Do you enjoy traveling by cruise ship?
Or, are you thinking about taking your first cruise vacation?
Whether you are planning your first or 20th cruise, these 12 tips may help you get a better deal on your next cruise.
1. Plan your cruise to sail during shoulder season.
Shoulder season means the outside-of-peak time for cruises in a given destination. Cruise prices rise and fall based on demand, and demand is lower at the beginning or end of the cruise ship’s arrival in a destination. For example, if you want the best deal on an Alaska cruise, book it for May or September sailings, when the ships are first arriving in Alaska or about the depart. March, April, early May, late October and November are lower priced times to cruise in the Mediterranean. Cruises to southern hemisphere destinations like South America and Australia generally cost less to sail in November (springtime) than in January (summer season.) Airfare to a given destination tends to be cheaper in shoulder season also.
2. Buy your cruise early, 10-18 months before departure.
The cruise industry rewards those who plan ahead with extra perks that can add up to hundreds of dollars a day when you book your cruise 10-18 months ahead of the sailing date when the itineraries are first issued. Early cruise bookers tend to snap up the best staterooms and preferred dining times. Plus you can take advantage of lower airfare and/or frequent flier miles to get you to the port. Airlines such as United and America often release their schedules for booking air (and frequent flier tickets) 330 days before departure.
Worried that the price will go down? Most, but not all cruise fares are fully refundable before final payment, generally 75-90 days before departure. When you book these fares, you can re-book if the price goes down before final payment. Just be sure that your travel agent does not charge a fee to re-book.
3. Buy your cruise at the last minute, within 30 days before sailing.
Cruise ships must sail full for the cruise line to make money. Empty beds are as perishable as fresh lettuce – once the ship sails the missed revenue of an empty cabin can never be replaced. As people cancel at the last minute, the cruise lines lower the price to try to fill space. For the best deals, book within 30 days before departure.
Please note, this strategy only works for flexible travelers. Last-minute cruise fares can be low, but the airfare to reach the port city is likely quite high. You also cannot be choosy about the location of your stateroom. Last-minute cruise fares are often sold as guarantees, which means that you are guaranteed a cabin in the category you purchased, i.e. an ocean-view cabin if you bought that category, but you are likely to get the cabin with the window view obstructed by the lifeboat, or the one under the Lido restaurant with early morning noise.
4. Buy a stateroom guarantee rather than a specific cabin.
Regardless of when you buy your cruise, you can always buy a “guarantee” rather than a specific stateroom or suite. Why would you do this? Well, when we buy a guarantee, we almost always get upgraded. Cruise lines use guarantees to fill unsold or available do to cancellation cabins 1-2 weeks before the cruise departs. If the ship in oversold in the lowest priced cabins in the category, the cruise line upgrades you. Generally you won’t get upgraded from an inside to a verandah, but you are likely to get upgraded to a higher category (i.e. a more-expensive inside cabin in a more favorable location, or even an outside with an obstructed view.)
If you are picky about your cabin location, this is not the strategy for you. You are buying any cabin in the category that the cruise line assigns you, and if you buy the verandah guarantee, you could get assigned the most undesirable verandah on the ship, or perhaps one with a partially-blocked view. If you buy a stateroom guarantee, always buy it for the category that you can live with.
5. Use a travel agent that specializes in cruises to make your booking.
It might seem like it should be cheaper to book your cruise directly with the cruise line or one of its “personal cruise consultants.” It’s not. Travel agents that specialize in cruises have the same prices as the cruise line, but they give you much more in terms of added value. Shipboard credits, wine, complimentary dining at specialty restaurants, pre-paid gratuities — you almost always gets something of extra value from a quality cruise travel agent. Generally the cruise agent will not charge a fee, and the right one will be much more knowledgeable about a variety of cruise lines’ ships, promotions and itineraries that the cruise line’s reps at their call center.
6. Become a shareholder and score extra shipboard credits.
Carnival Corporation (CCL), Royal Caribbean International (RCL) and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NCLH) represent the majority of major cruise line brands. When you own 100 shares of more of the stock, each cruise company provides a shareholder benefit when you sail on one of their cruise lines. We collect these extra shipboard credits most every time we sail. Learn more about the Carnival and the Royal Caribbean offers here. Learn more about the NCL shareholder offer here. (NOTE: this is not intended to be financial advice. We are simply sharing strategies that we use get more value on our cruises.)
7. Purchase a future cruise credit while you are onboard your current cruise.
There’s no better time to think about your next cruise than when you are sailing on your current cruise. A quick visit to the on-board cruise consultant to purchase a future cruise credit is worth a few minutes, as it generally nets you an additional shipboard credit that is may be combined with other offers These future credits are generally $100 -$500 per person, depending on the length of the cruise and the cruise line.
Back home, when you work with your cruise travel agent to book your next cruise, they simply apply this “credit” to your booking, holding your reservation until final payment without the normal deposit. On-board cruise consultants can also book you for a specific cruise, but you probably don’t want to spend that amount of time while on your vacation. Some cruise lines even offer a form that you can fill out in advance and drop off at the cruise consultant’s desk, authorizing the purchase of your future cruise credit. Your travel agent can get you the form to use on your next cruise.
