Deals Abound in Pre- and Post-Millennium Cruises

Looking for another reason to stay home this New Year’s Eve? Start with this one: While most cruise lines are adding big extra charges for trips that include Jan. 1, 2000, several are finding weak demand for travel just before and just after the big click-over.

That means Christmas and early January may be especially good bargains in the winter of 1999-2000.

At Carnival Cruises, for instance, a spokeswoman said prices for the Dec. 19-26 cruise of the Elation begin at $738 per person (assuming double occupancy and including port fees). For the Dec. 26-Jan. 2 cruise, the comparable figure is $1,938. For the Jan. 2-9 cruise, the figure plummets to $728. (All three cruises follow the same itinerary, sailing round trip from Los Angeles and calling at Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.)

“Over the past few years, we have seen greater demand for New Year’s sailings than Christmas sailings,” said Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz. This year, she said, the difference is even wider, and the line’s Christmas-week fares are priced lower than in the past.

Similarly, at Seattle-based Holland America Line-Westours Inc., marketers have lopped 50% to 61% off normal prices for all six of the line’s cruises that include Christmas but exclude New Year’s Eve.

“It’s different than in years past,” said Holland America spokesman Erik Elvejord. “The [Christmas bookings] are all looking soft, and we need to fill them. I don’t think there’s any doubt that it can be attributed to the focus on the millennium.”

One of the deepest Holland America discounts is found on the Nieuw Amsterdam’s round-trip cruise from Tampa, Fla., on Dec. 19, featuring port calls at Cozumel, Mexico; Grand Cayman; and Montego Bay, Jamaica. The line has cut fares in half, then dropped the price an additional $250, leaving the cheapest fares at $899 per person, double occupancy, for a seven-day cruise. (Holland America is a more luxurious, pricier line than Carnival, though the two lines share the same parent company.)

Even Crystal Cruises, a Los Angeles-based operator of luxury cruises, has put specials in place to speed up slow Christmas-week sales on its ship Crystal Harmony. The Crystal Harmony sails 13 days from Barbados to Buenos Aires beginning Dec. 14, with fares starting at $5,075 per person (assuming double occupancy, port fees included)--25% less than the cruise’s brochure fare for the cruise. Adam Leavitt, the line’s vice president for marketing, reports that these are the deepest discounts the line has ever offered on a Christmas cruise.

Miriam Rand, a 50-year industry veteran who co-owns Rand-Fields Travel Service in Beverly Hills, reports that her office has already sold “quite a few” Christmas cruises to families “who don’t want to get caught up in the expense of the millennium. . . . The lines are very smart now,” Rand said. “If they see something’s not going, they find a way to make it go.”

The other opportunity this winter will be the days after Jan. 1. Throughout the cruise trade, Rand said, business just after New Year’s Eve “usually is slow, regardless whether it’s the millennium.” That’s especially true, she said, of itineraries lasting fewer than 10 days--which make up most of the marketplace.

Cruise-business insiders say the pre- and post-New Year discounts are also fueled by the dramatic increase in the number of ships competing for passengers. Drawing on income from the last several highly profitable years, the biggest companies in the cruise industry are furiously building new ships. In the Caribbean alone, six new vessels are expected to be launched this winter that were on blocks in shipyards a year before, said Shelly Weiner, co-owner of the Cruise Stars agency in Woodland Hills.

Christmas and New Year’s Eve bookings are always complicated. Because the cruise lines resist discounting and stick with their highest prices on those dates, bookings usually come in more slowly. And because so many family variables are attached to those holidays, the bookings that do come in are more likely to be canceled or rescheduled. If you’re a cruise line with a cabin to peddle over the holidays, Weiner said, you’ll probably get top dollar, but “you sell that cabin six times or eight times or 10 times before you get someone who actually goes.”

Industry veterans say it’s not unheard of for cruise lines to offer discounts to boost slow-moving Christmas cruises, but in years past most of those discounts haven’t turned up until September or October, if at all. Once this fall rolls around, there’s a good chance that current discounts will deepen further. Said Weiner: “The cruise lines are really gonna be nervous.”

Another factor in uncertainty about the coming winter, travel agents say, has been the war in Kosovo. As the conflict intensified through the spring, agents said, many travelers seemed reluctant to make major travel plans very far in advance. With hopes for peace reviving, it’s possible that advance bookings will pick up.

The Christmas discounting, by the way, doesn’t necessarily translate to all corners of the travel industry. Like cruise lines and hotels, tour operators have bumped up prices for millennial cruises. But at least two large California-based operators say they see no lag in Christmas bookings. At Pleasant Holidays, the leading operator of package tours to Hawaii, spokesman Ken Phillips reports that this year’s sales patterns are basically the same as last year’s. And at Backroads, a Berkeley-based operator of upscale bicycle tours, spokeswoman Megan Gaynor says the same.

Christopher Reynolds welcomes comments and suggestions, but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053, or send e-mail to chris.reynolds@latimes.com.