Catching Up with Margaritaville at Sea’s Ron Gulaskey (part II)

Since its “rebirth” under Sycamore Partners, Margaritaville at Sea has hit its stride with the travel advisor community (see Part I). While it’s still not unusual for senior vice president of sales and trade relations, Ron Gulaskey to encounter misconceptions left over from the past, it’s getting easier for Gulaskey and his team to showcase just how the cruise line is different from its past iterations – even from the early days of Margaritaville at Sea.

In this second part of TMR’s conversation with Gulaskey, he talks about how the cruise line is different from other cruise lines – both for him as an executive and for clients – as well as how Margaritaville at Sea is unexpectedly filing a void in the cruise market, and what travel advisors can look forward to.

Margaritaville at Sea’s Differentiators

Working at Margaritaville at Sea is night and day from his previous job at Celebrity Cruises, Gulaskey told TMR. The brand has a start-up mentality that enables it to respond to advisor (and cruiser) feedback quickly.

“We have the ability to change and be different here,” he said. “At the other companies, none of us had that.”

He added, “We listen and can change things… We can change everything. We get feedback all the time from travel advisors… We can make things different because we’re small and nimble… our CEO is so bought into we need the trade to get the best customers and to grow our business the right way.”

As an example, the cruise line is changing up its Group Amenity Program based on feedback from advisors.

When talking about what makes the actual product different, Gulaskey said the Margaritaville brand is very much about an overall feeling.

“Every cruise line talks about the best stuff, but ours is the happiest,” he explained. For instance, he said, crew leave welcome messages on stateroom mirrors for cruisers to find when they come onboard. “Such a fun, positive thing,” he said.

He added that it’s something that really needs to be experienced to be understood.

“Let us prove to you what we’re about. We need you to come onboard and experience it and then you’ll believe it. When we have travel advisors sail with us [on FAMs or FAM rates], they come off saying this is completely different than I expected.”

Filling a Void in the Market

As more travel advisors begin to understand the Margaritaville at Sea product and what makes it different, they’re telling Gulaskey and his team that just as important to them as the better product and backend service is that the brand fills a gap in the market.

“Other brands in the contemporary space have raised their prices so much… it’s priced a lot of cruisers out of the game… we’re filling the void where they were losing cruisers.”

Instead of seeing these clients move to hotels or all-inclusives, often just doing it themselves, Margaritaville comes in with better pricing and allows advisors to keep these clients in their cruise portfolio.

It’s also great for new-to-cruise, he said.

“We’re a Caribbean product… we bring customers into the portfolio for cruise [on a Caribbean sailing] and they love the experience. Then if they want to go to Alaska or Europe, you sell them on a different cruise line for the next bookings.”

What’s New & Upcoming

When asked what travel advisors should look forward to hearing about from Margaritaville, Gulaskey had a lot to say.

First and foremost, Margaritaville Paradise goes into dry dock in January. Over a three-week period, the ship will see a lot of changes from changing out every single carpet to replacing the traditional buffet area with a food market-style experience with many options.

On the itinerary and pricing side, advisors can expect to see more, longer cruises and significantly fewer two-day sailings. (In fact, after January 2027 Margaritaville at Sea Paradise will be doing almost all three- and 4-night sailings.) Future marketing will highlight the brand more and cheap discounts like the line’s infamous $99 fares will be less of a focus.

Bundled fares that include beverages and Wi-Fi, which the line is trialing now as part of a Black Friday promotion, will also be more common.

Gulaskey called the bundled fares “fantastic for travel partners, because that means the fare goes up and their commission goes up as well.”

On the backend, Gulaskey is still growing the sales team, with plans to add business development managers in regions where the line is focusing its marketing.

“We’re doing a lot more seven-night cruises. We need people to expand into other part of the country – more than just Georgio and the Southeast. We have a lot of people coming from Texas, a lot from New York, and a lot from Illinois, and we don’t have BDM coverage like we should for those states.”

As Margaritaville at Sea expands its marketing efforts, the line will be focused “mostly from Chicago eastwards,” Gulaskey added.