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Do last minute deals to Alaska exist?


smariner
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Due to a last minute change in our vacation plans, we are considering an Alaska cruise (from Seattle). Our ideal sailing-start dates are between Aug/13-Aug/22. Amsterdam and Westerdam still seem to have many rooms available - but the prices don't seem any lower than advance prices.

 

Do last minute deals to Alaska exist anymore? I heard that some cruise lines stopped offering last-minute deals. Any point in waiting a few more days, with the hope of getting a better price?

 

This is going to be our first-time with Holland America & we will be travelling with small kids (under 7 years old). Are there activities & amenities for small kids?

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Rarely do Alaskan cruises go on sale.

Your biggest problem with booking so close to sailing date is getting a cabin for all of you. Each lifeboat holds only so many people and once that capacity is met, it is hard to find a cabin(s) that will hold a family.

You didn't mention how many children.

Club HAL is for children 3 through 17.

You need to talk to a TA or HAL and see what cabins are left for a family of your size.

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Doubt you will find a 'deal' on an Alaskan cruise, especially this close to when you want to sail so recommend you book now. Alaskan cruises are usually very port intensive but Club Hal is wonderful for the kids. You can also rent a babysitter if you want a night 'out' - just ask at the front desk.

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My two cruises to Alaska have been on Princess, booked relatively last minutes - 4-5 weeks. They were amazing deals on a gty cabin. The deals came to my inbox through their email specials. Someone on another board is trying to get a last minute deal to Alaska for four in August, and all quad cabins are sold out.

Link to the other thread:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2382019

 

EM

Edited by Essiesmom
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My suggestion is to keep watching online prices. I also notice some online prices are lower in the morning and go up in the afternoon. Likely because of cabin upgrades throughout the day.

 

Historically, HAL and Princess advertises season blowout prices in May to mid-July.

 

August? Late-August? Keep in mind it gets statistically wetter from mid-August going into September in Alaska. I'm not a storm chaser and am willing to pay more for statistical dry weather in July or early August. There's a reason why September is a low demand month.

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We're sailing on the Amsterdam in four weeks (Aug. 21 cruise). I booked it last month about a week after the final payment date. The price hasn't budged on HAL's website since then. The price I got through a discount agency was about 20 percent off the price quoted on HAL's website. The supply of available cabins has sharply decreased. I don't see any as good as ours in our category left.

 

As far as bargains, the cruises now are less than they are for people booking for a similar week next year. The base rate per passenger for an outside cabin is coming up at $849 for next month versus $1,499 for the same week next year.

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This year has been disgusting for deals for Alaska!!

 

High starting pricing, few decreases in pricing. A few "deals", but gone fast.

 

A lot of cruises are sold out 2 to 4 weeks in advance and that is unusual.

 

Best of luck but I wouldn't expect much!

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Deals, if any, are far more likely to be in the form of offers TO you rather than special pricing FROM them when inquiring. That is, it is pretty random and spotty and up to the cruise line.

 

Odd thing is within a couple days of signing up for a HAL account and requesting info I got a Drop&Go offer from Princess for a Seattle R/T for $499/pp on an inside cabin. Nice to see now that we live near Seattle and hoping they keep doing that sort of thing after I retire when we really can Drop&Go.

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We're sailing on the Amsterdam in four weeks (Aug. 21 cruise). I booked it last month about a week after the final payment date. The price hasn't budged on HAL's website since then. The price I got through a discount agency was about 20 percent off the price quoted on HAL's website. The supply of available cabins has sharply decreased. I don't see any as good as ours in our category left.

 

As far as bargains, the cruises now are less than they are for people booking for a similar week next year. The base rate per passenger for an outside cabin is coming up at $849 for next month versus $1,499 for the same week next year.

 

20% off the HAL price seems decent enough. I would consider taking it.

Could you pls private-message me the name of the discount agency?

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Deals, if any, are far more likely to be in the form of offers TO you rather than special pricing FROM them when inquiring. That is, it is pretty random and spotty and up to the cruise line.

 

Odd thing is within a couple days of signing up for a HAL account and requesting info I got a Drop&Go offer from Princess for a Seattle R/T for $499/pp on an inside cabin. Nice to see now that we live near Seattle and hoping they keep doing that sort of thing after I retire when we really can Drop&Go.

 

Good to know....i just signed up for e-mail offers from HAL and others.

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Due to a last minute change in our vacation plans, we are considering an Alaska cruise (from Seattle). Our ideal sailing-start dates are between Aug/13-Aug/22. Amsterdam and Westerdam still seem to have many rooms available - but the prices don't seem any lower than advance prices.

 

Do last minute deals to Alaska exist anymore? I heard that some cruise lines stopped offering last-minute deals. Any point in waiting a few more days, with the hope of getting a better price?

 

Not this year, so it seems. I, too, was looking for a last min deal for Alaska on HAL in Sept. and the prices didn't budge for months. A couple weeks ago we finally booked [at a rate we could have gotten month's ago!] since there was no change. I even looked at cruises leaving 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks out [times that historically would bring great last min deals] and the prices were all around the same as our sailing on Sept 10. Prices today are the same as 2 weeks ago. We did save about $90pp by going through an online TA but we are not picky with staterooms and were willing to accept a GTY assignment.

 

It seems that the only exceptions to the "bad year for deals" rule in 2016 were the one-way trips. We did see some of those get down to $499pp before taxes [and taxes are ridiculous for Alaska cruise btw, so be prepared]. For the roundtrips from Seattle or Vancouver, $699 was the lowest I've seen on HAL this whole season and most were around $799-$899.

