Need advice re booking

Booked on Voyager for NYE back in Jan. After being on CC since my first cruise, I thought I would be smart and book ahead (& during a sale) and because I had read that NYE cruises only ever increase in price. Unfortunately for me, this has not been the case and the price of this cruise has been dropping since I booked. During BOGO free sale I thought about cancelling but I as only want to do this particular cruise, I am pretty sure I could not canx and re-book the same cruise and be eligible for the BOGO rate. However, after reading a thread tonight on the RCI forum where the Americans are complaining about the current RCI prices, I checked my cruise again and to my horror, the price has dropped again. We are talking alot of $$$$ now.

My question is (and sorry for the long intro) as there is a not sale at the moment, will I be able to approach my online Aussie TA and ask to canx and re-book the cruise? Or should I just canx with the online TA, wear the cancellation costs and just book direct with RCI?

It can't hurt to contact your TA.

I noticed a huge price drop on our forthcoming cruise, contacted the online TA and they quickly cancelled my original booking and rebooked me in the same cabin with the same OBC.

Have spoken to TA, apparently cannot cancel and re-book same RCI cruise. If I was cruising with Princess or Carnival it would be a different story.

very frustrating knowing that someone booking my cabin category right now would be paying a significant amount less than I am paying. Never going to spend this much money on a cruise again.

also very frustrating reading about US cruisers and their price drops on CC.

That is seriously annoying! :mad:

Maybe someone else here will be able to come up with another solution for you. I'm still a newbie to cruising.

Have spoken to TA, apparently cannot cancel and re-book same RCI cruise. If I was cruising with Princess or Carnival it would be a different story.

 

very frustrating knowing that someone booking my cabin category right now would be paying a significant amount less than I am paying. Never going to spend this much money on a cruise again.

 

also very frustrating reading about US cruisers and their price drops on CC.

i know you cannot mention TA's but did they say why the difference between cruise lines

You can cancel and rebook but often worth marginally changing category of cabin up to save your deposit

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

not sure what category you booked but i had a look at one online TA and they had prices from $3126 pp for an inside and oceanviews are over 4K

i know you cannot mention TA's but did they say why the difference between cruise lines

Apparently, RCI have no flexibility whilst Princess and Carnival do. Carnival will offer OBC to make up the difference she tells me.

Btw, difference in price I am paying and current rate on RCI website is not in the hundreds. Its alot more than that. There is a huge discount for the third person in the room atm.

Due to time constraints, this really is the best cruise for us, so I am reluctant to cancel. Just wish I hadnt booked so early. Very expensive mistake.

All a bit mysterious isn't it.

The TAs reply isn't right, as you CAN cancel, and re-book. Perhaps they meant it wouldn't save you anything, so there's no point to doing so? All I can think of is that the new rates may be promotional restricted so they won't let you rebook on them.

You are currently outside the booking penalty period so if you had booked directly with Royal Caribbean you'd be able to cancel without penalty. If it were me, I'd probably go this way, then try re-booking. However, as it sounds like your TA would charge you to cancel that means this approach may cost you more in your situation... tough call.

Apparently, RCI have no flexibility whilst Princess and Carnival do. Carnival will offer OBC to make up the difference she tells me.

 

Btw, difference in price I am paying and current rate on RCI website is not in the hundreds. Its alot more than that. There is a huge discount for the third person in the room atm.

 

Due to time constraints, this really is the best cruise for us, so I am reluctant to cancel. Just wish I hadnt booked so early. Very expensive mistake.

if you cant change the booking you'll have to put it down to a learning curve but before you book again ask the TA if there's a price drop can you get it....it depends on their t&c's

some people like to book early so they can get the cabin they want and mark it no upgrade because if you leave yourself open to an upgrade you can end up anywhere

Apparently, RCI have no flexibility whilst Princess and Carnival do. Carnival will offer OBC to make up the difference she tells me.

 

Btw, difference in price I am paying and current rate on RCI website is not in the hundreds. Its alot more than that. There is a huge discount for the third person in the room atm.

 

Due to time constraints, this really is the best cruise for us, so I am reluctant to cancel. Just wish I hadnt booked so early. Very expensive mistake.

Aren't you within the cancellation period i.e if you cancel now you get your deposit back? Or is that 180 days for RCL. If so, why not do that and make a new booking.

