No last minute discounts... yah... right.

So many cruise ; so little money :(

What a thread :). When it comes to last minute bargains, one really needs to be flexible. There are plenty of times when a cruise sells well, and last minute prices increase or are not even available. And there are times when it goes the other way....and then there are the truly amazing bargains which are out there for those of us able to get away on short notice. So, for example, a poster mentioned the 10/15 Equinox which certainly does not offer any last minute bargains. On the other hand, the Nov 18 Equinox has excellent bargains on balconies (strange for a Thanksgiving cruise).

 

Hank

Can also increase dramatically - take a look at the Millennium Oct 16 and 30 prices - for our B2B AQ they are now 55% higher than the prices when we booked in December 2014!

Let's face it. Unless they are willing to sail with empty ships there will always be price drops. I don't think anyone could have forecasted the Zika virus and how it would effect Caribbean sailings 2 years ago when the itineraries opened or the terrorist attacks in Europe. Does anyone know what the economy will be like in two years? Also not everyone is held hostage by loyalty status and will sail on the competition if there is a better deal to be had. All of these uncontrollable events will effect bookings and pricing. The only thing that I notice is that they offer more perks to fill the ships before they drop price. They also over price lower categories to force you to book a higher category that probably isn't selling. I have seen this a lot with the ocean view costing more than a balcony and Concierge costing more than Aqua and they have the nerve to advertise it as a sale. I'm sure there are many newbies who fall hook, line and sinker for those deals.

Can also increase dramatically - take a look at the Millennium Oct 16 and 30 prices - for our B2B AQ they are now 55% higher than the prices when we booked in December 2014!

Yep, we have friends joining us on our upcoming Caribbean cruise next january. Their aqua class room is costing them £1000 ($1300) more than our sky suite per person as we booked very early on whilst they only booked last month.

BigBenBoys, wow, you did better than us...good for you. I think I might be afraid of getting a suite upgrade because it would be hard to go back to veranda on our future trips....

We're pretty specific about the itineraries we want and the cabins we want so if we see something that appeals, we book it. In more than 30 cruises, I can remember two times when discounts came along and we were able to either get our cabin discounted or move to a better cabin.

 

In the worst case scenario, the pricing has remained stable or gone up by a small amount. In one case, the price of an ocean view is $1300 per person more than our Aqua Class Cabin.

We have done 9 cruises on X and only twice have seen prices drop below our booked price. We book early, sometime 2 years ahead. On both the cruises where the prices dropped the drop was not huge, but we did call and get an upgrade on one to Aqua.

We have done a lot of travel and don't like to repeat cruises that we have done before. Although, we lived in Europe for 4 years and did a lot of land travel before cruising we have visited many places that we visited while living in Europe.

As we run out of cruises, we find planning transatlantic or transpacific cruises where we do a land trip in connection with the cruise and only have to fly in one direction.

Got screwed by a price drop today... sailing in a celebrity suite in late oct. Price drop of $1100 from what we paid .. called to try anyway knowing there policy...to no avail.. its a real bummer that this is how they treat loyal customer who frequent suites and always travel with other family in suites as well..