Ferry Marina Discount For October 23

[SwanR]

I have thought that Ferry Marina's website has been looking very out of date in terms of their home page and offers. I've found this afternoon that if you select a boat and a start date in October, there is a 20% discount for holidays this month. I've no idea when they added that as I had been watching out for it ... but there you go. If anyone is looking for a last minute booking then give it a go.

[floydraser]

Not sure if this has been posted but Woods are doing 40% off for October.

[Davydine]

Why don't any of the yards offer an extra early booking discount to get the bookings for next year? Maybe then they wouldn't have to offer such big last minute reductions.

[dom]

Traditionally, there's a mad rush immediately after Christmas. Once Boxing day comes around, people start to think of the coming year and start to book holidays. If yards offer early discounts, there's a danger they get fully booked too soon and sell themselves short. I can imagine it being very difficult for them at the moment, having seen huge demand due to Covid followed by the year just gone, so not now knowing how a season is going to pan out.

I suspect the whole thing is probably exacerbated by the cost of living impact as well. Previously, boats were getting larger, more luxurious and hence more expensive. We're probably seeing a double dip, with post-covid demand drop-off and cost issues occuring simultaneously. Vaughan has commented that these things always go in cycles. I personally think there needs to be a push for more budget friendly options, giving a reduction in cost per head by getting more people onto smaller boats. A lot of the new generation boats are also excessively high and wide. If we saw more updated traditional designs, more people could head upstream of Wroxham, easing pressure on moorings, giving better access to Hoveton and allowing them to enjoy one of the best bits of the northern broads. It's crazy that people can hire boats from Stalham and have no easy way to moor at Hoveton and Wroxham, supposedly the capital of the broads.

[Broads01]

Of all the boatyards when I visited earlier this month, Ferry had by far the most boats left unhired. Not only was there not a single space to be had on their main frontage, they also had boats on both sides and more filling up the mooring opposite the Ferry Inn. I've long said their prices are set too high and I can't understand why they leave them that way.

[PAULG]

We moored in the Norfolk broads direct marina last week and really struggled to find a spot.

The carpark side was packed with their boats as were all the other sections.

We managed to scrape a spot down where they do the pump outs but had to leave before 8.

Barns Brinkcraft looked the same.

[Mouldy]

8 hours ago, dom said:

 . . . . . . . . A lot of the new generation boats are also excessively high and wide. If we saw more updated traditional designs, more people could head upstream of Wroxham, easing pressure on moorings, giving better access to Hoveton and allowing them to enjoy one of the best bits of the northern broads. . . . . . . .

Can’t agree with excessively wide - let’s be fair, many boat classes have had a 12ft beam since the late sixties.  As for height, maybe folk want to look over the reeds, rather than at them.  A flybridge style cruiser offers the hirer superior views from the upper helm and still gives the weather protection afforded by a ‘bathtub’ in inclement weather.

As for boats being built to accommodate fewer people, if there wasn’t a demand, surely folk wouldn’t hire them.  Agreed, folk hiring craft with a high airdraft are denied the access to the upper reaches of The Bure, The Ant, The Thurne and The Waveney, but that is surely a matter of choice.

There can be no denying that river levels have generally increased over the last few years.  Even Connoisseur style cruisers that used to be based above Wroxham Bridge and were usually able to pass under it, are frequently unable to do so now.  It does make me wonder what a new boat design would look like,  if it were made to easily negotiate bridges at Wroxham and Potter. 

There are mooring opportunities for hirers in Wroxham/Hoveton, it’s moorings for privateers that are sadly lacking.

The biggest factors affecting Broads holidays at the moment must surely be the cost, when compared to cheap foreign travel and the cost of living.  Ferry’s ‘all inclusive’ pricing policy may be an issue, making a break on one of their boats look artificially expensive when compared to other yards.  If I were still hiring, they wouldn’t even get consideration from me, because I like to pay for the fuel I use, not what I leave in the tank at the end of a holiday.

 

[oldgregg]

11 hours ago, Davydine said:

Why don't any of the yards offer an extra early booking discount to get the bookings for next year? Maybe then they wouldn't have to offer such big last minute reductions.

You see what you're talking there is common sense.

Unfortunately, that seems to be quite lacking in your average marketing person.

It's always "let's do a discount, let's do a post on social media, let's do a video of a cat". Ask them for strategic thinking and the room goes very quiet.

Allegedly.