I noticed one of my booking (through a big online TA) had gone down $60. Now they did it for me (Carnival Cruise), however, they did say, they next time they charge $100 to refare. I said why, they said because it takes a bit of time to change the booking. I said that okay, thanks for the info.

Perhaps instead of cancelling they can upgrade you to the better categories, it can work when some TAs can/will not give money back. We recently had a balcony and due to price drops in better cabin categories, upgraded to a suite with no extra cost (sometimes there can be a small difference to pay) and no loss of previous perks and instead we got an increase in OBC.:D

We cruised on voyager last NYE and when we got back we booked again for this NYE. I am a bit confused with what the op is saying about prices going down as I have been watching it very closely since booking and the prices have gone up heaps, like even an inside at the moment is over $3,000. (As mentioned above by RKMW) back in Jan a PR cabin was $2,100 when I checked last night it was something like $3,600.:eek:

I am talking twin prices.

The JS when we were looking at in Jan were $4,400 and now they are $6,500 . Not once have I seen this cruise prices come down

You are talking about the NYE on Voyager (NZ and Fiji) leaving 29th Dec 14 nights.

Fiona

Sorry, just saw by your signature that we are defiantly talking about the same cruise. Confused.

There is a difference in what royal Australia let you do in comparison to us or uk

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

We cruised on voyager last NYE and when we got back we booked again for this NYE. I am a bit confused with what the op is saying about prices going down as I have been watching it very closely since booking and the prices have gone up heaps, like even an inside at the moment is over $3,000. (As mentioned above by RKMW) back in Jan a PR cabin was $2,100 when I checked last night it was something like $3,600.:eek:

I am talking twin prices.

The JS when we were looking at in Jan were $4,400 and now they are $6,500 . Not once have I seen this cruise prices come down

You are talking about the NYE on Voyager (NZ and Fiji) leaving 29th Dec 14 nights.

Fiona

Hi Fiona

We are in balcony triple share. During the BOGO sale, I did a dummy booking for my cabin and the total price was less than what I booked in late Jan. Last night/today, I did a dummy booking again for my cabin category (3 adults triple share) and the third person is HUGELY discounted. Total now is less than BOGO. According the the RCI website, it is a HOT price for balcony cabins on our cruise.

I am new to all this but it would appear that the rate I have discovered last night is only available on the RCI website.

if you cant change the booking you'll have to put it down to a learning curve but before you book again ask the TA if there's a price drop can you get it....it depends on their t&c's

 

some people like to book early so they can get the cabin they want and mark it no upgrade because if you leave yourself open to an upgrade you can end up anywhere

Yep, I will just have to chalk this up to experience. Next time I will spend less so I will worry less:)

Hi Fiona

We are in balcony triple share. During the BOGO sale, I did a dummy booking for my cabin and the total price was less than what I booked in late Jan. Last night/today, I did a dummy booking again for my cabin category (3 adults triple share) and the third person is HUGELY discounted. Total now is less than BOGO. According the the RCI website, it is a HOT price for balcony cabins on our cruise.

 

I am new to all this but it would appear that the rate I have discovered last night is only available on the RCI website.

i had a look at one OZ site and they have a E1 balcony cabin for 3 at $9334 and its the same price as RCI and they only need $100 deposit...for a D2 its much dearer

I "found" a "sale" on another online website that listed that cabin for $3024pp for a triple. $9072 in total.

 

My question is (and sorry for the long intro) as there is a not sale at the moment, will I be able to approach my online Aussie TA and ask to canx and re-book the cruise? Or should I just canx with the online TA, wear the cancellation costs and just book direct with RCI?

The third person being hugely discounted is a sale price, and the terms and conditions would be along the lines of "only for new bookings".

How much is it to cancel completely, and then get one of the others in the cabin to initiate the new booking? Can anyone answer whether this would work?

That is a huge discount for the third person, but you are saying that the total for the three of you was much higher when you booked at the start of the year? We booked some cruises at the start of the year and they have only gone up and up since.

There are some online TAs that have a larger lead in time for the final payment, so has your TA gone past the stage where you can get a larger percentage refund? We cancelled a cruise a while back with 152 days to go, as the no penalty period was 151 days. We got a full refund of our deposit from RCI. We weren't looking to rebook though.

