Booking Future cruises while on board a Carnival ship question???

[Galleon1234]

We are getting ready to go on a cruise. While on the cruise I want to book a few Future cruises. 1 I have the specific cruise I want to book. however on the others, can I book a far out date cruise as "Past Guest" and then later more it up and apply it to an "early saver" on another cruise? I have had no problem doing this before. Has anything changed?

 

Is "Early Saver" where you can get price drops up until 2 days, still the way to go on a specific cruise? I know on Early Saver if you make changes you pay a $50 penalty...

 

Thanks for any advice!

[BoDidly]

ES is where you can find good deals however I have strayed away from ES, to many confusing rules and limitations. Price drops are few and in between when sales are good .

[Galleon1234]

So what rate do you tend to book?

[BoDidly]

So what rate do you tend to book?

 

Anything other than ES ;)

[ryano]

I booked my upcoming cruise on Magic while on Magic this past May. If I had to do it all over again, i would have booked past guest. its only like 20.00 pp more without all the restrictions. Prices did not drop on my last cruise and I dont expect them to on my next one. I likely will not book ES again.

 

To hopefully answer one of your questions, the way I understand it is, you can change to ES but you cant change from ES to any other rate like past guest. Someone will correct me if Im wrong :0

[Galleon1234]

Wow! Now I am really thinking about Early Saver... What are all the restrictions with Early Saver? I thought if any other fare came out that was lower you could get it with Early Saver... Maybe they have changed that...

Hope someone will answer this...

[Dalebr]

You have price protection on Past Guest rates as well up until final payment date. You have this because you can always cancel your cruise up until this point. Carnival has and will honor price drops on this fare until final payment date. After final payment date you would need to be booked ES to have fare protection. However, they then start promoting SuperSaver which doesn't allow you to choose your room and makes your price protection via ES worthless. I prefer to book Past Guest rates over ES now and pay the slight premium. That being said we are booked ES on our upcoming cruise because we were offered $200 OBC as a part of an ES promotion. These types of promotions will be the only time I book ES going forward.

[JohnSpo]

We are getting ready to go on a cruise. While on the cruise I want to book a few Future cruises. 1 I have the specific cruise I want to book. however on the others, can I book a far out date cruise as "Past Guest" and then later more it up and apply it to an "early saver" on another cruise? I have had no problem doing this before. Has anything changed?

 

Is "Early Saver" where you can get price drops up until 2 days, still the way to go on a specific cruise? I know on Early Saver if you make changes you pay a $50 penalty...

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

I use this approach of booking the Past Guest and converting over to Early Saver once my dates are confirmed. I did this last in Nov-2016 and it still worked out for me.

[Galleon1234]

Yes, I have had pretty good luck with ES and getting price drops. We cruise when kids are in school so there is usually better availability on the cruises.