Mariner Early Booking Discount

[emilygrace]

For those of you who have already booked the Mariner for the Mexican Riviera, can you tell me FOR SURE if you've gotten your Platinum or Diamond Balcony discount in addition to the $200 off for early booking? There seems to be some confusion lately (as of Friday's WOW sale) concerning the C&A balcony discounts and whether they are a benefit or an OFFER, in which case they cannot be combined with some offers. I just want to make sure that I will be able to get the C&A discount if I book in order to get the early booking discount.

 

My TA has already learned from the RCL rep that you cannot use a Next Cruise Credit to book the Mariner because THAT is considered an offer. Silly me, I thought it was just another way to book a future cruise while on board.

 

I would appreciate any of your experiences on this!

 

Carol

[sdcruiser]

Hi Carol,

 

We are Diamond C&A members, and booked the Mariner for 2009 just last week. Our TA got us the C&A discount for a balcony cabin, and we also got the $200 early booking discount.

 

It's a pretty good deal, but I think the prices are quite high for a Mexican Riveria cruise. But it's the Mariner, so it kind of makes sense that RCCL should charge more for a newer, much larger ship.

 

Go for it.

 

We are very excited..

 

SDCruiser

[emilygrace]

Yes, I thought the prices were high too, but with the EBD and the Diamond discount, it gets a little more reasonable. Hoping for some additional price drops.

 

Thanks for your reply!

 

Carol

[suziehmkr]

I expected the pricing to be a lot higher than it was. If my family of 3 were to book the Vision for the same week in 2008 it would only cost us $560 less. Take the EBD and that brings it down to $360. This is for a D1. Not bad for a much larger ship. I was so flippin' excited, I was prepared to pay whatever it took. :)

[Coralc]

I don't know...The fine print on the $200 off per stateroom, Mariner offer says blah, blah, ..."Offer may be withdrawn at any time without notice and is not combinable with any other offer." Your guess on what that means would be as good as mine. That "sale" was something of a shocker with all of the restrictions. I sincerely hope that is not the future view of things to come for loyal passengers. :D

[emilygrace]

Yes, that was my interpretation too. My TA says that the C&A balcony discount is not an offer or a promo, but a benefit, so we should be able to use it. But she said her area rep for RCL said that the Next Cruise Credit is considered an offer.

 

As long as we can use the balcony discount in addition to the early booking discount, it's a go for us. Otherwise, it's iffy. We were booked on the Vision for this itinerary at $999 pp, but cancelled that when we booked the Serenade for next year. So now we're considering the Mariner and if we can get both discounts it will bring the price back down to what the Vision was.

 

BTW, that "sale" was no sale at all! Just a good marketing device to get new customers! We booked a short cruise on Friday only because we were not planning to book a balcony cabin and it was an itinerary that doesn't have many price drops, so we're not losing too much. It benefitted a few people in our group to have the reduced deposit.

 

Carol