booking cruise how late

[Watson's aunt]

Hi

 

How much booking is made on ships one, two month's out for cruising. With so many cruises and place to go I was just wondering how many bookings are made in this period. I am booked on Nov 8 sailing. (Panama Canal)

 

Mary

[RJ2002]

Hmmm, hard to say. We usually always book a least 6 months in advance, but I am sure I've read here on CC that some very flexible folks have booked within a week of the cruise.

[Scrapnana]

If you have a flexible schedule, you can often get some good deals booking after final payments are due. Cruise lines want to sail as full as possible, so they often reduce prices. No idea what percentage on a cruise booked last minute.

[trophy_23]

I have only been on one cruise that was booked before final payment. The latest booking for me was 3weeks out.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We always book our cruises months in advance as we want to make certain that we get the cabin we like.

[BumperII]

We have booked a many cruises after the "final payment" date. We still have no way to answer your question. Booking at the last minute has both pros and cons, ie, good pricing but limited choice of staterooms.

 

Last minute booking was great when we first started cruising. We did not care where the cruise went simply because we hadn't been anywhere yet. Being newly retired, we had time on our hands, so we didn't care when. We didn't care about cabin choices until we learned our cruising style.

 

Now that we know our favorite cruises, we cruise a little less often, and tend to make our bookings well ahead of schedule. But we sure had a lot of fun learning.

[Mimosa09]

We wanted to book an Alaskan cruise in the fall one year, but only after our grandson was born. We used one of those online TA who kept an eye out for what would be available for when.

We called the TA 4 days after our grandson was born to confirm we would be ready to go (it helps when you live 5 hours from the port) and found ourselves on a Celebrity cruise 16 days after booking it.

I remember there were several cruises available, but no discounts that I could recall. I think it was the year that Alaskan cruises were really popular (2009), so prices stayed up. Then last year we got a really good deal on an Alaskan cruise - paid less for a mini suite on a Princess ship than we paid on any of our previous Verandahs of our previous Alaskan cruises. Booked that one July 4th and sailed Aug 25th - not quite 2 months out.

 

-Rose

[Randyk47]

Hi

 

How much booking is made on ships one' date=' two month's out for cruising. With so many cruises and place to go I was just wondering how many bookings are made in this period. I am booked on Nov 8 sailing. (Panama Canal)

 

Mary[/quote']

 

No idea, obviously some, maybe a lot. We can't, at least not easily, so we don't even watch last minute offers. Would certainly help if we lived closer to a major port other than Galveston and its limited itineraries and cruise ships.

[Cruising-along]

Other than Alaska cruises, we have to fly to all the ports....so we have never booked after final payment date.

 

Now that we're retired, we might look at last minute Alaska cruises in the future, but probably not others.

[iancal]

One way to tell is to watch the pricing after final payment date. If it drops fairly significantly shortly after that, and it stays low for a week or two, or longer then you know that bookings are light and many people will be booking in within the cancellation window.

 

We do a fair amount of our booking in this window but we generally narrow it down to two or three ships and then select the best value offer for us. We did a Med cruise from Istanbul two years ago and we met an unusually high number of fellow cruisers(or so it seemed) who like us had booked 4-8 weeks out.

[CruiserBruce]

It would seem some do, but how many probably varies considerably by each individual cruise. I would also expect this to be industry secrets, so doubt you will get a hardcore answer.

 

Remember, the savings on a last minute cruise buy may be eaten by the higher last minute airfares.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We also have no choice but to fly to all our embarkation ports.

And we have no direct flights to anywhere and few flights to start with.

So booking a last minute cruise -- our chances of getting flights within 60 days of the cruise are zero.

[LetsGoDutch]

What I've done is book the flights 1st, then watch for the cruise prices to come down.

 

Last year, I booked a Canada/New England cruise on the Eurodam in a VE gty for $ 1800 pp.

 

About 8 weeks prior to departure, they had a Flash Sale for VH gty $ 1600 pp

 

Then every week, the price would drop a little more.

 

Finally, 2 wks prior, it dropped to $ 900 pp

 

If I'd waited, I'd have saved 50%.

