buy cruise at port

[rocmarcruise01]

Is it possible to buy a cruise directly at the port?

[Aquahound]

Those days are long gone. Sorry.

[rocmarcruise01]

thank you for the answer.

[YubaSutter]

When I lived a cruise port, Long Beach, I was able to book a 3 day cruise the morning of the sail away several times by calling Carnival. I was about 25% successful doing it this way. Carnival does not let you book at the port.

[jocap]

The people we've known who go for last minute cruises always have to speak either to the company or a TA. This has been known even on the morning of the sailing, but it's a no no at the port itself.

[Padraic]

Many, many years ago we folks in south Florida were able to do that. Not anymore.

[BlueRiband]

That ability long ended due to tight turn around schedules and US Homeland Security.

 

Years ago a ship would be in port a couple of days as the crew got ready for the next group of passengers. Now they try to do it in hours.

 

Also, ships departing US ports must give US Homeland Security a manifest at least 72 hours before sailing, and a final manifest at least one hour before sailing.

 

Evidently dealing with a last minute walk-up booking yields too little revenue to be worth the disruption to their boarding procedures.

[Cruisin' Chick]

Not to mention that nowadays most people seem to have email access. If a cruise has available cabins near to the sailing date, the cruise line will send flash sale emails to those who have registered for last minute specials (and by last minute, it's not the day before or that day).

 

So generally there won't be empty cabins.

[GUT2407]

I've known of people to book a day or two before and on my last cruise the Captain even told me I could book to do b2b if I wanted [this was on the last day] as they had vacancies.

[spookwife]

Is it possible to buy a cruise directly at the port?

 

nope. most cruises sell at capacity and are sold out long before sailing