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Due to a last minute change in our vacation plans, we are considering an Alaska cruise (from Seattle). Our ideal sailing-start dates are between Aug/13-Aug/22. Amsterdam and Westerdam still seem to have many rooms available - but the prices don't seem any lower than advance prices.

 

Do last minute deals to Alaska exist anymore? I heard that some cruise lines stopped offering last-minute deals. Any point in waiting a few more days, with the hope of getting a better price?

 

This is going to be our first-time with Holland America & we will be travelling with small kids (under 7 years old). Are there activities & amenities for small kids?

 

Unless you spoke with HAL's inventory/dispatch dept directly the general public does not have any idea how many berths are truly available. Why? Because many people book GTY hoping for the upgrade fairy. In reality the sailings you are looking at could be at capacity or even oversold in which case HAL wouldn't need to offer last minute discounts. What you are seeing (I believe thru some booking website) is open assignable cabins; but those cabins have no relations overall berthing capacity & availability. All those cabins could be taken once the ship's dispatcher assigns those cabins to GTY bookings (which could be in the hundreds) within the next few weeks up to departure. For competitive reasons HAL or any cruise lines wouldn't want to disclose what their true berthing capacity. So it's very deceptive to just look at open cabins to determine the ship's availability. The other issue is that cruise line are also trying to avoid offering highly discounted rates after final payment as it tends to upset those that booked way in advance. However, that doesn't mean HAL wouldn't offer discounted rates to some of the national accounts or offer regional specials if cancellations occur. Just keep monitor prices on line or find a TA that specialized in HAL.

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20% off the HAL price seems decent enough. I would consider taking it.

Could you pls private-message me the name of the discount agency?

I don't know how to private-message here. When I searched, this thread came up saying that feature was disabled. There's a website that lets cruise lines compete by offering quotes on specific cruises.
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I don't know how to private-message here. When I searched, this thread came up saying that feature was disabled. There's a website that lets cruise lines compete by offering quotes on specific cruises.

 

Thanks! I will check it out.

 

We use that website. Yesterday, Zaandam July 31 oceanviews were advertised at $619. There is much less inventory available than in the past two years. The challenge is air, either to or from Alaska.

 

$619 seems like a very decent price for OV. We are within driving distance -- so, we don't need air tickets.

Edited by smariner
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The cruise is one way...Vancouver-Alaska.

 

We are in Vancouver often so we tend to scan the last minute offers. For the past two years there were many great offers. It was relatively easy to find a short notice cruise up the coast and another back down at fire sale prices.

 

Not so this year. There have been a few, but not nearly as many.

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The challenge is air, either to or from Alaska.

Definitely. I watched fares via flights.google.com and got a decent deal booking booking our cross-country flights 3-4 months in advance of our cruise. We'd booked the cruise itself through a certain red and blue members only big box store about six months in advance, but I booked airfare independently.

 

When I checked flights again(*) close to departure the airfare for our specific itinerary had gone up $1000 per person, and the lowest price options (with long layovers and crappy flight times) were still $500-600pp higher and several would require an extra night hotel stay before or after the trip.

 

I'd also watched the cruise fares, and while there was one price drop early on before final payment (which I cashed in on), I saw no other real drops. YMMV.

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I guess our experience was kind of opposite of everybody here. Long story short. Back in April on a Panama Canal cruise we were quoted $5K for 2 people in a Veranda. We declined. Over Memorial Day weekend we saw an offer for the same category on the Westerdam for $1800 for 2 people. We jumped on it. The only caveat....it left in 9 days. The airfare was handled by our PCC at HAL and he was able to get us from the east coast to Seattle, roundtrip for $1200. So, the total cost including air was $3K. Mind you, the $5K quote didn't include airfare...just the cruise. Around the 4th of July I saw a similar offer for a cruise at the end of July. Now, HAL picked the dates, not us. They also picked the Stateroom but we had an excellent room. So, I guess if you can be flexible enough....there MAY be deals with short notice.

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We do exactly the same. Late bookings on Med and Carib. cruises have saved us a great deal of money and enabled us to travel more frequently. Not certain about Alaska, but our experience on air to Europe and to SE Asia over the past 3-4 years is that air prices six months out and 10-30 days out are about the same.

 

The trick is to be flexible and go with the flow so to speak. Son#2 and GF just picked up a return flight from Vancouver to Paris in Aug. for $680 CAD two days ago. Depart mid August.

Edited by iancal
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The big thing for me is to check the cost of airfare when looking for bargains. Sometimes we can get a deal on a cruise, but the savings would be eaten up by the airfare. Once we decided to drive to Fort Lauderdale because the cost of airfare was over $600 per person from North Carolina. Fortunately, about a month before the cruise, I was able to get us flights for half that price. Once we retire, I won't mind driving as much for our cruises leaving from Florida since we won't be on a fixed time constraint to get home after the cruise. Of course West Coast cruises we'll still have to fly to unless we decide to do a cross-country trip. (DH took one the spring before we met while he was unemployed.)

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The cruise is one way...Vancouver-Alaska.

 

We are in Vancouver often so we tend to scan the last minute offers. For the past two years there were many great offers. It was relatively easy to find a short notice cruise up the coast and another back down at fire sale prices.

 

Not so this year. There have been a few, but not nearly as many.

 

It was mentioned that with the security concerns in Europe right now, Alaska cruises have become much more sought after. Hence, higher prices and less selection.

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I was trying to book Alaska for 2017 in March but the TA misunderstood me and searched for 2016 and she told me that there were NO cabins in June or July that slept 4. :eek: And this was in late March for sailings that were 2-3 months away.

 

Luckily for me, I was looking for 2017 and realized that for my family we could not chance it for a last minute booking.

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