best time to get a discount on europe river cruise

Hello,

My husband and I want to celebrate our 25th anniversary with a river cruise in Europe in Sept/Oct 2019. I have been reading these boards for a while and realize that there are so many options (rivers, ships, tours etc) that my head is spinning I think that I have narrowed it down to an all-inclusive cruise on maybe Scenic or Uniworld. We are splurging on this and have been saving our pennies for a couple of years now. We would like to get a "good deal" but as I've been watching the promotions go over the last year, there doesn't seem to be any particular month when you can get the best deals.

So is there a "best" time to book? We do not want to wait so long that we can't get a nice cabin also...Thank you all for your time.

Uniworld tends to discount most heavily in the fall, around October or November, for the following year. That is usually when we book. AmaWaterways tends to offer the lowest prices at release, and they have some good prices, especially with their wine cruises. Some TAs will offer free gratuities with them, which leaves only additional drinks, outside of meal times and happy hour.

You should also consider Crystal, if you are looking at all-inclusive. They have a much higher staff:guest ratio, and their newer vessels (all except the Mozart) are all "balcony" and all of their ships have butlers with all cabin categories.

Robin

Hello,

My husband and I want to celebrate our 25th anniversary with a river cruise in Europe in Sept/Oct 2019. I have been reading these boards for a while and realize that there are so many options (rivers, ships, tours etc) that my head is spinning I think that I have narrowed it down to an all-inclusive cruise on maybe Scenic or Uniworld. We are splurging on this and have been saving our pennies for a couple of years now. We would like to get a "good deal" but as I've been watching the promotions go over the last year, there doesn't seem to be any particular month when you can get the best deals.

So is there a "best" time to book? We do not want to wait so long that we can't get a nice cabin also...Thank you all for your time.

I'm not enough of an expert to be able to offer good council on discount timing but I will say you're looking at our two excellent cruise lines. We've sailed with both and enjoyed both but given a choice we prefer Scenic's decor and special excursions and events. Uniworld was very very good too but they didn't include quite as much and the 'fancy' decor wasn't to our taste.

Congrats on your upcoming 25th. (We just celebrated our 25th last week.:))

Paul

Besides the discounts from the River Cruises, look for a referral from others who cruised a particular line, you might get a credit. On top of that many TAs give a cash rebate. Shop around and ask friends who’ve taken RCs

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We were looking at those two lines for a trip next year- I've always wanted to do a river cruise but my husband wasn't as excited but he couldn't veto my 50th b-day trip. :-) Anyway, after comparing the lines and inclusions we chose a cruise on the Crystal Mozart. They were running a deal that could not be beat and the timing and itinerary were ideal. I think the special is still on because we just received an additional cost reduction because prices dropped even lower. We did get the lowest cabin, but we tend to spend very little time in our cabins and the cabins on the Mozart are larger than cabins on most other ships, even the least expensive ones. It might be worth looking at Crystal, especially with the rates the are offering right now.

Happy anniversary and I hope you have a wonderful trip!!

Regardless of who you sail with, the further 'right' you slide in your preferred months, the cheaper it will be. September tends to be one of the most expensive months; late October is much cheaper.

We board our next river cruise on 1 November, on the least expensive sailing of the season. Will the weather be great? No, but crowds will be down, and we can afford to stay 8 days post cruise. Works for us.

Enjoy your trip.

We booked Scenic for mid October 2019. We booked in March this year and got quite a good deal. They were offering flights "up to $995" at that stage but I prefer to do my own bookings, so they gave us a $1000 discount per person instead. We also got the 2018 price rather than the 2019, as well as a couple of hundred dollars discount due to a referral from my parents. All my prices are Australian Dollars. From memory the original price for the seven night Amsterdam to Basel trip in a Junior Suite on Diamond Deck was $6400 AUD per person and we got it for $10200 for both of us.

Of course we now need to pay for flights and starting and ending hotels, but I love planning all that and wouldn't choose to stay in Scenic hotels anyway. We have been to Amsterdam before and I have a favourite hotel there. We will use trains to continue onto Vienna and Budapest after we leave the boat in Basel.

There definitely aren't many of the higher end cabins, and I notice that some of the categories on our trip are already fully booked.

thank you all so much. I think I won't wait til next year to book as we are pretty picky about cabins, however I will wait til about October/November I think. Really appreciate the info

Make sure you've started tracking prices & investigating offers now. You won't know a "good" deal unless you've known what the prices have been - for different dates, cabins, lines etc. And do some searching on perks too. You know we can't recommend travel agents, but if you can get an extra good deal, why not? ;-)

i just booked a crystal cruise on the crystal bach for an 8 day rhine river cruise from basel to amsterdam for november, 2019. i am a solo traveler and expect to pay more than just the regular pricing but crystal offered me a wonderful price as a single traveler. like i said, i just booked this cruise a week ago, so perhaps august is a good month to plan bookings for the next year. what i really liked about crystal was that everything is included in the price: food, drinks, excursions, wifi and butler service in the cabin. i am getting a regular suite with a king size bed, not a smaller room with a twin bed for a single so i'm very happy about that. i've never cruised with crystal because their ocean cruises are generally longer than i can take and their pricing is above my pay grade but i was really happy with their river cruise pricing. by the way, i did contact viking first, and their price for the same cruise was more than double the crystal price!

Make sure you've started tracking prices & investigating offers now. You won't know a "good" deal unless you've known what the prices have been - for different dates, cabins, lines etc.

Very good points.

Sign up for whatever lines you're interested in mailings. I know that you then get flooded. With Vantage, it seems to be the business envelope sized mail that seems to have the offers, typically on 8.5 x 11 colored paper.

With Viking, I asked for a quote for one balcony cabin: I thought it was crazy high, then received an e-mail 2 wks later offering a 14 night cruise and airfare for $4000 usd, if I could travel in 35 days. We could, and had a great sailing with our adult daughters in the 'aquarium' cabin next door. It was about the same as the quote for the balcony cabin, September time frame, for just my wife and I.

Most glossy catalogs seem nice to look at, but don't have any special offers.