Poll: How far in advance do most people book?

[HOSKI]

I was wondering how far in advance do most people book their cruises.  I know if bookings are slow the will go on sale and people will book last minute but do people usually wait till 3 or 6 months out to book?  We do both.  Right now the family has a few booked, who is going varies by the cruise.  1 April booked yesterday just for hubby, 1 May for hubby and my anniversary booked in December, 1 May for family booked December or January, 1 June for hubby and DD1 booked last week, and 1 in October for me and DD2 & 3 booked in January. 

 

I'm hoping for a Royal up offer for October.  I would also like one for May family cruise but very few cabins are left.  I went back and looked at each of our cruises to see what was left and some are booked pretty solid and some look very empty.  That got me thinking of when people normally book.

[Jasukkie]

I'm a bargain shopper, generally within 60-90 days of the cruise. I work so it's also easier to manage my schedule in that time frame rather than a year out.

[whyrlygig]

Usually we book out about a 9 months or so.  We do have one booked already for 12/2020 tho because the cabin we want is hard to come by.  

[OCruisers]

For our longer cruise of the year we book over a year in advance to be sure of getting the cabin we want.  

[JAMESCC]

We usually book 10-12 months in advance and then check the fares everyday for drops.

[Holmie]

As early as I know we will have the time, we book. As of now, we have cruises booked for spring break this year, summer break, over New Years this year, summer 2020, and over New Years 2020-2021. We like to be able to pay off over time. 

[LBumb]

It depends ov cruise fare and flight costs

[later]

We book when the new itineraries are released.

[Clarea]

As soon as the itinerary is released.

[Biker19]

Whenever I see one which seems like a good value.

[OCruisers]

As posted, we do book our longer cruises a year or so in advance.  

We pick the cabin we want at a price that seems fair to us and forget it until it's time to cruise.

No way do we check for price drops, etc. each day.

 

 

[Tapi]

For our last cruise, I booked 1 year and 4 months in advance. The category that I was interested in only had one stateroom left so I had to do it.

[grandgeezer]

We book when we find a cruise we want to take, at a price we think it’s worth. Anywhere between ten months and six weeks. 

[nws2002]

It just depends for me. For the short 3-4 day cruises, generally about 3 months out. For the longer cruises or interesting itineraries, about a year out. I've only been on 7 cruises in the past 2 years though. After my first one I was hooked, haha.

[John&LaLa]

Unfortunately this does not seem to be an actual poll.  One of the features of the new CC version is the ability to create and respond to polls via our mobile devices

[John&LaLa]

Anywhere from 2 years to 3 days.  Bikers response was spot on

[Ourusualbeach]

March 2021 was booked in December 2018 where tineraties were released. Easy to book that far in advance when you know when spring break is.

[nashirak]

Usually we book 2-3 months out. We’re considering booking a B2B in oct-nov 2020 soon just so we can make sure we can get the same cabin on both legs in the category/location we want. 

[fredflint]

I usually tend to book further out but also look at pricing and see what looks good.  Right now it looks like the 2020 TAs are pretty expensive, since we pretty much just do TAs I will keep an eye out for deals and see what comes up.

 

We are doing our first Spring TA in a couple of months, so will see which we like better.

[hapster85]

I think our first cruise, in 1991, was booked 6 - 9 months out. Everything else has been a year or more in advance. Not really sure why. We've thrown together other vacation in under a week.

[barb65]

New to RCCL, so we booked 18 months in advance on Symphony to get the junior suite we wanted. I understand they sell out fast and didn't want to take a chance of losing out. Looking forward to our first time with Royal!

[lovescats5]

We also book as soon as the new schedules are posted.  Have just booked the Anthem for Feb. 2021 in the Grand Loft Suite.  We also never look at prices after booking because on Oasis class and Quantum class we book Star Class suites and those do not seem to go on sale and there are not usually any available close to sailing.

[Iamcruzin]

It has been my experience that it is best to book Royal Caribbean as close to the launch date as possible especially when sailing from Cape Liberty. I booked over a year out which I have never done before. Even though they have never ending fake sales the price of the first person had gone up and my category even sold out long before I thought it would.  With that said I can book a Celebrity cruise  10 day New England  and Bermuda  sailing the same week  in June that I'm booked on a 9 day Anthem Bermuda/Caribbean for about the same price. Celebrity was offering the drink package, $300 OBC and WiFi. If I we weren't traveling with others I would be canceling my Royal Caribbean cruise and booking Celebrity.  On Princess no more than 9months out and I call every time the price drops before final payment.  I never see price drops on Royal.

 

[HBE4]

Probably 6 months out. But I do that with all my vacations. I guess I'm not really much of a long range planner.

[juju2454]

As soon as they are available we have booked out over a year and a half... or more if we can.