Best time to book a Cunard cruise ... guidance please?

[mitch33]

We are considering booking Japan Grand Voyage from Yokohama, 06 April 2025 on the Queen Elizabeth.  But, having not sailed with Cunard before I'm a little concerned that we will end up paying far more if we book now, rather than if we wait and book nearer the time.  The present obc being offered is only $290 per stateroom and I have noticed for 2024 sailings they are offering an uplift on this. 

With previous sailings on P&O we have benefitted from additional obc being applied prior to departure when prices / deals have altered.

Does anyone have any experience of booking this far out?  Should we wait or GFI?

 

[D&N]

I'm surprised how much availability there is on that.

If I really wanted to be on a sailing and have full choice of cabins I would be booking on release date.

In Britannia Balcony, which seems to have the OBC you quote, I'd want deck 8 forward, and I only see 3 cabins available in that section.

I prefer forward to aft, and to be as high up as possible. The midships cabins have a supplement that I would rather spend on wine.

You'll probably get other opinions but I wouldn't take the risk unless you're happy to have a reduced choice.

[MrsPeel55]

We booked direct with Cunard I think 2 months ago for traveling in September .... we got a really good Britannia Balcony cabin , a position in the ship we wanted..... but when I went to look at the QM2 crossing for next year, we wanted Club Balcony, it is completely sold out, and this would be for May next year.... so, if you know which cabin you would like, maybe is prudent to book a bit more in advance? 

It will be our first time in Cunard in September, but after talking to people here and researching the Cunard site... as much as I don;'t like waiting for my holidays ... I now am considering booking now for next year ....

 

[exlondoner]

4 hours ago, MrsPeel55 said:

We booked direct with Cunard I think 2 months ago for traveling in September .... we got a really good Britannia Balcony cabin , a position in the ship we wanted..... but when I went to look at the QM2 crossing for next year, we wanted Club Balcony, it is completely sold out, and this would be for May next year.... so, if you know which cabin you would like, maybe is prudent to book a bit more in advance? 

It will be our first time in Cunard in September, but after talking to people here and researching the Cunard site... as much as I don;'t like waiting for my holidays ... I now am considering booking now for next year ....

 

If you are sailing in September, perhaps it would be worth waiting and booking on board, to get low deposit and extra credit.

[LittleFish1976]

12 hours ago, mitch33 said:

We are considering booking Japan Grand Voyage from Yokohama, 06 April 2025 on the Queen Elizabeth.  But, having not sailed with Cunard before I'm a little concerned that we will end up paying far more if we book now, rather than if we wait and book nearer the time.  The present obc being offered is only $290 per stateroom and I have noticed for 2024 sailings they are offering an uplift on this. 

With previous sailings on P&O we have benefitted from additional obc being applied prior to departure when prices / deals have altered.

Does anyone have any experience of booking this far out?  Should we wait or GFI?

 

 

In my experience (but it depends which market you're in, I think) the prices go up closer to sailing and there's rarely more OBC to be had. I've already booked the 18 day sailing Tokyo-Tokyo from 29th March to 16th April, 2025. Booked it three months ago in a Britannia Balcony.

 

[Victoria2]

5 hours ago, MrsPeel55 said:

We booked direct with Cunard I think 2 months ago for traveling in September .... we got a really good Britannia Balcony cabin , a position in the ship we wanted..... but when I went to look at the QM2 crossing for next year, we wanted Club Balcony, it is completely sold out, and this would be for May next year.... so, if you know which cabin you would like, maybe is prudent to book a bit more in advance? 

It will be our first time in Cunard in September, but after talking to people here and researching the Cunard site... as much as I don;'t like waiting for my holidays ... I now am considering booking now for next year ....

 

When to book depends if you are hooked on particular cabins.

 

If not bothered, book if onboard and get the ultra low deposit and extra obc. If cabin position is important to you, then book on itinerary release to secure your cabin. We have a few cruises booked and they were all booked with our agent when booking went live.

[MrsPeel55]

4 hours ago, exlondoner said:

If you are sailing in September, perhaps it would be worth waiting and booking on board, to get low deposit and extra credit.

