Troubled waters

One operator, Cruise & Maritime, offered a 12-night cruise in early July around Britain and Ireland from Tilbury, in the Thames estuary, from just £499 – a 55 per cent price cut, with a daily rate of barely £40, including all meals.

Royal Caribbean International (RCCL) has seven-night summer cruises sailing from Malaga into the Mediterranean from £599 in July, £679 in August and £699 in September, all including return flights from Britain.

RCCL offers the option of adding seven-night hotel breaks on the Costa del Sol to the cruise, with four-star hotel prices from £249 (half-board) and £299 (full-board).

There are plenty of deals for autumn too, including 22 nights on P&O Cruises’ Aurora, ex-Southampton on November 1 to Antigua, St Maarten, St Lucia and Barbados, from £1099 (inside cabin) and from £1199 (outside stateroom).

Richard Downs at iglucruise.com says: “There is still a sense of a big overhang lingering in the market after the Costa Concordia disaster. Sales in the two or three weeks after that fell sharply, with ramifications now becoming clear. We are seeing the sort of price cuts in peak season which you would normally expect only at quiet times.”

Iglucruise offers 12-nights on Cunard’s Queen Mary ex-Southampton on July 6 from £699, less than £60 per night. Seven nights on the Norwegian Fjords on P&O’s Azura, ex-Southampton on July 14, leads in at £599. Downs says several new ships boosted capacity in the industry in the first half of the year, despite the recession.

At rival website Travelzoo.com, UK managing director Joel Brandon-Bravo agrees that a high number of exceptional late availability cruise deals are left, with some companies slashing prices on luxury sailings earlier than ever before.

“It means consumers who plan in advance can get real value for money on their holiday,” he says. “There are some excellent deals on the market right now. It’s interesting that we are starting to see serious discounts on cruises at the end of this year and into 2013 in an attempt to fight the late booking trend that, until recently, cruising managed to carefully avoid. Cruise lines should see this as a great chance to sell to new cruisers, who may be nervous about taking their first cruise.”