How long can I put off excursion reservations?

It will be my first time on Carnival the first week in September, and I'm wondering how long I can reasonably put off reserving excursions on their website and still have most of my options open. I noticed that Carnival requires you to pay up front and I've got a lot of other things going on right now so I'd like to wait as long as possible without the best excursions selling out. If I tried to reserve a month in advance would that be good enough? Thanks for your help.

It will be my first time on Carnival the first week in September, and I'm wondering how long I can reasonably put off reserving excursions on their website and still have most of my options open. I noticed that Carnival requires you to pay up front and I've got a lot of other things going on right now so I'd like to wait as long as possible without the best excursions selling out. If I tried to reserve a month in advance would that be good enough? Thanks for your help.

Depends on the excursion. If you add the item to your cart it will tell you how many slots are left. Only you can judge how risk averse you are.

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Totally up to you how long you wait. There are some excursions I book as soon as I see them available (i.e. private cabanas). Most of the excursions we do are not with Carnival anyway, but we still book early. If it's a popular excursion, I wouldn't wait much longer. If other vital things are more important then don't worry about it. Book when you can.

Depends on how popular the excursion can be. Your Roll Call may give you such indication. Make sure you have information on private tours in case the ship's excursion run out.

Don't wait too long to book especially if you find excursions you are really interested in. I went on an 8 day cruise the end of February with 4 ports. I found excursions at each on that I wanted. But I procrastinated and was only able to get 1 of the 4.

We have never booked beforehand. All of the excursions that we were interested in had availability onboard.

YMMV.

In 31 Carnival cruises, I have never been told an excursion is sold out. On the contrary, some excursions I had booked had been cancelled due to low sign ups.

The CD is still usually hawking the spiel that you do not want to be shut out of a "popular" excursion the evening before docking at that port!

Only you will know your own tipping point between the time to expense your excursion and the anxiety that wait time will grow on you.

When I was on the Conquest in December, we booked an excursion an hour and a half before we had to meet the group on the pier. They were selling the excursion at half price, and it was a trip to the beach with a shuttle ride, I think we had to pay for loungers when we got there too. Naturally, this only happened because the excursion was not full and they needed to sell it out. If there is a specific excursion that you would like to book, I would recommend booking as soon as possible. For my cruise on the Liberty in 2015 from San Juan, we wanted to go snuba diving in St.Kitts and went to book the excursion 4 months before we left on the cruise, but we waited two days and came back and it was gone. So if there is something you specifically want to do, I would recommend booking it asap with Carnival, or doing your own research in order to use a private company or do it on your own asap. You don't want to wait too long ans miss out on an amazing excursion!

A month out, except for the limited cabanas, should be fine. I have never not had something available then. But I have seen plenty sell out just prior to the cruise and certainly while on board.

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I've tried to book onboard and they were full.

And when they tell you to meet at 8:30 am get there about 8:05 am. The group left and were already outside when I got someone to help me catch up.

You also might want to be aware of how many other cruise ships are in port at same time. It shouldn't affect excursions booked thru carnival, but might affect those booked independently.

http://www.cruisetimetables.com/

We do all our excursions thru outside providers, much better service, cheaper and more tailored to what we want to do.

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Sometimes it depends on how many ships are in port that day. There are only so many seats on excursion vehicles.

If there are only one or 2 ships scheduled for a given day I might wait but if there are alot -one time in St Maarten there were 6 ships scheduled including on of the huge RCCL boats :eek:- I try to schedule earlier