Price drop close to sailing

[Weluv2cruise2007]

We're sailing on the Dawn out of Boston at the end of the month. I would LOVE to upgrade to a balcony and have been checking prices every day. I am very surprised to see that the cruises leaving tomorrow, and next week are still "regular" price even with availability in most categories. This is my first time sailing with NCL....am I wasting my time praying for a price drop?

[david_sobe]

Its summer and kids are out of school. Lots of people spontaneously will book a cruise. So while you could get a price drop everything depends on how full the ship already is. The cruises you are checking could have large booked groups on them where the occupancy is higher than your cruise. So don't give up yet.

[KateQ22003]

We're sailing on the Dawn out of Boston at the end of the month. I would LOVE to upgrade to a balcony and have been checking prices every day. I am very surprised to see that the cruises leaving tomorrow, and next week are still "regular" price even with availability in most categories. This is my first time sailing with NCL....am I wasting my time praying for a price drop?

 

I would like to know the answer to this too. We are booked on the Dawn for September 5th; I am thinking about booking August 29th on the Dawn as well and do back-to-backs to Bermuda. When I do a fake booking it shows a TON of empty cabins, but the price hasn't budged. When will I see the prices drop so that I can snag a great deal? I can be patient since I don't need airfare, but I'm getting antsy :)

[wasiii]

I would like to know the answer to this too. We are booked on the Dawn for September 5th; I am thinking about booking August 29th on the Dawn as well and do back-to-backs to Bermuda. When I do a fake booking it shows a TON of empty cabins, but the price hasn't budged. When will I see the prices drop so that I can snag a great deal? I can be patient since I don't need airfare, but I'm getting antsy :)

 

There is no way to tell when prices will drop. You could book now at that price or wait and possibly pay less or possibly pay more. The choice is up to you.

 

wasiii

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Forums mobile app

Edited August 7, 2014 by wasiii

[Starry Eyes]

One never knows,

 

Last summer, I booked Breakaway about 7 weeks before sailing. Although we wanted a balcony, they seemed to pricy although cabins seemed plentiful (for a summer sailing). So we booked the cheapest inside gty, and I watched diligently for price drops on better cabins. The posted price never dropped on balconies; it may have even inched up in the waning days before sailing.

 

Though I continued to watch prices thereafter, the upsell fairy called us about three weeks before the sail date. She offered us an aft balcony upsell and we accepted. Our inside gty plus upsell price was substantially less than I saw any online price for any balcony I saw during that time frame.

 

My takeaway: NCL may not publically lower prices even when space exists. They may instead make upsell call and fill empty cabins via casinos at sea or other promos. So, if and when you see a price that is acceptable, you may have to bite the bullet and pay it.

 

The upsell fairy was so pleasant and helpful last year. I hope the upsell fairy kept our phone number for future cruises; I'd be happy to talk to her again.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Starry Eyes

[teseo]

It is hard to tell what could happen, price can drop anytime of the day. We were on the BA from NY 4th of july week, at full capacity. Since we live in NJ we were able to wait for last minute booking. 1 week before the sailing the price for a balcony GTR (BX) dropped under $1000 pp AROUND 4 pm, immediately i called NCl and booked. next day prices were up again.

 

It is a gamble, sometimes the NCL website shows that certain categories are sold out and next day you see they are available.

 

you can book the balcony now and if the prices drop ypu can call and rebooked a lower price or get onboard credit. you can also book an ocean view and wait for free balcony upgrades (they just did that until last week) or you can just wait and she what happens.

 

Good luck with that.

[Starry Eyes]

It is hard to tell what could happen, price can drop anytime of the day. We were on the BA from NY 4th of july week, at full capacity. Since we live in NJ we were able to wait for last minute booking. 1 week before the sailing the price for a balcony GTR (BX) dropped under $1000 pp AROUND 4 pm, immediately i called NCl and booked. next day prices were up again.

 

It is a gamble, sometimes the NCL website shows that certain categories are sold out and next day you see they are available.

 

you can book the balcony now and if the prices drop ypu can call and rebooked a lower price or get onboard credit. you can also book an ocean view and wait for free balcony upgrades (they just did that until last week) or you can just wait and she what happens.

 

Good luck with that.

If the cruise is at the end of the month, they are well past final payment, so there would be big cancellation penalties if they tried the cancel and re-book suggestion. By policy, NCL does not give OBC for price drops after final payment (I know a few people have reported getting OBC then , but I would not suggest somebody book after final payment with such an expectation). After final payment, some people are able to upgrade to a better cabin if price of better category has dropped.

[Weluv2cruise2007]

Instead of praying for the upgrade Fairy, has anyone proactively called and asked if an upgrade offer was available and received a good deal?

