How Early To Book For Holiday Cruise?

[Samanthac25]

I am interested in a December 2020 cruise over Christmas and/or New Years. I know prices fluctuate throughout the year and like everyone, I am trying to find the best price. How early do you think I should pull the trigger and book? Are there consistent times throughout the year for sales that are worth waiting for? Is there a time frame before a specific sailing when prices typically go up and not down? 

[SurfCat]

When booking for popular times, which I believe the Holidays would qualify, I book as early as I can.  We cruise every year over New Years and I've found the the prices only go up throughout the year.

[MechE31]

As early as possible. We booked last month for Christmas 2020 and the price has done nothing but go up.

[PhillyFan33579]

As others have already stated, book the cruise as early as possible. For the last several years including this year and next year, we have cruised over Thanksgiving and Christmas. For all of these cruises, including the 4 we currently have booked, the price only increased after booking them. 

[yankeenurse]

We booked our Christmas cruise in April.

[jlabs03]

As others have stated holiday and popular cruises only go up in price so you should book as soon as possible. 

[bakersdozen12]

If you book as soon as itineraries are released, under Early Saver, you are assured to get the best price.  Either the price will go up (most likely scenario), or prices go down and you price match to the lower price and get the difference in OBC.

[RWolver672]

The sooner you book, the better your options are for cabin choices.  

[pe4all]

We book as early as 1 year out for a Christmas cruise.  We make sure we book under "early saver" as bakersdozen12 stated.  If we see price drops, we call up and get price adjusted, usually as obc, as we pay off our cruise pretty quickly.  

[Joebucks]

It's a strong economy. Prices just keep going up. I would book sooner than later, especially if you get price protection.

[riffatsea]

You do not have to book Early Saver to get price drops!

Early Saver has lots of restrictions on changing names/dates etc so not everyone likes to book it that way.

You can get price drops with other bookings up until final payment date.

The only difference is that Early Saver allows price drops AFTER final payment.

I agree that you should just book this cruise now.

[jdemps]

we typically book about 18 months+  in advance for all cruises. 

I've never seen the price go down really since we book as early as we can.  

[buddylover]

We agree with the other responses....we always book very far out, mostly when bookings open which is 18+ months out.  We have found prices are at their lowest these days (used to get lots of reductions after final payment - but not really any longer especially on popular time frames and ships) when the bookings open and generally just keep increasing as the ship starts to fill, rarely dropping.  Secondly, for optimal choices on cabins, the earlier the better when the ship is empty and you have a full choice to pick from.  The only bit of advice for CCL is, if you book Early Saver (typically the lowest price), you will have a penalty of $50 for cancelling or changing the cruise.....so if you are not sure and don't want to pay a penalty, book with another fare type for slightly more money now.....6 of one half dozen of another.....do the math before booking and paying deposit!  Just our $.02.

[Nadersmom]

We are going on our first "holiday" cruise over Thanksgiving.  This will be our 5th cruise.   We've always cruised around the beginning of November and usually book cruises about 9 months out.    I believe every cruise we've done has had a price drop or two after we book that we were able to take advantage of.

 

But not this one.   We booked in October of 2018 and the price has only gone up since then.   Last time I checked which was I think about a month or so ago it was probably close to double the price that we paid at booking.  And when we booked, the there were already a limited # of rooms left.  Or at least it was showing most of it booked when I was doing mock bookings online.

 

 

[Eli_6]

I would book now. I booked one for this year back in july or so and some of the rooms I would have preferred were already booked. I also think there is a price match if the rate goes down, but I could be wrong on that...or it could be restricted to a specific type of ticket. 

[pe4all]

4 hours ago, riffatsea said:

You do not have to book Early Saver to get price drops!

Early Saver has lots of restrictions on changing names/dates etc so not everyone likes to book it that way.

You can get price drops with other bookings up until final payment date.

The only difference is that Early Saver allows price drops AFTER final payment.

I agree that you should just book this cruise now.

It is true about not having to book ES to get price drops.    However, we have found that if there are price drops, they usually occur after final payment is due, as that is when they try to dump unbooked cabins.  You would then have 3 months to hope to get some obc from a drop.  

[Roz]

Holiday cruises are popular with families and extended families, and there are many multi-cabin bookings, and lots of people looking for cabins that accommodate 3-4 passengers.  Unless you're not particular about the category and location of your cabin, book early.

 

Roz