how do I know my sailing has lots of availability ?

[downundermatt]

Am looking at taking my chances and booking a Transatlantic late and hopefully nabbing a cheap deal for November next year.

 

Is it possible to see how a ship is selling, and knowing there are lots of vacant cabins open ?

[easyboy]

On most cruise lines, you can try a mock booking for the sailing you want. When you choose a cabin, it would show how many are still available.

 

 

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[paul929207]

The problem you will face is that cruise lines sell what are called guarantees. The passengers are guaranteed a cabin, but are not assigned a specific one until the cruise line decides to assign it. So there will not really be as many cabins available as the deck plans will show.

[Flatbush Flyer]

On most cruise lines, you can try a mock booking for the sailing you want. When you choose a cabin, it would show how many are still available.

 

 

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Not necessarily. Do a second mock booking and you may see different cabins (not unlike Ticketmaster and show seats).

 

 

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[Shmoo here]

On most cruise lines, you can try a mock booking for the sailing you want. When you choose a cabin, it would show how many are still available.

 

 

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Not always how many are available. Most of the cruise lines I've sailed on will only show you 6-8 rooms that are available within the category you're looking to book. Not all of them.

[Clarea]

Am looking at taking my chances and booking a Transatlantic late and hopefully nabbing a cheap deal for November next year.

 

Is it possible to see how a ship is selling, and knowing there are lots of vacant cabins open ?

I'd try some of the travel agent websites, many have a better visual display of available staterooms.

[Nic6318]

Am looking at taking my chances and booking a Transatlantic late and hopefully nabbing a cheap deal for November next year.

 

Is it possible to see how a ship is selling, and knowing there are lots of vacant cabins open ?

 

 

Hi

 

You are more likely of getting a cabin "cheap" by booking sooner than later. If you do so make sure you are booking with a rate that allows for price drops.

 

If you can't book sooner, at least if you are following the price this far out, you would be able to see the price fluctuations as well as cabin availability and jump in if necessary. As has been mentioned you can follow the cabin prices, but looking at one cabin class wont tell you how others are selling. If you are a family of four for instance you can't book a cabin that doesn't sleep four, and if you are only two they typically won't allow you to book a cabin that holds four. They do their rearranging as they get closer to sail date to accommodate the "guarantee" cabin class assignments, and then they juggle what is left with upsell offers so that they end up with cabins that they feel will sell out easier. At that point for most cruises there will be only a handful of cabins available. Very often they won't discount these as it would allow passengers who had booked that cabin class to get a price match, so it would likely only happen if prices had risen close to the sail date and only discounting slightly to match recent prices.

 

hope this helps

[navybankerteacher]

Cruise lines have gotten fairly competent at their line of work: which is to sell passage at rates beneficial to them--- which means that they are good at not letting it be known how cabins are selling. If you really are interested in "nabbing a cheap deal", you should wait until a week or so before sailing. Then, if the ship is not sold out, you probably will get a bargain. Of course, you also run the risk of not getting the sort of cabin you might want - or of not getting on at all.

 

You also run the risk of higher related costs: getting over there and hotels pre cruise.

 

You should try to book with the right to take advantage of price cuts before final payment date, but you really need to decide what is more important: sailing or getting a cheap deal.

[Keith1010]

I will give you my advice.

 

Don't wait.

 

Crossings used to sell slowly until people figured out that the pricing was good as are the sea days. My experience is most sell very well and the lower price room sell first. So if you wait often even if there is some price reduction the lower priced room are gone.

 

On a crossing I also believe that location is important as the seas can get choppy which to me is another reason to book early.

 

Other reasons include Hotels and Air.

 

Keith

[Markanddonna]

Keith's observations are correct. Only a few years ago, there was at least one big online travel site that showed the available cabins by "flashing" them on the deck plan. It is no longer there.

 

My observation is that several, but not all the cabin categories will be posted in the early months and not all cabins. Then, magically, you will see additional categories added. There is a helpful website that shows the history of the price of a sailing, but we are not allowed to post names on this site.

 

Like others have said, that info is a closely guarded secret and even "full" sailings" all of a sudden open up at times because of cancelations or the travel agents returning their block. If we knew that info, we would indeed be holding a valuable card.

[hancock]

sea I check a European website to see what cabins available. scanner Use 1st and last work to find the website.

[thinfool]

My way....watch pricing as the months approach sail date...if they go up, it is likely selling well and you should move on it.

 

If they stay the same or go down....the opposite is true....even better, wait until a month after final payment date to see if there are 'fill up the ship' rates in evidence.

 

Transatlantic sailings will have few young people, families, etc...so older passengers may or may not want to sail on them.

 

Nice thing is....there are a lot of TA sailings, so you can watch more than just the one you are interested in to see what level of interest exists.

[PhD-iva]

sea I check a European website to see what cabins available. scanner Use 1st and last work to find the website.

 

 

 

THANK YOU!!

 

 

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[iancal]

We have used that site to determine how a cruise is selling for a number of years. We typically 'tune in' a few days after final payment when any placeholders have cancelled their bookings.

 

Clearly it does not account for gtys however we feel that many cruises use the gty category as a way of placating customers from either asking for repricing or in the case of the final payment window, asking for OBC's or upgrades. At one point we cancelled a booking, then rebooked a week later inside the final payment window. Got a much better category balcony at a signficant savings. We almost always go with late bookings. Some as close as a week or two prior but the vast majority have been booked 45-60 days out. Enough time to get good air when it is required. The one proviso is that when booking, it is usually a gty. So far we have always been pleased with the location. We invariably have a backup just in case we cannot get the fare or get the air.

 

The move towards non refundable bookings etc. will invariably make booking inside the final payment window more difficult and I suspect it will even be more difficult to score a good cabin location. The cruise lines want to cut customers like us off at the knees so to speak.