Cruise Pricing Data Scraping

Cabin category is not cabin type, and rolling it up loses the analysis

Buyers usually ask for four types: interior, ocean view, balcony, suite. Cruise lines do not sell four types. They sell categories — often a dozen balcony grades alone, differing by deck, position, obstruction and forward or aft placement, at materially different prices.

• Roll up to four types and you get an average that no cabin actually costs.
• Keep the line's own codes and you can compare like with like, but the codes differ per line.

We deliver the line's own cabin_category_code and cabin_category_name, plus a normalised cabin_type for rollup, and we record categories_in_type so the spread inside a type is visible. Both views are delivered; neither substitutes for the other.

This is the same discipline as delivering both boutique-level and platform-level size availability on luxury multi-brand platforms — the aggregate is what a shopper experiences, the detail is what an operator needs.

Per person, double occupancy, and the solo supplement

A cruise fare is quoted per person and assumes two people share the cabin. That assumption is invisible in the number and it changes what the number means.

• A solo traveller pays a supplement, frequently a large one, which is a separate commercial decision rather than a fixed multiplier.
• Third and fourth berth pricing is often much lower and quoted differently again.
• Comparing a per-person fare to a hotel room rate is a category error that produces a cruise looking half its actual cost.

Every record carries occupancy_basis, price_per_person, and where quoted, solo_supplement and third_berth_price as their own fields. We compute a cabin total only on a stated basis, with the basis recorded, and never fold the supplement into the headline fare.

Guarantee cabins are an availability state, not a price

Lines sell "guarantee" bookings — you buy a category and the specific cabin is assigned later, sometimes days before sailing. It is a real product with its own price, and it is not the same as a specific cabin being available.

• Guarantee available, specific cabins sold out is a common and meaningful state.
• Guarantee pricing can be below the same category's assigned-cabin price.
• Treating it as normal availability overstates how much choice a booker actually has.

We record availability_state as one of specific_available, guarantee_only, waitlist or sold_out. Collapsing these to available or not loses the distinction that matters most as a sailing fills.

What we do not report

How full a ship is. Occupancy is not published, and inferring it from category sell-out is the same error as inferring hotel occupancy from rate availability. We report availability states and let the inference stay yours.