Archive for November, 2007

Pricing: A Moving Target

Patricia November 21st, 2007

Picture it, a giant cruise ship pulls up to the gas station in the ocean and the captain leans out and says, “Filler up.” Does anyone want to guess how much THAT fuel bill is?

So, if you’ve heard the news, almost every cruise line is appling a fuel surcharge on all bookings. And you guessed it, our little Sea Socks is affected. The actual surcharge is $5 per person per day or $35 per person for the cruise. I’m trying to go through all of the confirmations to get everyone an update. I will send you a package with the invoice for final payment in January and there will be the full letter explaining the charge from Celebrity in that.

However, within a week of announcing the surcharge, both the outside and inside cabin rates went down. So, since this will get to most of you before I can do the indivdual confirmations, I wanted to outline the current prices for the categories available. Do not hesitate to call or e-mail with questions on any of this.

Category Rate per person Rate per person

Double Occupancy Single Occupancy

Conceirge Class $1455 $2485

Balcony Cabin $1415 $2405

Oceanview Cabin $1105 $1785

Inside Cabin $995 $1565

Important notes from the letter from Celebrity include:

“Those guests who do not cancel their reservation and pay in full will receive one logo item per stateroom, onboard their cruise. Finally, the supplement will apply only to the first and second guests in each stateroom”

and

“The supplement will be periodically reviewed, with the intent of being temporary, and may be adjusted as fuel prices fluctuate.”

Now, I would hope that this means that the surcharge could go down or even away — but I need to inform you about this now. I’m continuing to watch to see if the prices don’t go down more to offset this too. At this point, anything can happen.

I have a cough…

Patricia November 10th, 2007

and perhaps I sound like a man if I answer the phone. So, I’m leaving (again). Ok, so my cough isn’t the REAL reason, but I was invited and far be it from me to turn down an invite. (what am I talking about again? It is the cold meds, seriously.)

I wanted to let you all know that I’ll be out of the office next week — so I’m leaving you in the capable hands of Jackie, answering my phones. Jackie is sweet and awesome and um, sounds like the girl she is when she answers the phone. So, if you need something call her — she’s really nice (though, not a knitter — want to convert her?) As always I’ll still be fielding my e-mails.

In other news, I got a preliminary price on the Seattle yarn crawl — $40 per person. This is a pick-up at the hotel at 10am, crawl for yarn through Seattle, including sidetrip to Bainbridge Island and drop at the pier at 3:30 for boarding. All our luggage will be with the bus. Thoughts? Anyone willing to do it at $40?

In still MORE news, Oceanview cabins have gone DOWN in price — all price adjustments have been made — but the confirmations have NOT gone out yet. I’m sorry, but with the coughing and the packing and the dreading the airplane with my ears thing…I’m shooting for over the weekend, but if not, it will be when I get back — just rest assured you were lowered in price. Oh, you probably want to know how much you are saving, right? Well, current price for the oceanview cabins is $1070 (down from $1130).

Finally, we have a cruiser who would like to arrange a kayak trip at one of the port calls. I have no details, but did offer to put it out there. If interested, leave a comment and I’ll pass your e-mail on to our cruiser — I forgot to ask permission to put her e-mail here — I’ll ask and update soon.

The Nyquil is setting in. I hope to return talking like a girl again — but no promises.

108

Patricia November 7th, 2007

Dudes — seriously, 108!!!!

 As of the today (11pm PST), we have more KNITTERS than we had total cruisers in Sea Socks ‘07.  Wow.

Thank you all.  Check out page 91 of Interweave Knits Winter.

(someone pass me a paper bag, k?)