Oasis of the Seas - Price Discount for Future Dates

[opensource]

It was bound to be. When you spend over $1 billion to build a ship that needs to attract 6,000 passengers each week, you then need to pull out all stops in attempting to fill that ship on a continuing basis. When Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas first debuted, its officials haughtily proclaimed that its cabins would command premium rates, meaning well in excess of a thousand dollars per person per week in inside cabins.

They apparently aren't so sure any more that the public will pay such extra-high prices. This week, the big cruise discounter, Online Vacation Center, has announced it is charging as little as a heavily-discounted $729 per person for minimum-rate cabins on Oasis of the Seas for the departures of December 11 and 23, 2010, and also for at least two or three dates per month in each of January, February, March, April, and May, and then every week in June, July, August and September of 2011. The discounting has begun!

Now, part of the reason may be that Oasis of the Seas will be joined by Allure of the Seas in December of this year, resulting in the horrific need to fill 12,000 seats per week on these maritime-amusement-parks masquerading as cruiseships. Is it possible that the bloom is off the rose? Could it be that the public isn't that anxious to sail on ships that -- for want of ports big enough to receive them -- have to spend an inordinate amount of time simply at sea or at private beaches or fake villages?

Why must Royal Caribbean Cruises, owner of these mammoth vessels, need to lower the price to as little as $729? Why does it anticipate a problem in selling future dates for the $1,000-plus prices currently being charged

Source: The 6,000-Passenger "Oasis of the Seas" is Beginning to Discount the Price of Its Cabins for Future Dates

[Aramide olawale]

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