8. Cruise when others do not want to cruise.
If you are flexible and not easily deterred by weather issues or holiday commitments, book your cruise during low-demand times for the best deal. When are low-demand times? Any cruise in early December that returns before the Christmas holiday. November cruises that do not include the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Any cruise departing after the new year during the first two weeks in January (World Cruises being exceptions to this rule.) Any cruise that departs in late August or early September around the start of the school year. Any cruise over the U.S. 4th of July. And, any cruise to the Caribbean or Mexico during hurricane season, which starts June 1 and ends November 30, although you will generally find cruises in September, October and early November most discounted.
9. Buy a segment of a longer cruise.
Many cruise lines offer longer cruises, including some that completely circumnavigate the globe. While many guests choose to take the entire 80 to 160 day cruises, the lines also sell segments of these longer cruises. As these cruises get closer to departure, it may turn out that some of the “segments” are less popular than others. Rather than sail with empty cabins during those segments, cruise lines will often discount these “less-popular” segments. For example, we bought an 11-day segment of the 2014 World Cruise on the Seabourn Sojourn for a significantly lower rate per day than the normal daily rate for the world cruise.
10. Agree to a “buy-off” from the cruise line to change the date of your sailing.
Just like the airlines and hotels overbook their inventory, cruise lines overbook their ships as some people who book never end up sailing for a variety of reasons. On rare occasion, not as many folks cancel the cruise as normal. Or there’s a computer glitch that allows too many bookings to occur. During these rare occasions, you might be contacted by your travel agent with a “buy-off” offer. In exchange for your willingness to move to a different sailing, the cruise line will give you significant financial incentives to move to a different sailing –as much as 50- 100 percent of your cruise fare, and/or a substantial cabin upgrade. The harder that it is to get someone to change sailings i.e. it’s a one-time-a year cruise to Rio during Carnival, the better the offer will be. The cruise line will also generally offer to reimburse you several hundred dollars for your airline change fees. If this appeals to you, always let your agent know that you are open to hearing about these kinds of offers.
11. Several weeks before sailing, ask your travel agent about a special paid upgrade.
Because the cruise lines over-sell inventory to deal with cancellations, they also find themselves with cabins in higher categories that the ones that were purchased, i.e. Mr. & Mrs. Big cancel their booking in a Deluxe Suite two weeks before sailing, but the only cabin the cruise line can sell is an inside guarantee at a rock bottom price. Since the cruise line does not want to give the last-minute cheap booking a Deluxe Suite. Instead, they will contact the travel agents with clients that have booked in the category just under the Deluxe Suite with a special paid upgrade or SPU. Generally this upgrade offer is for less than half of the cost of purchasing the upgraded cabin or suite at its original price. When the suite guest upgrades to the deluxe suite, then that leaves an open suite, when generally means an offer to someone in a verandah stateroom to move up to a suite. The inventory balancing game can until the day before sailing, and the offers to upgrade tend to go lower to closer to departure it gets.
These special paid upgrade offers are made to many agents and are strictly on a first come, first served basis, so if this interests you, be sure to let your travel agent know in advance and respond to offers quickly. You may even want to set an agreement with your agent to a pre-determined upgrade cost, i.e. “if upgrading from my verandah to a suite is less than $400 per person, please do it and charge my credit card that you have on file.”
12. Buy your cruise during times of special promotions by the cruise lines.
Cruise lines and travel companies tend to offer specials every week, but in the cruise industry there is a few times of year when the offers are more “special” than others. One of those times is during National Cruise Vacation Week, generally during the middle of October each year. Each cruise line tends to add an extra incentive to book during this period, such as this offer from Holland America Line, which is good for bookings through Tuesday, October 14th.
Fall is when cruise lines want to show advanced bookings for their ships for the next year, so they often offer Early Booking promotions in September and October. For example, Celebritiy is offering its 123Go promotion through November 4th, 2014 with your choice of free drinks or pre-paid gratuiaties or a shipboard credit for many 2015 sailings. Princess Cruises is offering a 3 For Free Sales Event with Stateroom location upgrades, and spending money on shore excurions and other shipboard credits. Holland America Line is offering its popular Explore4 promotion with free drinks, speciality dinning and reduced deposits through October 31 for many 2015 and 2016 cruise departures.
While every cruiser won’t be able to use all of these strategies, at least several of them should apply to you. If your cruise travel agent doesn’t know about any of these strategies, it might be time to fine a more-informed cruise expert when you are buying a cruise.
What strategies do you use to get the best deal on your cruise? Or, do you have a question about one of these strategies? Please share in comments below.
Other posts with cruise tips that you may want to check out:
- Cruising the Mediterranean? 10 Tips to Make Your Cruise More Enjoyable
- 18 Tips for a First-Time Cruiser
- Does a 12-Year Old Need a Passport to Go on a Cruise?
- Packing Advice for a 2-Week Land+Cruise Tour to Alaska
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