Optimum time to book excursions

[ajn1982]

Hi

 

Anyone any suggestions as to what the optimal time to book excursions might be? Too soon, and there are insufficient available; too late, and they're all booked up. Is there a sweet spot somewhere?! Thanks!

[go.without.you]

I always book mine as soon as I book the cruise and then I keep checking the website for a sale. My last cruise I was able to rebook all of my excursions and saved over $200. 

[phoenix_dream]

A lot depends on the type.  Large bus tours can usually wait. Small group or expensive tours like helicopter in Alaska I would book early.

[wrk2cruise]

We've been finding that the prices have been continually increasing lately.   So I'd say book early and watch for "sales".   We have seen many times the "sale" price ends up higher than what we paid originally.

[soniam]

Definitely book early and keep looking. If you find a better excursion or price later, just cancel and book the new one. I did this when they had their cyber sale the first week or two after Thanksgiving. We booked our cruise very early, 2 years out. It's this summer, so we booked it during a covidy time. There weren't many excursions. At first, they only had some for 1 port. I just kept going back and looking, and eventually more showed up. Same for dining. Chef's table at Le Voyage was the last dining to show up that we wanted. They had sales on that too for cyber sale.

[ajn1982]

Thank you all. I never thought of booking early then rebooking if the price went down, so thanks for that tip!

[keesar]

One of our excursions had booked up quickly.  So on Day 2 of our cruise, there had been a cancellation and we booked.  It was about $5 more each but we got our excursion.

[mahdnc]

Yes, definitely book as soon as your excursion is available, because as others have said, the popular ones will sell out quickly. 

 

After you book it, you watch for announced and unannounced sale prices and be prepared to cancel/rebook the excursion to lock in the savings.  The best sources to find out that a sale on excursions is actively occurring are either on this Celebrity board (usually the best), your roll call (useful if the sale is limited to just a few sailings), and sometimes your Celebrity email (I wouldn't depend only on it).  

 

Quite frankly, I cannot think of an advantage to delaying the booking of an excursion other than cash flow management.

 

There is no price advantage to waiting to book until you are on board your cruise except possibly in very rare circumstances (e.g. expensive overnight shore excursion that hasn't sold out).