2. Wave is still relevant – but booking patterns are changing

For the Carnival UK brands the wave period remains key, but largely because it helps to “focus the mind of the travel agent on cruise”. Carnival Cruise Line’s international sales director Luke Smith suggested it “puts cruise into that mainstream conversation and places it in the forefront of agents’ marketing and staff training. It makes it a mainstream conversation,” he added.

P&O Cruises’ Venn agreed, arguing the “January and February wave period is the opportunity to appeal to people that are in the holiday market and not necessarily the cruise market”. “What’s been really important for us is making sure we keep the lights on in December,” she added. “So that even if customers aren’t in the mindset of booking at that point, we’re front of mind when they are.”

Smith noted however that Carnival Cruise Line had observed a “much more consistent booking curve throughout the year”.

“Rather than it being peaks and troughs, we tend to see more of a longer ‘wave’ [pattern].  We see a nice boost in January, that sustains through February and into March, then there’s a little bit of a downturn, then the summer picks up, and then we have some of our biggest months in September and October”.

For Cunard, the line is anticipating “a really strong February” but Mahoney acknowledged more of the line’s spend had been channelled into January, which he said had “really helped to drive that 20% growth”.

That said, Mahoney said Cunard’s strongest booking periods were whenever the line launches a new programmes. “We launch two seasons a year – a winter and a summer program, one between March and May, and one in September or October. These are our peak booking periods.”

Elsewhere, Seabourn’s Andrews said there had been a “softer start” to wave. “The feedback from our agent partners is that that is an ultra-luxury market trend,” he said, but added: “We’ve seen a kind of crescendo and it’s really picked up pace from mid-January onwards, which has left us in a pretty comfortable position.”

He also noted the change in booking patterns, with sales performing particularly well in summer. “We had a really good August and really good September last year. I think one of the perceptions from our side was that August isn’t a particularly good month because people are already on their holidays. But then again, when you’re on board, it’s a great time to book,” he added. 

3. The change in ship visit formats

Holland America Line is gearing up for a busy year, with plans for more than 500 agents to visit its Nieuw Statendam ship this year – the line’s largest ever agent ship visit programme, with an increase of 23% compared with 2024.

“It’s been challenging as we haven't had ships home porting in the UK,” admitted Holland America Line’s sales and marketing director Karen Farndell. “But this year we have Nieuw Statendam home porting from Dover from April which gives us the opportunity every two weeks to take travel agents on board.” The line will be operating its ship visit programme around the UK, including Northern Ireland (see full list of ship visits dates here).

Farndell also hinted at a possible collaboration between Holland America Line and Carnival Cruise Line. “Luke [Smith] and I are working on some plans with Port of Dover, we're looking at doing some collaborative ship visits together in Dover in the summer”.

P&O Cruises’ Venn admitted one struggle faced by all the cruise lines was agent drop outs on ship visits, and she appealed to agents to think twice before signing up. “There's always a bit of a plea whenever we get the chance to speak to agents, just to say if you're signing up, to please make sure you come.”

The line is subsequently adopting a different approach to its ship visit programme this year, with fewer visits but more people invited on each one, Venn explained. This means P&O Cruises will still welcome more than 1,000 agents onboard, but it will be more strategic about its programme. “We've just gone out with our first three ship visit dates,” Venn said, rather than announcing full dates for the year and having people sign up for September dates “when they probably don't know if they're going to be able to come or not”.

Elsewhere Princess Cruises is planning to roll out its family day ship visit concept. Hayley Moore, director of UK & Europe sales at Princess Cruises, said the format of the days, which enables agents to bring their children and/or parents with them, had seen fewer drop outs and had even resulted in a boost in multi-generational bookings following the visits.

Princess Cruises will be operating four more family days in the UK and two in Ireland this year, featuring ports including Southampton, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin and Cobh.

And the concept has proven so successful, it’s now set to be replicated by Carnival Cruise Line. “We've had so much good feedback we're actually looking to rip the idea off,” revealed Carnival’s Luke Smith. “We asked agents what can we do differently; what other people do well, and the overriding success story was the family dates from Princess Cruises. So we've looked at doing one this year in Liverpool during the summer holidays,” he said.

4. Ramping up the focus on homeworkers

Like many suppliers, the Carnival sales chiefs have set their sights on homeworkers – namely how they can do more to support this corner of the agent community. Princess Cruises is keen to include more homeworkers in its ship visit programme. “We're seeing a significant increase in the amount of homeworkers [working with us],” revealed Moore. “So in 2025 we're really trying to streamline how we target bringing on homeworkers or agents that might be slightly more isolated from other opportunities”. The line has also tasked one of its BDMs with focusing more on homeworkers.

Meanwhile Mahoney revealed Cunard is currently recruiting for an additional role in its development team with a specific remit to form closer partnerships with consortia head office relationships, which Mahoney said included a “high proportion of homeworkers”. 

5. Think opportunities, rather than barriers, when selling cruise

Princess’s Hayley Moore was keen to remind agents “the number one booking motivator remains destination”. “If a customer has more than one destination, top of mind, then think cruise”, she urged agents.

Meanwhile Carnival Cruise Line's Smith told agents to disregard the barriers and instead consider the opportunities in selling cruise. “My biggest piece of advice to agents is always to just talk about it [to the customer].

“If you've got non-cruise customers that come in and ask for package holidays or Caribbean holidays or resort style holidays, whatever it is, just mention cruise. Put it in front of them and let them make an educated guess.”

Lastly.... What are each of the sales chiefs most excited about in 2025?

Tom Mahoney, director of UK sales, Cunard

“Queen Elizabeth goes in for an era defining refit in March. She'll now sail from Miami to the Caribbean in the UK winter. So I think the evolution that we're making on Queen Elizabeth, bringing some of the concepts from Queen Anne to that ship and making her more of an outdoor focused ship to suit the environment she in is a very cool evolution.”

Ruth Venn, sales director, P&O Cruises

“This year it's Britannia’s 10th anniversary, so on June 6 she will be departing for a two-week Grand Britain cruise with some nice surprises for guests on board as well as travel agents. There will be celebrations happening around the country throughout the period so we'll be looking forward to sharing more on that one. And then we've got some quite exciting agent-focused news coming in September... watch this space!"

Tom Andrews, sales director, Seabourn

"I’m most excited for the expedition side of our business, the destinations our two ships travel to is just mind-blowing. They go to the Arctic, the Antarctic, the Kimberley in Australia, South America, the Amazon. Bringing ultra luxury to some of these kind of perceived harsh environments is a really amazing balance between how they how they achieve that."