[AdGuyMG]

When I do a fake booking it shows a TON of empty cabins, but the price hasn't budged. :)

 

Cruise lines base capacity on berths (beds), not cabins. So if a certain ship has a large amount of cabins with the triple and quad occupancy berths filled, the August 29th sailing could be on track to sail at 100% capacity and meet revenue expectations even with a good amount of unsold cabins and they will not drop fares.

 

In addition, it still being 20 days from sailing, it is also possible that not all of the "Guarantee" cabins have been assigned yet, thus showing empty cabins when you mock book on the website.

[Weluv2cruise2007]

Cruise lines base capacity on berths (beds), not cabins. So if a certain ship has a large amount of cabins with the triple and quad occupancy berths filled, the August 29th sailing could be on track to sail at 100% capacity and meet revenue expectations even with a good amount of unsold cabins and they will not drop fares.

 

In addition, it still being 20 days from sailing, it is also possible that not all of the "Guarantee" cabins have been assigned yet, thus showing empty cabins when you mock book on the website.

 

If they have X amount of guarantees, I would think they wold have to protect them in some way. They couldn't leave all the cabins available to be booked without accounting for the guarantees. I hasn't thought of the capacity perspective though...hmmm....

[Starry Eyes]

If they have X amount of guarantees, I would think they wold have to protect them in some way. They couldn't leave all the cabins available to be booked without accounting for the guarantees. I hasn't thought of the capacity perspective though...hmmm....

Of course they have to save adequate space fro the gty bookings, but they do not have to save specific cabin numbers for them. That's why the cruiseline like having some gty bookings.

 

To illustrate, immagine that the cruise line has a grand total 60 balcony cabins among all their various cabin categories (Bx up to B1) and they also have 50 BX booking awaiting assignments. The cruise line knows it can sell 10 more balcony cabins before it must stop so it saves room for gty's...well maybe they can sell more if they know they still have higher category cabins to utilize as needed. The cruise line does not know if a shopper might, as examples) like aft vs midship vs forward, if they might like deck 7 to be near friends vs a higher deck to be near the pool, if they like a shady covered balcony or a sunny exposed one, etc. So, they market all (or most of the) 60 of balcony cabins the categories at various prices, showing a shopper a variety of cabins that might tempt them to book. Once ten balconies are booked, the rest of the inventory might just disappear in a flash, leaving some overconfident bargain hunter empty handed. I have seen cabins disappear quickly; I persume that means gtys were assigned.

 

100% capacity numbers are based on double occupancy. When there are bookings for 3rd and 4th passengers in some cabins, cruiselines often sail at over 100% capacity (up to life boat/safety limits). They will still want to fill the empty cabins if they can do so for a fair price. They sometimes give those cabins to big gamblers rather than sell them at deep discounts.

[BrentD]

I cruise at the end of this month on the Getaway. I booked it near the first of June for a solo cabin. I then paid a very small amount to upgrade to an oceanview when prices went down. Then I paid a little more to upgrade to balcony when those went down. Yesterday I decided on a whim to try a mock booking to see what prices I came up with, even though I was still $200+ away from the cheapest mini-suite. For whatever reason, the lowest price shown on the chart in the find a cruise page was way higher than what I was shown when doing a mock booking. In fact, a mini-suite guarantee showed up for around $150 less than my balcony guarantee. So I called and Maria checked with "the inventory folks" and offered me an upgrade to a MA mini-suite (meaning I could pick my cabin instead of a guarantee). The rate that was displaying for an MA cabin at that moment was $250 more than my paid fare. I snapped it up immediately.

 

All that to say... There seems to have been no rhyme or reason as to when prices dropped or went up for my cruise so far. And doing a mock booking rather than relying on what the price chart shows can often give you very different prices. I've also noticed that cabin types that have been sold out at different times leading up to my cruise have gone in and out of stock as well. Haven suites were sold out yesterday, but available again today.

[KateQ22003]

Cruise lines base capacity on berths (beds), not cabins. So if a certain ship has a large amount of cabins with the triple and quad occupancy berths filled, the August 29th sailing could be on track to sail at 100% capacity and meet revenue expectations even with a good amount of unsold cabins and they will not drop fares.

 

In addition, it still being 20 days from sailing, it is also possible that not all of the "Guarantee" cabins have been assigned yet, thus showing empty cabins when you mock book on the website.

 

That doesn't make any sense - the guarantee rooms are still booked; they aren't just hanging out there. Yes, there will be movement with the guarantees, but I'm sure they are all accounted for. Plus, I am seeing actual room numbers, not just quantities.

Edited August 7, 2014 by KateQ22003