Originally Posted by
Randeman
I blame the higher fares on the new builds. You'd be hard pressed to find a line out there that doesn't currently have at least one new ship under construction or fresh from the shipyard.
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I seem to recall watching something on YouTube in the last couple of years about a particular cruise and how much money it made. If I recall correctly, while the line executive would not mention specifics it was astonishing how little money a line makes per cruise, and if it wasn't for discretionary spending that particular cruise would have operated at a loss.
Another reason they keep building ships is to please those people who do nothing but take cruises. I was on a Disney Cruise ship and the couple that we ate dinner with had been on 8 trips on an older ship and the newer ship we were on was their 5 trip. They switched because they wanted to be on the newer ship. We ran into a lot of couples like that. It is like living in Hawaii, once the "new-ness" wears off you get bored of it and that is lost revenue for the cruising industry.