[CeePee1952]

We have been booking with HW for the last 3 years and apart from a couple of minor niggles, we have no complaints. The main reason that we continue to book with HW is the amount of discount that we get when doing so. For instance, we have booked Platinum Light for Sep 2024 and that has attracted a total discount of £295.34p (early booking discount, Loyalty discount and Blue Light discount). When we got home from our last HW holiday (last month), we decided to book another HW holiday afloat for June next year (coincides with our wedding anniversary). We have booked Olympic Light for the two of us and that has attracted a total discount of £339.12p (early booking discount, loyalty discount, Blue Light discount AND much to our surprise, another discount for booking a 2nd holiday!). The lady at HW even remarked that HW would be paying us for the holiday if there were any more discounts forthcoming - sadly not We do realise that we are lucky to benefit from the Blue Light discount (which is a hefty chunk of money) but we would still holiday on the Broads without the discount as it is so relaxing and pleasing to the eye. I do agree with Malcolm's comment regarding Ferry's all inclusive pricing - getting a refund on our fuel deposit after our holiday afloat with HW is an added bonus and goes towards our next holiday with them! 

Chris

[floydraser]

Just an observation: looking at the videos on the Norfolk Broads 1981 thread it seems they were very busy in the early sixties. So a time when holidays abroad were not for the masses, families generally had only one car, Mrs stayed at home to bring up the kids, and yet the broads were very busy.

So now we have two incomes, two cars, loads of spare cash - tempt us (not litterally of course, I'm retired!). 

This Saturday I'm collecting my son, his wife and three kids from the airport after their all inclusive stay in Ibetha. How much cheaper would a holiday on the Broads have to be to tempt them? I'll ask them.

[rightsaidfred]

12 hours ago, Davydine said:

Why don't any of the yards offer an extra early booking discount to get the bookings for next year? Maybe then they wouldn't have to offer such big last minute reductions.

That was standard practise many years ago, if you booked before Christmas you got it at that years prices.

Fred

[Davydine]

This thread raises some interesting points. Ferry Marina and Herbert Woods are polar opposites in terms of pricing and yet both are offering last minute discounts.

Personally, we tend to hire from HW for our annual Broads trip, I know that they are not the best maintained or the best turned out boats, but they have always offered good customer service and good value.

Ferry have some lovely looking boats (and some that are, in my opinion, really ugly) but they are sooooo expensive. I have just compared pricing for Beam of Light and Jasmine Emblem, essentially the same boat,for a weekend break in May next year. Jasmine Emblem is £1300 total compared to £815 for Beam of light and with Beam, you will probably get a chunk of your £175 fuel deposit back. The difference in cost would easily pay for us to eat out for every meal on our weekend break, so it's a no brainer for me.

[Davydine]

5 minutes ago, rightsaidfred said:

That was standard practise many years ago, if you booked before Christmas you got it at that years prices.

Fred

Herbert Woods do offer an early booking discount if you book for next year, but if, say, they offered a double discount for a limited period they would get the deposit in the bank and would have a good % occupancy rate for the following year.

Additionally, if I was looking to book for next year and I could see that availability was reduced then I would be more likely to book to secure my boat, If there are loads of boats available then I might leave it to see if there was a late availability discount.

It's not rocket science is it?

[dom]

3 hours ago, Mouldy said:

Can’t agree with excessively wide - let’s be fair, many boat classes have had a 12ft beam since the late sixties. 

What I really meant was wide at height, ie. height at the top corners, where it causes issues with a curved bridge like Wroxham.

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It does make me wonder what a new boat design would look like,  if it were made to easily negotiate bridges at Wroxham and Potter.

I think Potter is too extreme a case to try and cater to these days (although perfectly feasible with small, 2 berth models). Wroxham is more sensible under normal conditions and doesn't take anything revolutionary. Sliding canopies have always been a sensible solution - or you can use lateral thinking and produce something like the old Sancerre 33, dropping the saloon floor to keep the air draft down. There's more scope than ever now for clever design solutions, as hybrid drives reduce the need for a big lump of steel in a central position.

Quote

There are mooring opportunities for hirers in Wroxham/Hoveton, it’s moorings for privateers that are sadly lacking.

There are opportunties for hirers who know what they're doing, but do you really think it's practical for someone who, for example, just hired Bolero from Richardsons and headed straight to see Roys on their first holiday? Swinging 44ft of boat round in the river whilst competing with trip and day boats. The same 6 people on that boat could just as easily be on an Alpha 35 style boat, head under the bridge and use the staithe or viaduct moorings (actually 84 moorings!).

I think half the problem is boating holidays are being sold on luxury and facilities like home. I can't help but wonder if that's wrong and gives an an excessively sanitised experience, which people kind of enjoy, but don't have any great urge to return to.

