First cruise in 23 and counting! What happens next?

[clairebearinaus]

Hi, I'm very much looking forward to my little cruise on the Golden Princess later this month, and just generally curious about how the cruise lines work to fill up their ships in the final weeks.

 

There are still lots of cabins available, plenty of choice in everything but the Oceanview category (which is what I have). The cheaper cabins have been on sale for quite awhile, do you think there'll be a big price drop between now and sale date?

 

At what point might Princess start contacting people with upgrade offers? Should I be hopeful?

[ozziepost]

There is no hard and fast rule with this. We booked our last cruise at the end of the year sales with Princess (26 night treasures of Asia cruise) with an inside cabin and hoped we would be offered an upgrade which we didn't get. If Princess had made an offer of an upgrade that was reasonable I would have jumped at it.

 

Yet there was a couple we made friends with that did the same as us and scored an upgrade to a nice window cabin.

 

Princess were offering great deals on the same itinerary for the Sun Princess leaving Perth next month with deals offering inside cabins for $94/ night twin share with prices for window cabins only just a bit dearer with a good selection of cabins available.

 

I'm currently looking at getting a pack and go deal on the Pacific Jewel sailing from Melbourne in January which my TA suggests I would be lucky to get as I is peak holiday time and the ship will likely to quickly fill. The cabins on this trip are dearer than what we paid per night on the last trip.

 

On the other hand I was dealing with a poster on the TA PNG forum regarding a trip to PNG and the Solomon Islands in January. Good prices are being offered but it is the wet and Cyclone season in that area at that time of the year so it is little wonder they are struggling to fill the cabins.

 

I tend to find mid year is not a bad time to look for cruises as I have had some terrific deals then despite the risk of encountering bad weather.

 

Good luck with this I would be interested to see what other comments appear on this thread.

[GUT2407]

In all honesty, it beats me.

 

I watch cruise prices pretty closely with a couple of lines and will see a cruise with plenty of cabins showing and the price go up or another cruise with similar vacancy rates and prices drop.

 

Because I have to be fussy about location and go "No upgrades" I don't get those offers.

[clairebearinaus]

Thanks for your replies.

 

It's all a bit of a mystery to me still. I guess I'll find out soon enough!

 

I had my eye on a very similar cruise, just opposite direction, earlier in the year but it was sold out a long time before departure so I booked this one oodles in advance, and would have been able to afford a higher cabin category if I'd waited. Oh well, we'll still have a ball!

[GUT2407]

Thanks for your replies.

 

It's all a bit of a mystery to me still. I guess I'll find out soon enough!

 

I had my eye on a very similar cruise, just opposite direction, earlier in the year but it was sold out a long time before departure so I booked this one oodles in advance, and would have been able to afford a higher cabin category if I'd waited. Oh well, we'll still have a ball!

 

 

It will only effect your cruise if you let it.