clementine01

The following was taken from a cruise blog. Is it true that early booking is a bad thing to do? Are the best price drops really 60 days prior to sailing?

"As early as one year before the sail date, cruise ships block the best spots like midship locations, in an attempt to sell out the less wanted locations. It's like real estate development, start selling the worst location, thus phase 1 could be that end of the blueprint. Then open the next phase which is more accessible.

Don't sweat it out, don't allow the pressure-selling agent to book you just because it's free deposit! The downside of booking early is that your final payment will become due 120 days before sailing date. What the agent does not say is that, in the event of price drop (which is likely to happen 60 days before the sail date) and you have fully paid your reservation, there is no way to adjust your pricing unless you cancel your reservation with penalty equivalent to your deposit, or as much as 50% or more of your payment, depending on how close it is to sailing date. In short, you are discouraged from canceling and rebooking your reservation in order to avail of better pricing and freebies.

The so-called "price guarantee" has a lot of fine prints that the cruise line and travel agents do not tell their clients. Whether you are first or nth time cruiser, and simply too ecstatic for that vacation of a lifetime with your loved ones, it is easy to overlook that your next door cabin actually paid half of what you did a year ago!"

Robin,

We will be on Holland America's Nieuw Amsterdam.

Jean

Yes, after further research I discovered that there have been several ships named the same.

That was confusing.

Thank you for your response.

Thanks for your response.

We will be sailing on Holland America's "Nieuw Amsterdam". Anyone had a verandah room on that one?

How many decks do you need to be above the lifeboats so that they do not distract from you balcony view?

Thank you

For all you balcony lovers . . . how many decks above the lifeboats to you need to be to avoid them being a distraction to your view?

Thanks!

Nice information on the "class" explanations, but it's 2014 and a time for an upgrade . . . especially concerning the Signature class ships.

One poster refers to the "Nieuw Amsterdam" as no longer in service. Curiously Cruise Critic : http://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/cruiseline.cfm?CruiseLineID=21 states that this is one of the newest ships, launched in 2010.

How can this be?