Quote

The biggest factors affecting Broads holidays at the moment must surely be the cost, when compared to cheap foreign travel and the cost of living.  Ferry’s ‘all inclusive’ pricing policy may be an issue, making a break on one of their boats look artificially expensive when compared to other yards.

This is exactly my point. Ditch the 44ft battleship with playstations and coffee makers, and put those 6 people back in a 35ft sliding cockpit style boat.  The overall investment for the yard is less, so costs can be cheaper. Air draft is less so they'll have access to the best areas and less hassle mooring. Do something outlandish like ditch the Playstation and offer a free sailing dinghy instead. Everyone goes on about kids not wanting to do anything but stare at electronic devices these days, but I question this and think it's probably still perfectly possible to get young people back into doing the things I did as a kid. I got cold,wet and muddy, fished, sailed, canoed and loved every second of it. Give the kids an unforgettable experience and they'll be nagging parents to come back as soon as the holiday's over.

I think a lot of the problem is just lazy marketing, selling a home from home, when the broads is fairly unique and has a lot more to offer. I think you want people to experience a bit of adversity and get to outside their comfort zone. If you think back to early experiences, what do you remember? The TV and shower, or the failing in/breaking down/getting muddy?

 

 

 

[dom]

2 hours ago, Davydine said:

Herbert Woods do offer an early booking discount if you book for next year, but if, say, they offered a double discount for a limited period they would get the deposit in the bank and would have a good % occupancy rate for the following year.

They're a commercial interest though. Given a choice between 100% booking at 80% of regular price, or the opportunity to book 100% at 100% of the regular price, there will always be pressure to opt for the latter by the board or investors. Discounts come from bottom line margin. If you're working on slim margins, it doesnt take long to enter a loss making position.

[CambridgeCabby]

Early booking discount is the model adopted by virtually all types of holiday business now from hotels to flights , the days of last minute bucket seat discounts have long gone and the rise of companies such as EasyJet and Ryan air shows that it is a successful formula .

[Mouldy]

1 hour ago, dom said:

I think Potter is too extreme a case to try and cater to these days (although perfectly feasible with small, 2 berth models). Wroxham is more sensible under normal conditions and doesn't take anything revolutionary. 

Barnes redeveloped the Diamond 35 to become Serenade.  They have a few and I see them frequently, but they must surely do their research before building other designs, like a flybridge that won’t pass under Wroxham Bridge.  If folk wanted a low, sliding canopy style, would they not have built more and not invested in other flybridge designs.  Why do we drive different designs of cars, hatchbacks, estates, SUV’s, 4x4’s, convertibles?  Is that not choice?

1 hour ago, dom said:

I think half the problem is boating holidays are being sold on luxury and facilities like home. I can't help but wonder if that's wrong and gives an an excessively sanitised experience, which people kind of enjoy, but don't have any great urge to return 

Surely, this is about choice.  Talking about what suited in the past, isn’t applicable in today’s society.  We no longer wander along the garden path to the privy with a few sheet of torn up newspaper, or sit in front of a fire in a tin bath.  Times change and with them, people’s expectations.  Even glamping has gone upmarket, with sites opening all over the place - even at festivals like Glastonbury, where the expectation was to wallow in mud and queue for hours to use an over full portaloo!

1 hour ago, dom said:

 . . . . . . There's more scope than ever now for clever design solutions, as hybrid drives reduce the need for a big lump of steel in a central position.

Good idea, if the infrastructure for electric power was there and being developed.  I sat at Ranworth a few weeks ago listening to generators running on two of the new Barnes Preludes and the noise was very distracting.  Until proper facilities exist, The Broads are better off without this technology, unless something can be done to silence the generators.

1 hour ago, dom said:

There are opportunties for hirers who know what they're doing, but do you really think it's practical for someone who, for example, just hired Bolero from Richardsons and headed straight to see Roys on their first holiday? Swinging 44ft of boat round in the river whilst competing with trip and day boats. The same 6 people on that boat could just as easily be on an Alpha 35 style boat, head under the bridge and use the staithe or viaduct moorings (actually 84 moorings!).

And, yes, there may be all those moorings the wrong side of Wroxham Bridge, but with high river levels happening so often through the year, how often would they prevent passage to access them even with boats like the Connoisseur range that were designed with that Bridge foremost in the mind of the builders.  Even Ludham Bridge is becoming problematic for many, even craft based at the yard on the upper reaches of The Ant.  I think we have to face the fact that unless something is done to control river levels, the situation will get worse.

