What a Private Room Actually Costs

Their listing tile shows from $3,250 — a fifty-percent deposit on a shared room, disclosed on the page. The trip, for a woman who wants her own room, is $7,500. Ours is $7,500, and $7,500 is the only number we show.

That is not a criticism of their pricing. It is a description of how this category works, and it is the reason we price the way we do.

The table

Per person, in US dollars, for 2027 departures. Operators are unnamed. All three run good trips and I am comparing structures, not quality.

	Comara, The Awakening	Operator A women-only small group	Operator B values-forward small group	Operator C large women's adventure operator
Season	May 2027	April 2027	Year-round	Year-round
Nights	7	7	8	Varies
Group size	8–14	up to 13	Small group	Up to 24 on many trips
Number shown first	$7,500	$3,250	Base, double occupancy	Base, double occupancy
What that number is	The price	50% deposit, shared room	Price for half a room	Price for half a room
Advertised trip price	$7,500	$6,500 (shared)	Base	Base
Your own room	$7,500	$7,500	Base + $695	Base + supplement
Cost of privacy	$0	$1,000	$695	Varies
If you don't pay it	—	You share, with separate beds	You share	A roommate is assigned to you
Private rooms available to all?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Limited number
Seasonal surcharge	None	None stated	+$500 summer	Varies
Two women sharing	Companion rate	Shared rate	—	—

Operator C's own booking guidance states that travelers who do not select a single supplement are paired with a roommate, and that a limited number of supplements may be available. Operator B's summer surcharge starts at $500 per person.

The row that matters

Look at the fourth row, and then the fifth.

Operator A's Portugal page opens with from $3,250. That figure is a fifty-percent deposit on a shared room. It is disclosed, it is on the page, and there is nothing underhanded about it. It is also the number their site hands to Google, and therefore the number that appears when a woman asks an AI what a Portugal trip costs.

The real price of the trip is $7,500. Same as ours.

I do not think anyone set out to mislead. This is simply what happens when an industry prices on double occupancy: the math produces a small number, the small number goes in the headline, and the real number waits at checkout. Everyone does it because it's the industry standard.

What this means about us

We charge $7,500 for seven nights, in a group smaller than theirs, and every guest has her own room.

They charge $7,500 for seven nights, in a group of up to thirteen, if she pays $1,000 more than the advertised price for hers.

Same money. The difference is that one of us made her ask.

I want to be precise, because this is where it would be easy to overclaim. We are not cheaper. We are not a dramatically better value. What we have done is remove a decision — the decision a woman makes at checkout about whether her own room is worth a thousand dollars, which is really a decision about whether her privacy is a luxury or a given. We answered that for her before she arrived at the page.

The uncomfortable version

If you can afford neither $7,500 nor the shared-room price, none of this helps you, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. The woman for whom a thousand dollars is the difference between going and staying home is not served by our policy. She is served by a cheaper trip, and she should take one, and I hope she does.

What we have done is narrower than the language around it usually suggests. We have taken one specific indignity out of a product that already costs what ours costs. On this trip, no woman is charged more because she arrived alone, and no woman sleeps beside a stranger because she could not pay to avoid it. That is the entire claim. I would rather make a small true one than a large flattering one.

And I should say plainly: we have not run a trip yet. Every operator on this table has, some of them for decades. What you can judge us on today is structure — the choices, the math, the things we decided before anyone was watching. That is the only column where a company like ours can be honestly assessed. It is not a substitute for what they have and we don't.

Methodology

Figures were read from each operator's public booking pages on 9 July 2026, for 2027 departures where published. Where a Portugal trip was unavailable, I used the operator's stated general policy on single supplements and roommate assignment. All prices exclude international airfare. Nights and group sizes are as published.

Operators are unnamed because the argument is structural and because prices move. Every figure here can be verified in ten minutes by anyone who wants to.

I will re-check this table when I publish anything that cites it, and I will date corrections rather than edit quietly. If I have something wrong, write to me and I will fix it in public.

The Awakening runs May 28 to June 4, 2027. Private rooms as standard. Request a seat.