Booking Cruises While on Board

[terry the traveler]

Has anyone booked a future cruise while on a cruise? Are there any advantages to doing this - price reductions, generous OBC's, best choice of cabin, etc?

[6rugrats]

I have only done this on HAL, so my information is based on that. We had to pay only a $100 deposit per person. We received an OBC, though nothing to write home about. There was greater availability of cabin choices, as we were booking so far in advance. I note that the price for this cruise went down as the sailing time got closer, so we did not get any bargain for the rate.

 

We subsequently cancelled this cruise, and our deposits will be good to reuse for another cruise. Personally, I prefer booking only a couple of months out to get the best price, as we are not so concerned about cabin choice.

[paul929207]

Princess is similar to HAL. $100 deposit and you get an OBC of $25 to $150 per person. Credit depends on length of cruise and inside or outside cabin.

[pms4104]

Our onboard bookings both were with HAL.

 

December 2006 we booked onboard and made the full deposit rather than the $100 amount for onboard ... we received OBC commesurate with cabin category and number of days and were given the current price being offered by our T/A, which was lower than HAL's price at that time.

 

December 2007 we did the $100 deposit for a to-be-determined sailing and. when we got home, we booked a specific cruise with our T/A. In the meantime, we received a "Thank you for sailing with us" email with an offer of OBC on our next saiing ... and our T/A confirmed with HAL that the thank-you OBC was combinable with the OBC amount associated with our onboard deposit.

 

I don't see a downside to putting down $100/person for a specific cruise or for one to be determined. On some lines, that deposit is good forever ... on HAL, it is valid only for 4 years and, if not used in that timeframe, it goes poof into HAL's revenue.

[Keith1010]

Every cruise line is different. The luxury cruise lines give you a large discount for booking on board while many of the mass market and premium cruise lines give you a small discount.

 

Keith

[isujim]

Every cruise line is different......... but it will depend sometimes on your status level with the particular line. Being Diamond Plus we get some great discounts for certain types of cabins...... Some of the mass market lines have gone to next cruise options which greatly reduce your downpayment.

 

You can get a next cruise option with RC for only $100 and it never expires. Plus get discounts on top of that. Princess I understand also has options which greatly reduce your downpayment by as much as 30%....

[Papermaker]

With Princess the biggest advantage is needing only a $100 deposit instead of the 30% needed otherwise. There is some OBC given as well.

[Krazy Kruizers]

We book future cruises while we are crusing. I like HAL's new policy -- $100 per person -- good for up to 4 years. You can either book a cruise if you know what cruise you want to do OR you can just put the depsoit down on some future cruise to be determined later. In our case, we always have the cruises transfered back to our TA.

We select the cabin that we want and yes we get shipboard credit -- the amount depends on the length of the cruise as well as the cabin category that you book.

We have been getting a slight discount by booking this way.

[hajekfam]

I have only done this on HAL, so my information is based on that. We had to pay only a $100 deposit per person. We received an OBC, though nothing to write home about. There was greater availability of cabin choices, as we were booking so far in advance. I note that the price for this cruise went down as the sailing time got closer, so we did not get any bargain for the rate.

 

We subsequently cancelled this cruise, and our deposits will be good to reuse for another cruise. Personally, I prefer booking only a couple of months out to get the best price, as we are not so concerned about cabin choice.

We cruise Celebrity and one time waited (we were cruising about a month after we decided to book the next cruise) to book onboard for the onboard credit and in that time, the price of the cruise we wanted to book went up more than the onboard credit. We now usually book our cruises early (don't wait to book onboard, we book as soon as bookings for that cruise open) and watch for price drops. We found that we saved more that way. Celebrity honors normal price drops (except sale prices that are marked for new bookings only) even after final payment. So by booking early, we get the cabin we want and just about the lowest price. In fact our transatlantic for 2009 has already gone up over $1000.00 per person so even if should go down in price I don't think it will go down lower than we booked for..