Last Minute Gulet Cruise. Beware of These Situations

Last minute gulet cruise season is never the same.

It meant that on 10th of July you asked for 20th of July what is available and you received last-minute gulet cruise offer.

But this has changed in the last couple of years. Now you have “early booking” season, which ends in February or March and in April and May already Last minute promotions start.

Every season this is different. But this is not what this BLOG spot is all about. I have to get something off my chest which clients HAVE TO KNOW and be aware of!

One of our Turkish partners said it like this (best way to say it):

PRICE IS WHAT YOU PAY – VALUE IS WHAT YOU GET!!!

And this is 100% true! Last minute gulet cruise deals are a great way to get good gulets for lower prices, but things can also go bad. VERY BED!!!

I have 2 EXAMPLES, that will explain what I mean!

It was really last minute booking (around 7 days before departure), but I was shocked to see how low some gulet owners went, just to get the booking.

And I was even more surprised when I also found a really good gulet, with good reputation and services willing to take this group for € 11.500 for 14 days. But the group at the end booked different gulet (more luxury one) for only € 11.000 for 14 days. I was very skeptic about that and I also tried to explain it to the client. If you check the costs for 14 days, it is like this:

• fuel is around € 2.000 (for short route)
• crew costs is around € 3.000 for 14 days
• laundry, port taxes, transit log and some other stuff is around € 500
• standard food for 12 persons for 14 days is around € 4.000

This is super basic variability costs. If you also add maintenance insurance and more you are already over € 11.000! And nobody is doing this business for free.

So what happened. Clients arrived on the gulet, and owner saved money on fuel, which meant route was super short, the crew did not really try very hard as they knew what kind of deal the person received, the standard of food was terrible and the gulet owner actually accepted this group because he needed money urgently…gulet was not well maintained and clients had very poor holidays. 

But they have saved lots of money….

And now you have to ask yourself….is your goal to save money or have the best holidays ever?

2 years ago, some Spanish clients booked very very nice 7 cabins gulet in Croatia for € 12.500 per week. The crew, the food, and the services are all perfect on this gulet. You get lobsters, the owner is amazing and the experience is out of this World…..The clients already booked the gulet, but just before they made the deposit payment, they received another offer for a gulet, that had price lowered from € 15.000 to € 9.000 per week. And the gulet looked very nice (on pictures).

So they canceled the first booking and booked this second cheaper on.

What happened? The owner of this second gulet went totally broke, he did not have the money to make repairs on the gulet as the bank took everything from him and the clients had a terrible holiday. And when this gulet was parked next to the gulet no.1 they booked in the first place….THEY WENT TOTALLY CRAZY! 

There are hundreds of this kind of examples that are happening all the time

Tourism and travel are service based products. You are not buying shoes. And lots of people look at the discounts only in 1 way -a great chance to blackmail owners for crazy discounts, because they need the bookings….On the other hand, lots of people do not see also the other side of the story. If the owner is desperate for huge discounts, this is usually not such a good news as you might think. 

So when you are searching for your next to last minute gulet cruise keep this in mind. Sometimes it is better to spend € 1.000 more for your private charter and have the best time of your life rather than save some money and have ruined holidays.

If you are interested to get a last minute gulet cruise quote send us a request and we will do our best! 

You can send us a request here.