two of its older, smaller ships will offer a new style of cruising and be marketed under the NeoCollection brand.

The ships, the NeoRomantica and NeoRiviera, will do longer, more leisurely itineraries with plenty of time in port in what Costa has labeled “slow cruising.” There will be an emphasis on locally sourced food and custom shore excursions.

Many of the itineraries are exclusive to the NeoCollection ships, which can go to smaller ports less accessible to Costa’s bigger vessels.

For example, The “Mediterranean Heart” itinerary departs Savona and calls at Toulon, France; Salerno and Livorno, Italy; Valletta, Malta; Porto Empedocle, Sicily, and concludes with an overnight call at Barcelona.

At 1,248 passengers (NeoRiviera) and 1,578 passengers (NeoRomantica), the two NeoCollection ships are among the smallest in Costa’s fleet.

Shore excursions for groups of 25 or fewer guests have been designed to highlight cultural and natural attractions in each destination.

New menus developed in collaboration with Università delle Scienze Gastronomiche in Pollenza, Italy, feature authentic cuisine that incorporates local food and wines.