 

I got my stateroom assignment 10 days before sailing.

 

It was still in a VE ( kinda disappointed about that ) but at least it was midship.

[Typhoon1]

I think bookings are permitted up to hours prior to departure. I've often wondered what the price supplement would be.

[Krazy Kruizers]

I think bookings are permitted up to hours prior to departure. I've often wondered what the price supplement would be.

 

I asked this one time -- and was told by a hotel director that they ask for the original full fare price -- which can be quite high.

[trophy_23]

I think bookings are permitted up to hours prior to departure. I've often wondered what the price supplement would be.

 

I can't see how bookings would be permitted up to hours before departure when we go to visit a friend on board (HAL officer) while he is in port for the day we need to provide passport info 48hours in advance or we can't board.

[sandygal]

Last year Hurricane Sandy changed our cruising plans! We had been booked on the NCL Gem out of New York City, for October 29, which was exactly the day Sandy hit. The day before, the Sunday, it became apparent that this cruise was not going to happen, so we switched our cruise to HAL Zuiderdam out of Ft Lauderdale, for the same day. We were able to switch our flights, and wound up with an eleven day cruise instead of a nine day! We got a super deal, too, $599 for an oceanview.

 

So yes, it is possible to book the day before!:)

[rajkr74]

Hi

 

How much booking is made on ships one' date=' two month's out for cruising. With so many cruises and place to go I was just wondering how many bookings are made in this period. I am booked on Nov 8 sailing. (Panama Canal)

 

Mary[/quote']

 

We usually book many months in advance (6-12) because we want to select certain cabins. But after doing the 2011 Panama Canal cruise in April-May and getting home we got a brochure from HAL with an offer for the 14 day Alaska cruise on the Amsterdam that we could not refuse. The price was very good so we booked it 45 days before departure. Hal had lowered the price to generate bookings so we took advantage of it and had one of our best cruises.

[adrift@sea]

I think bookings are permitted up to hours prior to departure. I've often wondered what the price supplement would be.

 

Yes, bookings are, in fact, accepted until almost the very last minute. We have friends that booked the day before a sailing. We have other friends that were put on a waiting list on a particular cruise and were asked if they would be willing to be at the terminal for embarkation in case a cabin opened up.

 

I have never heard of a price supplement for a cruise booked at the last minute---at least with HAL. Generally, the price is whatever the last price they were asking for a category. But I did learn something interesting when booking a cruise about 5 days before sailing. We received an email stating there would be availability on the cruise in which we were waitlisted and to contact HAL's PCC as soon as possible. I called and told him we were interested in the sailing but wanted to know what the price was. He asked me what category I was interested in and gave me about 10 categories and the price for each. I inquired as to how there could be so many open cabins if we had been on a waiting list for a full ship. He told me that once I picked the category we wanted, they would just continue to shift passengers around. They do this right up to the morning of sailing. When we boarded another person's luggage was delivered to our cabin with the printed luggage tags so they were obviously moved. We were moved up about 7 categories from what we booked.

 

I asked this one time -- and was told by a hotel director that they ask for the original full fare price -- which can be quite high.

 

This might have been true at one time but not so recently. I think HAL would love to move into this type of pricing to avoid last minute bookings but it would be very difficult now as passengers understand the way they price their cruises.

[adrift@sea]

I can't see how bookings would be permitted up to hours before departure when we go to visit a friend on board (HAL officer) while he is in port for the day we need to provide passport info 48hours in advance or we can't board.

 

That is an entirely different process. The Officer needs to complete a request form on board to be approved and then processed---I am not entirely clear what the exact steps are in the process but I am fairly certain it then has to be cleared by Seattle, who then submits it to Homeland Security and info is then sent back to the ship. Once on the ship, your name has to be put on a list that is then given to the Port Security Officer who you need to clear with at the terminal (in the crew area). Info is also given to Security at the gangway on board where your name is checked and you are given your visitor badge.

 

I am sure that they are able to clear visitiors in less time, however, this is the policy. I am not sure if it set by HAL and/or Homeland Security but I do understand why it is set up this way.