Group Cruise - Incentives Promotion

Hey all...I'm planning a group cruise for family and friends on the Breeze for next October. I called my PVP yesterday to get some information since I've never booked as an official group before. Normally when booking as a "group", the group leader gets one free cruise fare (based on average cabin price for your group) for every eight cabins booked. My PVP told me that for this month they are running an incentive where you get a free cruise fare for every FIVE cabins booked. This is great for us as we already have ten cabins committed!

If anyone is planning a large group cruise, now is the time to book!

Misty

I have 7 cabins booked so far, but we didn't book as a group. We had done this in the past and got the points, which we put toward a private party. We decided that this time, everyone was going to get the Cheers package anyways, it wouldn't be necessary, so we opted out of the group cruise.

Oh well - no big deal! :)

Hmm...I just booked five cabins (for the Breeze) on Sunday with a Carnival rep on the phone and they never mentioned this. I asked about a group booking, but was told I would need to book 8 cabins.

Number of cabins needed depends on the date. Some high season cruises do not have any groups available.

Hey all...I'm planning a group cruise for family and friends on the Breeze for next October. I called my PVP yesterday to get some information since I've never booked as an official group before. Normally when booking as a "group", the group leader gets one free cruise fare (based on average cabin price for your group) for every eight cabins booked. My PVP told me that for this month they are running an incentive where you get a free cruise fare for every FIVE cabins booked. This is great for us as we already have ten cabins committed!

 

If anyone is planning a large group cruise, now is the time to book!

 

Misty

Be careful how you understand this promotion. There is a promotion going on now that gives you one free berth for 5 cabins, however, the free berth is for the 11th guest (which would be in the 6th cabin). If you have 10 cabins and are expecting to get 2 free berths, you will need to have an 11th cabin booked.

Hope I didn't confuse you with this info, just wanted you to know.

Hmm...I just booked five cabins (for the Breeze) on Sunday with a Carnival rep on the phone and they never mentioned this. I asked about a group booking, but was told I would need to book 8 cabins.

If you just booked 5 cabins individually, through individual reservations, they may not be aware of the current group promotion.

See my previous post about needing a 6th cabin to actually get the free berth, so it may not have worked out for you anyway.

FYI apparently one cannot convert 6 linked reservations booked under early saver to a group rate. Talked to (and transferred)8 diff people/dept. Kept getting shuttled around when I expressed that I thought early saver guaranteed the lowest qualified price. Very disappointed in Carnival. First time I have ever had a problem.:confused:

FYI apparently one cannot convert 6 linked reservations booked under early saver to a group rate. Talked to (and transferred)8 diff people/dept. Kept getting shuttled around when I expressed that I thought early saver guaranteed the lowest qualified price. Very disappointed in Carnival. First time I have ever had a problem.:confused:

You can have an Early Saver rate in a group, however, it will be slightly higher than you are paying as an individual. The increase is to cover the amenities that come with a group.

If you have 6 cabins booked, you may want to look into creating a group and then canceling the individual reservations and rebooking them into the group as Early Saver bookings. Although the cost may be slightly higher, you can use the amenity points to get OBC, which is usually at least as much as the additional cost, PLUS you would get the free berth.

I learned the hard way this year by booking a group cruise with Carnival in my honest opinion it is not worth it. Carnival had the same deal with only needing 5 cabins I had a total of 9 cabins in my group with most of them being balcony. I was told by the group department that groups couldn't book early saver so as the price of our cruise went lower and lower we could not get the OBC. If we could have each person would have gotten $350.00 of OBC. So for next years cruise we are booking early saver individually and having my PVP link us together for dinner.

I learned the hard way this year by booking a group cruise with Carnival in my honest opinion it is not worth it. Carnival had the same deal with only needing 5 cabins I had a total of 9 cabins in my group with most of them being balcony. I was told by the group department that groups couldn't book early saver so as the price of our cruise went lower and lower we could not get the OBC. If we could have each person would have gotten $350.00 of OBC. So for next years cruise we are booking early saver individually and having my PVP link us together for dinner.

And this is where having a good TA that has a lot of experience in groups would have paid off. The person you spoke to in the group dept. was WRONG, as you can have Early Saver cabins within a group. Sooooo, you could have had the group pricing and amenities AND had the OBC of the Early Saver. Lesson learned.