Our tastes and habits have changed over the years.  We generally expect certain levels of accommodation when we go on holiday and I believe the most of the yards try to fulfill the requirements of a broad spread of the holidaymaking public by offering many styles of boat at vastly differing prices.  What they can’t do is offer catered, all inclusive packages with guaranteed sunshine that so many of us Brits now seem to crave.

[Davydine]

25 minutes ago, dom said:

They're a commercial interest though. Given a choice between 100% booking at 80% of regular price, or the opportunity to book 100% at 100% of the regular price, there will always be pressure to opt for the latter by the board or investors. Discounts come from bottom line margin. If you're working on slim margins, it doesnt take long to enter a loss making position.

Well, of course, 100% occupancy at 100% of list price is the utopia that any holiday business would aim for but I doubt there are many boatyards that would expect to achieve that and if they did, then they should be looking to expand their fleet or increase their prices.

I would argue that we have seen some yards offering substantial last minute discounts and that encourages customers to delay booking in the hopes of last minute discounts. If those boards of directors or investors lack the imagination to promote strategically to maximise the balance between occupancy and profit then they shouldn't expect much sympathy when they have to offer massive discounts in a desperate attempt to stimulate some bookings and cash flow.

As @CambridgeCabbysaid, the “book early for best prices” model works very well in the airline / travel industry.

[PAULG]

1 hour ago, Davydine said:

Well, of course, 100% occupancy at 100% of list price is the utopia that any holiday business would aim for but I doubt there are many boatyards that would expect to achieve that and if they did, then they should be looking to expand their fleet or increase their prices.

I would argue that we have seen some yards offering substantial last minute discounts and that encourages customers to delay booking in the hopes of last minute discounts. If those boards of directors or investors lack the imagination to promote strategically to maximise the balance between occupancy and profit then they shouldn't expect much sympathy when they have to offer massive discounts in a desperate attempt to stimulate some bookings and cash flow.

As @CambridgeCabbysaid, the “book early for best prices” model works very well in the airline / travel industry.

And then really annoy customers who have already booked a holiday in October, then see massive discounts being offered.

[grendel]

7 hours ago, Mouldy said:

 It does make me wonder what a new boat design would look like,  if it were made to easily negotiate bridges at Wroxham and Potter. 

A bit like the new Marthams boat.

[Davydine]

31 minutes ago, PAULG said:

And then really annoy customers who have already booked a holiday in October, then see massive discounts being offered.

Quite! I don't mind if someone makes a saving by booking early and I pay more by leaving it late, but if a company has had my deposit in the bank for months and then someone gets a last minute discount I will feel annoyed and unlikely to book early in future.

[rightsaidfred]

It seems to me the problem here could lay with the different categories of fleet owners, you have the ones with generations of experience in the industry like Clive, Bridgecraft, NBD, etc who don't generally get involved in discounting the one exception being by Barnes, then you have the ones who have bought into the industry H.W. and Ferry Marine  who have gone down the discount route.

Fred

[dom]

26 minutes ago, rightsaidfred said:

It seems to me the problem here could lay with the different categories of fleet owners, you have the ones with generations of experience in the industry like Clive, Bridgecraft, NBD, etc who don't generally get involved in discounting the one exception being by Barnes

I suspect Barnes are probably starting to suffer the effects of "death by social media", whether they realise it or not. They need to employ someone to engage with and encourage social proof (I'm currently available for the right price ). Just compare them and NBD on Trustpilot and ask yourself who people are going to steer towards.

[Vaughan]

5 hours ago, dom said:

I think half the problem is boating holidays are being sold on luxury and facilities like home. I can't help but wonder if that's wrong and gives an an excessively sanitised experience, which people kind of enjoy, but don't have any great urge to return to.

Bingo!

[Roy]

Just picking up on what mouldy has said about the water levels I think 20 years ago the talk of creating a flood barrier at Yarmouth would have been the best option but it wasn’t picked. It’s quite amazing 100 miles over the North Sea Holland has bridges that raise for one boat whenever and locks and flood barriers but we have a tired out network of infrastructure be it bridges / moorings etc. 

I know this won’t happen but the broads needs lots of money spent on infrastructure to persevere it for the future years ie flood barrier new bridges at reedham / somerlayton and the two low bridges at Yarmouth need to go.
 Maybe wroxham bridge aswell ( oh I’ve said it now lol! ) wroxham could be replaced with a Holland style lifting bridge that lifts twice a day oh I’m day dreaming !