Ferry Marina Offer

[YnysMon]

27 minutes ago, NeilB said:

I’ve seen a lot of Horning pleasure craft boats about, only 1 in their yard on Sunday.  I understand that they have held prices and unlike a lot of yards take pride in their appearance, not seen a dirty waterline this year.

They do look good! 

[Andrewcook]

As to these Boat yards offering between 15% & 30% off the Hiring Bill, they must be desperate to get Customers on the Broads what with Inflation being very high like all things April is a bad month with bills as my Rent has gone up by 7% instead of 11.1:% thank god yet the. Broads Authority has put the Boot in by 13% this year is going to be a hard year for every one on the Norfolk Broads and else where. 

[BrundallNavy]

I see Barnes Brinkcraft are offering a 10% discount for August. Things must be slow this year. 

[Broads01]

What a change. My recollection of this time last year and the year before is there was nothing available and every so often Barnes and HW would advertise a cancellation.

[Cal]

We have passed a lot of the yards this year and they all seem to have a lot of boats moored up.

Rivers seem very quiet.

Not the school holidays yet I suppose. But certainly quieter than we remember in previous years!

[catcouk]

Cost of living crisis added to the rather large price increase of this type of holiday in recent years. I can't say that I am at all surprised, sadly. I just hope yards have recovered enough from Covid to weather this new decline in trade.

[floydraser]

I wonder how this compares to other holiday forms like static caravans? We have had more last minute deals from a hotel we use in the Lake District this year, than we have before.

[Mouldy]

27 minutes ago, floydraser said:

I wonder how this compares to other holiday forms like static caravans? We have had more last minute deals from a hotel we use in the Lake District this year, than we have before.

I’ve mentioned that we went to a site in Cornwall (in a static caravan).  It was booked for 2020, but postponed due to the pandemic, so we went in 2021 instead.  We enquired about rebooking for 2022, in the same static, but the price had increased from £550 to £850 for the same dates.  We went to a different, but cheaper site instead.  When we went this year, the price had dropped to less than £500, again for the same van.

It seems that they’ve taken note of both the economic situation and the relaxation of foreign travel restrictions.

I might be wrong, but the costs associated with running a caravan park are probably less than maintaining a fleet of hire boats, but even so, I read that as caravan park in Northampton (Billing Aquadrome) along with their parent company, has gone into administration.

[Happy]

6 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

I’ve mentioned that we went to a site in Cornwall (in a static caravan).  It was booked for 2020, but postponed due to the pandemic, so we went in 2021 instead.  We enquired about rebooking for 2022, in the same static, but the price had increased from £550 to £850 for the same dates.  We went to a different, but cheaper site instead.  When we went this year, the price had dropped to less than £500, again for the same van.

It seems that they’ve taken note of both the economic situation and the relaxation of foreign travel restrictions.

I might be wrong, but the costs associated with running a caravan park are probably less than maintaining a fleet of hire boats, but even so, I read that as caravan park in Northampton (Billing Aquadrome) along with their parent company, has gone into administration.

Maybe too greedy in the first place?

[MauriceMynah]

If a price goes up to recover previous losses ( eg covid ) and then goes back down, that seems fair to me, not greedy.

[DAVIDH]

38 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

If a price goes up to recover previous losses ( eg covid ) and then goes back down, that seems fair to me, not greedy.

I think it's a misconception that the hire yards suffered during the Covid years. Yes, they weren't able to start operating in 2020 until early July? But because the population was landlocked, they had a ready-made audience chomping at the bit to book something...anything, in the UK. The Broads was a sell-out right through to the end of October, at prices that had been inflated to match demand.   The norm is for only Spring Bank and the summer school holiday dates to fully book. The next year, from the 12th April (I think), people were holidaying again on the Broads, and once again, if you hadn't booked early, you wouldn't get in. Indeed, people were falling over themselves to book any cancellations that came in. These two years were my best-ever sales performances by some distance, so it doesn't stretch the imagination to work out the yards had good years also. 

Having said all that, it does seem some yards like NBD, have reduced their prices for 2023, and some like Richardsons, have not increased them. So they should be in as good a position as possible to be able to weather the inevitable downturns which I think will last into next year also. 

[BrundallNavy]

We spoke to a couple on a basic Ricko’s boat last weekend and they paid more for 4 days than we have all inclusive in Lanzorote. Not much of an incentive to holiday here.