I see Ideal Cruising is selling a nine-night Canary Islands cruise from Barcelona on Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Jade this winter for just £510 per person - and that includes return flights from Gatwick.
I appreciate that this will be NCL's first winter cruising in the Med and Atlantic so they are testing the waters, so to speak, but it's hard to believe anyone can be making anything from that giveaway price.
Except the customer, of course, who is getting an absolute steal - especially as they can bag an outside cabin for just £92 per person more.
It's for a cruise departing December 12, which just happens to be my favourite day of the year (and not because it's when Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas is scheduled to set off on its maiden voyage) but is probably not a good time to try to get people thinking about a cruise given most minds are focused on turkey and tinsel.
Either that, or people are planning to escape the big day, in which case they won't want to be away just before as well.
Costa and MSC have made it work, so really there's no reason why NCL shouldn't - except, of course that the former appeal to the European market while NCL depends heavily on the Americans.
And why would Americans want to cruise over here in a warm-ish, if they're lucky, winter when they have sun, sea and sand on their Caribbean doorstep - and without forking out a fortune in airline fuel supplements.
Pre-Xmas blues or a deeper malaise? Only time will tell.
Jane Archer
