Wow! It's much harder to book this year than last. More cruisers?

[Gone Cruising]

Sorry, wish I could have told the whole world about the deal!:o

I went to almost every cruise web site a year ago and signed up for their e-mail specials to be sent to me. You would be amazed at some of the offers!

[AlaskaGolden]

I think having to book early (12+ months out) to get a certain category only applies to certain itineraries. For example, I've heard Alaska (May to September) doesn't usually fill up until the February to March right before. I think this is very true for our cruise in mid-June because I check frequently on the available cabins, and it still looks like there are many available in almost all categories.

[Hlitner]

I think booking more than a year in advance is silly with the exception of round the world cruises. The reason is that its seldom necessary, pricing will change many times and you have to keep bugging TAs or the cruise line to give you the newer lower prices and finally because they keep changing itineraries or sometimes charter an entire cruise (and cancel all the reservations). As an example, there is a post in the thread about booking the Star Princess transatlantic for March 2008. As was previously stated, yesterday Princess cancelled that cruise. I talked to Princess this past Monday about that cruise and they could not even tell me what was going on,,,and they thought it would be re-priced next week. The following day (yesterday) they cancelled that cruise and changed the ships entire 2008 summer schedule. This is more typical than the exception.

 

Hank

[TCF]

I think there are more people cruising and the numbers continue to trend upwards year over year!

Carnival just announced its 1/4 financials and the company is showing huge increases in profits, mostly from its increased presence in the Med market, but full ships to the Caribbean sure aren't hurting. That means more people are sailing and more people are paying higher rates to do so.

At the same time none of the major cruise lines have enough ships and they are having a tough time getting them built. The ship yards are full, designers are booked solid, etc.

Prices are bound to rise with customer demand...and while this will shake out the low end of the market...it won't cause a drop in bookings. Carnival is positioned right in the center of the market with Carnival Crusies at the low end, Princess in the middle, and HAL/Cunard at the high end. Not a lot of competition to keep 'em all honest!!:eek:

So for the next five years or so we can expect prices to rise and the availablility of our favourite cabins on our favourite ships to our favourite places to become tougher and tougher to book!:(

Ain't life grand??!!!:D :eek:

Tom&Deb:)

[mbleackl]

Isn't mid-February President's Week or some such thing where many people on the east coast take the week off? I noticed a similar thing for Grand Princess in March. The week of March 10 is very expensive and there isn't much cabin selection, the week before and after are much more affordable. It turns out that the week of March 10 is spring break for Texas schools.

 

We are booked on the Grand on Feb. 17 - 24. It's full of teachers who are taking the week off for Spring Break. Also lots of kids apparently.

[terrierjohn]

I was browsing the CC offers on the UK website the other day and some of the prices looked quite reasonable, normally they can be bettered by most on-line TA's. So checked out a few and the prices were all below the best TA offers. Do these have to be booked direct with Princess or can you book via a TA, AND get a further discount?

[enymarsh]

Presidents week would be the week of Feb 10 through 18th. Since a lot of schools have Monday off as a holiday, many parents take their kids out of school that week since they only have to miss four days instead of five. So more kids on that week's cruises. Probably not the collage age kids though. Younger kids.

 

At least here in NY President's Day is monday the 19th so our winter break week is the 19th through the 23rd. We booked the Crown for 2/17-24/07 last march or april and were only able to get the last BA balcony on caribe deck that was available at the time.

[10X]

In September 2006 we received a flyer from Princess with offers that included special pricing on a 31 day cruise, Sydney to San Francisco, on the Sun Princess. This cruise was not scheduled to leave until April 8, 2008, about 19 months away. I didn't do much with the flyer other than look at it, never having been on a cruise over 14 nights and believing that we couldn't afford it.

 

Finally, I gave in a called the travel agent, who gave us a price we couldn't refuse and we decided to book. The cruise was now about 18 months away and the travel agent told us she only had 3 balcony cabins still available in the group space that she had reserved. I couldn't believe that we were 18 months away and she was nearly out of available cabins. We, along with two other couples, took her last 3 balcony cabins. When a fourth couple also wanted a balcony, it took the travel agent about 3 weeks to find one for them.

 

About the time of booking, I checked the Princess website out of curiosity to see of the ship could really be selling out that fast. The website showed that there were not any suites, mini-suites, or balcony cabins available. In addition, many of the outside cabin levels were also sold out. And the cruise was still 18 months away.

 

Also, the "waitlisted" price for a balcony cabin was now $1300 pp more than what we had booked at, so the price was going up.

 

We had always booked 11-13 months out from a cruise to insure we got the cabin we wanted. Our travel agent always monitored prices and got us the reduced price without us even asking, so that was never an issue. Now, we will be looking further out than the 11-13 months to make sure we get what we want.

[Hlitner]

I will take a stab at a question asked by TerrierJohn " Do these have to be booked direct with Princess or can you book via a TA, AND get a further discount?"

 

We have booked well over 40 cruises and use several different on-line TAs. In every case, since cruise lines started doing their own on-line bookings. we will check 3 or 4 TA sites as well as the cruise line site for the best price. Never (and I repeat NEVER) have we seen any cruise line offer a price as good as some of the TAs. Why? Because some travel agencies (and consortiums) offer group pricing (even though you do not really travel with a group) and/or cut their commissions in order to discount. In addition, some TAs will offer additional incentives such as Casino Credits (we are getting $200 on an upcoming Celebrity cruise), free insurance, wine, free meals in specialty restaurants, etc. The savings can be substantial (we have saved over $1000 on some cruises by using TAs) or nickel and dime stuff. But, unless you shop around you will never know.

 

Hank

[Berliner]

double Posting.sorry

[Berliner]

Well, I'm a soon to be first timer for Princess..and i noticed for the first time, Princess prices are about the same as the Carnival trips and less than RCCL...so I jumped on the opportunity.

 

I'm guessing that it's because more and more ships competing for passengers and Princess is taking a more aggressive pricing strategy to fill the ships. Empty cabins don't make money

 

no surprise,Princess is Carnival.Carnival bought Princess couple Years ago.

Thats when the Service started to go down,now the Prices too.

Princess should have stayed independant or at least gone Private,now its more like "all-inclusive Standard"...but still a Cruise.