Comments | weddingplans: cruise question

forest_thetrees in weddingplans

cruise question

Feb 11, 2009 13:02

so i posted a long time ago asking about honeymoon options because we were stumped and i said i didnt really want to go on a cruise because i've already been on one before. turns out... cruises are very appealing and there are TONS of destinations besides the ones i went to way back when.... your meals are included, there are activities to do, ( Read more... )

honeymoon: cruise

Comments 13

etoilepb February 11 2009, 19:13:00 UTC

BOOK NOW. Most cruise lines (I know for a fact Royal Caribbean and Disney do, not as sure about the others) will issue you a refund if your cabin class later drops below the price you paid for it. Over the 7 months between the day we booked our last cruise and the day we went, we ended up with $400 in refunds and a significant cabin location upgrade, all because we kept an eye on the listings after we booked.

dc1048 February 11 2009, 19:14:14 UTC

The 60 days out thing is because final deposits are due 60 days for people that had reserved a cabin and paid a deposit. Some people reserve and then cancel when the final payment is due...so yes, some cabins do open up at that time.

HOWEVER! In a lot of cases, if you book and keep your eye on the price and it goes down, you can get a refund on the difference. That's what we always do. Sometimes it works and we get $100 bucks back and sometimes the price only goes up, so either way we win. I mostly cruise with Royal Caribbean...I think others are the same but you should make sure.

Check out the message boards at www.cruisecritic.com - they are a great resource.

etoilepb February 11 2009, 19:16:41 UTC

Seconding the CruiseCritic recommendation -- it's the best go-to place, particularly for a first-time cruiser.

dc1048 February 11 2009, 19:24:33 UTC

Another perk of booking early - if you book earlier you have a better chance of getting a decent cabin. If you later found that a better cabin opened up you could switch to a new one ( ... )

sorry_msjackson February 11 2009, 23:40:53 UTC

The previous posters are correct. I booked my Alaskan honeymoon cruise with Carnival last Monday. 3 days later, I noticed that the price dropped. I called my TA and by the end of the day, she had fixed it so my new balance was $300 lower than it had been when I booked ( ... )

tailea February 11 2009, 19:17:18 UTC

I'm getting married on a Carnival ship in May, and it will be my 11th cruise.

My family has done a lot of last minute deals when it comes to cruises, and they worked out for them. Actually my mom and dad are going on a cruise on Saturday that they booked last week as a spur of the moment thing. I really don't know anything about how it works because I haven't paid for any of the cruises I've been on, but I know you CAN get good deals by waiting.

refined_emotion February 11 2009, 19:28:56 UTC

It also depends on where you're going and where you sail from. I live in Florida, and I get emails all the time for last minute cruise deals. I think Miami is one of the cheapest places to sail from. My FH and I want to do a cruise to Northern Ireland, but we can't do that til the summer of 2010 because they only cruise that time of the year. So we plan on booking a last minute 3 or 4 night cruise the weekend after we get married (so, the first week of December) and I'm confident we'll get something for under $200 each ( ... )

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refined_emotion February 11 2009, 20:45:57 UTC

I can understand people who are flying out to take a cruise, because air deals don't tend to get better last minute, but if you're within driving, it can be a killer deal! In November, I saw a last minute week long cruise out of Miami for under $300/person! It's typically really easy to find cruise deals- the cruise industry makes most of their money by selling alcohol and pictures onboard. It's very typical for people to spend twice as much on board as they spent on the cruise itself. But as long as you watch your spending, it can be a super cheap and super awesome vacation!

And I'll just toss this out there for anyone wanting to cruise the carribbean... if you have the chance to take a ship that is stopping in Tortola, GO... don't think about it, just go. It's amazing. I've been on a few cruises, and that's the only place I'm desperate to visit again.

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forest_thetrees February 12 2009, 20:33:28 UTC

yeah, we're only about 3 hours from galveston, so we'll probably leave from there.

msmorgie February 11 2009, 19:50:39 UTC

we went on a princess cruise for ours and I will say I NEVER NEVER use a travel agent but we used one of the American Express agents and we were able to get a GREAT room, great price, they let them know it was our Honeymoon and we got some extra special things. We also were able to book which expediations we wanted to take. Ours for a 7 day cruise was $510 a person AND we kept checking out airline tickets and used AirTran & Delta. (we booked those seperately). But we LOVED our cruise especially after our wedding it was sooo relaxing. I would recommend we got the Soft drink card (it is a sticker they put on your boarding pass you have to wear everywhere) for $25 because we used ours value in like 1 day. We only got 1 since we were able to really get as much as we wanted and we shared our drink ( ... )