 

Thanks, yes, this was my original thought, after joining the boards and getting this info from many of you (which have been a life saver, I had no idea of so many things, even though we booked directly with Cunard) low deposit is not a worry, the OBC was the interesting thing for us.

Our experience on the phone was great, every person we spoke in the Cunard phone line was great, professional but friendly which for me it counts heavily, but no info in many things... we already weren't able to book Club Balcony in our sailing, and I looked up the TA Crossing a couple of nights ago after reading all the amazing experiences and again, the Club Balcony is sold out. My fear is that if we wait until September, we may not have a balcony cabin that would suit us...  I don't think I want to even think about being in an unsuitable cabin being in the middle of the ocean for 14 days..... at the moment I'm waiting to see which dates we will be able to make, the idea was to do Japan next, now we are looking into the TA round trip, we'll see 🙂

[exlondoner]

Or you may find a nice cabin but at a vastly increased price, which would be infuriating.

 

[MrsPeel55]

@exlondoner very true...

 

I learned a long time ago that, in the travel industry, not always things follow logical thinking....

To me, it should be that the closest they get to the sailing date, the more they would want to fill in the left cabins so they would lower the price to attract customers.... in Cunard's case one could think that they want to keep a clientele who likes the more elegant atmosphere of their cruising,  (which I think they do, despite many people complaining about the more relax dress code lately is because they think Cunard actually wants to attract that kind of clientele) but I have seen other cruise lines who do the same, you may pay more for your choice if you wait longer.... and I have seen it happening for 3 decades with air travel....  so as soon as my daughter can sort out her dates, we will book 🙂

[exlondoner]

On our QV Med.  cruise in 2019, we booked a Q4 as soon as it went on sail. By the time, more than a year later that we sailed, we had seen the price more than double, then, in the few weeks before sailing, fall back slightly, but nowhere near the level we had booked at. Rarely have I seen prices fall to less than they were on the first day. This won’t help you much, but might when the next lot go on sail, which is often in September, so might be when you are on board.

[techteach]

We rebooked our last cruise 3 times because the price kept coming down. But we had to balance the drop in price with the loss of free gratuities, etc.

[exlondoner]

1 minute ago, techteach said:

We rebooked our last cruise 3 times because the price kept coming down. But we had to balance the drop in price with the loss of free gratuities, etc.

And, not being in the UK, you had your deposit returned.

[techteach]

@exlondoner The deposit didn’t need to be returned I don’t think. It just moved with the rebooking. This was well over a year ago, and I don’t really recall. I also did the bid thing and moved us from a Q5 to a Q4.

[Winifred 22]

In U K can only move a booking  once to a cruise of equal or higher value within a set time frame. If its really dropped that much a rebook loosing the deposit is the only option. 

[MrsPeel55]

@Winifred 22 yes, it is really not a good thing the rules they have in place right now... 😞

even though there were a couple of times in which we asked questions at the booking time to which the answer would be plain and simple : "this is actually a Southampton to Southampton 14 days cruise"

we weren't told that.

I found out a few days ago that the cruise starts in Southampton and we could have made the 14 days,.... we called Cunard to see if we could change the booking... the girl was very nice but the reality was that, either we would be loosing big time money (as they wont refund airplane tickets and if we canceled to make it a different booking we would loose a 60 or 70% of what we paid)  if we wanted to forget about the tickets and just not use the flight, we would be paying more than what we had payed for the last 7 days, but wouldn't be in the same cabin, actually we would be in a lower category of the balconies and wouldn't have none of the perks our booking has, so we decided not to.

 

[mitch33]

Thanks all for your feedback.  Appreciated.

 

[nightfires]

@mitch33 A key factor is how popular a cruise is. I am booked on the 19 night from Tokyo in March 2024. If I search this cruise appears to be sold out as it’s no longer appearing.

 

I spoke to one of the entertainment crew ( not sure of title but organising Captains Drinks) and she said Japan cruises are very popular with the Japanese. 
 

I think destination and timing are very relevant. I was on the  Alaska Cruise (07/07/23) and several passengers I spoke to were from Vancouver and had got a last minute deal.  
 

There are bargains but if you want to do a particular cruise you have to accept you may pay for guaranteeing cruise and cabins etc.