I would say in my experience prices on cruises we have booked have generally gone up. So don't feel like you have done the wrong thing. Also at the time you were happy to book at that price, so don't let the thought of others getting a better deal make you too mad. It happens to us with hotels, planes, and many other things.

Aussielozzie that's no good :(

Odd though as I was looking at that cruise, inside and found it has increased from $2000 to $3000 pp way out of reach now!

I'm sure you'll still have a blast!

Thanks Goodycruising for your feedback. Yes, I have to accept that the price I booked it at initially was the price I was happy with but its still a bit hard to swallow when you can see how much less a new booking is getting the same cabin for now.

In answer to your question, the other two "adults" in the cabin are in fact my two teens so I am not in a position for the booking to be made under another name. If I cancel the booking, I will have to pay a per person canx fee plus whatever else they want to charge me - T & C are a bit murky (another lesson learned).

Hopefully, sometime in the future, I am able to book a cruise at a bargain price and it was make up for the money I "lost" on this one.

I did a dummy booking with your details (3 x adults) on the RCCL site and it's dearer than other online t/a's in Oz. (That I always use) (Works out to something like $9,300) can't remember the exact price. I can't for the life of me work out how you are getting a cheaper price. We have done many NYE cruises and always book early and never, ever, ever, has the cruise price gone down during the year. The NYE cruises are the dearest cruise of the year and would be very surprised to see a price drop. The early bird sale that goes till end jan/early feb seem to be the best price. If you are sure you can get it cheaper somewhere, can't you cancel and rebook? You are still in the right time frame to do that and it's certainly not near sold out, there heaps and heaps of categories/cabins left. Good luck with whatever you decide. :)

I did a dummy booking with your details (3 x adults) on the RCCL site and it's dearer than other online t/a's in Oz. (That I always use) (Works out to something like $9,300) can't remember the exact price. I can't for the life of me work out how you are getting a cheaper price. We have done many NYE cruises and always book early and never, ever, ever, has the cruise price gone down during the year. The NYE cruises are the dearest cruise of the year and would be very surprised to see a price drop. The early bird sale that goes till end jan/early feb seem to be the best price. If you are sure you can get it cheaper somewhere, can't you cancel and rebook? You are still in the right time frame to do that and it's certainly not near sold out, there heaps and heaps of categories/cabins left. Good luck with whatever you decide. :)

Trust me on this, the price I paid back in late Jan during a sale was alot more than the current price. At that time, I did shop around and the online price was cheaper than the price RCI was offering direct. Yes, it seemed pricey at time but I was under the impression as you have just said that NYE cruises only got up in price. Obviously, you booked a little earlier than me and got a much better rate. My problem is I want to stay with this cruise and correct me if I am wrong but if I cancel with my TA and try to re-book direct with RCI for the same cruise and same cabin category, RCI will not give me the discounted price as it is not a new booking.

I did a dummy booking with your details (3 x adults) on the RCCL site and it's dearer than other online t/a's in Oz. (That I always use) (Works out to something like $9,300) can't remember the exact price. I can't for the life of me work out how you are getting a cheaper price. We have done many NYE cruises and always book early and never, ever, ever, has the cruise price gone down during the year. The NYE cruises are the dearest cruise of the year and would be very surprised to see a price drop. The early bird sale that goes till end jan/early feb seem to be the best price. If you are sure you can get it cheaper somewhere, can't you cancel and rebook? You are still in the right time frame to do that and it's certainly not near sold out, there heaps and heaps of categories/cabins left. Good luck with whatever you decide. :)

Trust me on this, the price I paid back in late Jan during a sale was alot more than the current price. At that time, I did shop around and the online price was cheaper than the price RCI was offering direct. Yes, it seemed pricey at time but I was under the impression as you have just said that NYE cruises only go up in price. Obviously, you booked a little earlier than me and got a much better rate. My problem is I want to stay with this cruise and correct me if I am wrong but if I cancel with my TA and try to re-book direct with RCI for the same cruise and same cabin category, RCI will not give me the discounted price as it is not a new booking.

So, since this is likely to be my last holiday with both "kids" together I am going to put it down to bad luck on my part and lesson learned and hope that the Voyager looks damn good after its refurbishment and enjoy the cruise and champagne at midnight on NYE.