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As Margaritaville at Sea approaches its first anniversary, the line is prioritizing its special offerings — two-night Bahamas cruises — to make them more attractive to travel advisors, CEO Kevin Sheehan Jr. said.
Sheehan is the son of former Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Kevin Sheehan, who was one of the group of investors who bought Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line in 2016. The company In late 2021, it transformed into Margaritaville Sea and launched its first cruise on the renovated Margaritaville Gardens. Last May.
Kevin Sheehan Jr
Sheehan Jr. plans to offer new itineraries and add more ships in the future, but the current priority is increasing agent awareness of the online cruise and stay program, which allows guests to spend more days at the Land Resort. Their picnic center.
“Finding a travel agent to do a two-night cruise is a challenge,” he says, adding that the price point is so low that agents are happy with the commission. “Instead of a two-night production, it’s a four-, six-, eight-night production. And obviously, [guests are] Being willing to travel far for that kind of product.”
Reservations are growing, Sheehan said, with the best Q4 and strong enrollment in 2016. Reservation windows also extended to 60 days, from 45, he said, weekend cruises are often close to capacity and weekdays at least 80% full.
While reservations are strong, guests are booking direct “almost entirely,” Sheehan said. To this he attributed the line’s short sails and travel advisors’ lack of awareness that Margaritaville has a cruise line.
Travel and stay in the Great Lucian
Sheehan cites the shipping and handling package as key to attracting agents. The package allows guests to sail from the Port of Palm Beach, Florida to Grand Bahama Island and stay at a partner hotel or resort for two, four or six nights. At the end of their land stay, guests re-boarded the cruise ship, now filled with different guests, to return to Florida. The package is all-inclusive on board and on land at the resort. Up to 15% of spots are booked with cruise and stay packages, Sheehan said.
Cruise and stay packages are currently handled through the line’s call center, though Sheehan is working to integrate that process with advisors into the company’s online booking platform.
Margaritaville’s cruise and stay program currently connects guests to the Grand Lucian Resort and Viva Wyndham Fortuna Beach. Neither is the Margaritaville property, a missed opportunity to create a whole product experience, an issue that was on Sheehan’s mind. Margaritaville has a resort in Nassau that he calls “a very logical extension for us in the future.”
The brand has several resort properties in Mexico that create great opportunities for the brand, he said. Other Caribbean Margaritaville resorts are located in Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
He said he is still in the “baby stages” of planning new itineraries that could connect to the Margaritaville resort, which could be ready this year.
For pre- or post-cruise stays, the nearest resort is the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, located 60 miles from the Port of Palm Beach. Sheehan said he is in the process of developing a pre-cruise package and that those stays will be put together in the interim.
Some travel consultants who sold Margaritaville when the line launched said the 30-year-old ship’s output was no match for the top resort output. While the ship’s 5 o’clock somewhere bar and other areas are decorated with the new brand, he noted that the resorts feel newer and more luxurious than the ship itself.
But Melissa Vincent, associate travel consultant for Grace White Travelers & Associates, a franchise of cruise planners in Louisiana, said the agency’s clients are happy with Margaritaville cruises. The product was an easy sell to people thinking about getting on the water, she said.
She has a group of 18 guests booked with an excursion and stay program, and an alternative landlubbers will be given the opportunity to explore a destination for several days.
“It gives my clients a chance to see something different without having to come down to the Bahamas,” she says.
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