How far in advance?

How far out have you booked your cruises. I just booked a RC cruise for Feb. 13th on the Brilliance of the Seas. Not planning on telling hubby yet. Shh! :)

Price was too good to turn down and it doesn't have any cancellation penalties until Dec of 2015. Yeah! However, this one will be a long wait.

How far out have you booked your cruises. I just booked a RC cruise for Feb. 13th on the Brilliance of the Seas. Not planning on telling hubby yet. Shh! :)

Price was too good to turn down and it doesn't have any cancellation penalties until Dec of 2015. Yeah! However, this one will be a long wait.

We just booked for Jan 2017 for Australia on Celebrity .

How far out have you booked your cruises. I just booked a RC cruise for Feb. 13th on the Brilliance of the Seas. Not planning on telling hubby yet. Shh! :)

Price was too good to turn down and it doesn't have any cancellation penalties until Dec of 2015. Yeah! However, this one will be a long wait.

We have 3 or 4 cruises booked for sometime in 2016 - I am not sure when or even what they are. The reason is that we got some really good deals on add ons and also with very low deposits. Also we have a Princess on-board booked that is due to expire. Out TA told us to book anything as far out as we can just as a place holder. In fact, for the cruises that are not Princess, we were on another cruise and could not deal with a choice of cruises so we just told him to book anything. When the final payment comes close, we will either cancel the booked cruises or book another one as far out as we can.

Whole thing seems a bit silly to us but our TA says that this is what we should do.

DON

Our last two cruises (one NCL, one HAL) we booked at or near the final payment deadline. However, in November 2014 we booked our probable next cruise for Feb/Mar 2016 on Princess. This was due to (1) very specific adjoining room requirements, (2) very specific time window, both in 2015 and projected to 2016, (3) relatively specific ports-of-call wanted on a Panama Canal cruise -- did not want to repeat much or any of the Mexican Riviera, and (4) no itinerary on any line that met the above in 2015, making me very aware of how rare it was going to find any cruise meeting those requirements at all. So when I found one in 2016, I talked my DH into putting the (refundable) deposit on it and we did.

IOW, normally we do not have a problem with a short-time-out reservation and love to pick up the good deals that way -- but for a trip where we're travelling with family members with specific needs, we don't mind looking quite a ways out, especially when it's refundable.

1995 Orient Lines Marco Polo, Cape Town to Buenos Aires

2000? HAL Statendam, Ensenada to Hawaii and back

June 2009 HAL Statendam, Vancouver to Seward, Alaska

June 2011 Vodohod MS Russ, St.Peterburg to Moscow

Sept/Oct 2012 Vodohod MS Russ, Astrakhan to Moscow

Dec 2013 Norwegian Star, Panama Canal & Mexican Riviera

Nov/Dec 2014 HAL Zaandam, Santiago to Buenos Aires

Feb/Mar 2016 Island Princess, Fort Lauderdale/Panama Canal/Los Angeles

We booked a January 2013 cruise in May, 2011. It sold out the next week.

We typically book either just inside or just outside the final payment window.

Depends on pricing and cabin availability.

We usually have two itineraries on the watch, and two or three ships for each itinerary.

We still work and have some other responsibilities that require advance planning. The furthest out we have booked was about 500 days. The closest-in was about 100 days. I tried and TRIED last summer to get a very-last-minute cruise to Alaska but had no success.

That surprises me. We saw numerous Alaska last minute cruise offers on HAL, Princess, NCL, and a few on Celebrity. Air can be a challenge even if you live close to the port since many of them are one ways north or south.

I book most of our cruises the week that it sails .

One I booked at 11:00 pm and sailed the next day .:D

That surprises me. We saw numerous Alaska last minute cruise offers on HAL, Princess, NCL, and a few on Celebrity. Air can be a challenge even if you live close to the port since many of them are one ways north or south.

It would have been Greyhound :D Didn't see a good enough deal. I'd been once already so it HAD to be a smokin' good deal and it had to be R/T Vancouver ;)

How far out have you booked your cruises. I just booked a RC cruise for Feb. 13th on the Brilliance of the Seas. Not planning on telling hubby yet. Shh! :)

Price was too good to turn down and it doesn't have any cancellation penalties until Dec of 2015. Yeah! However, this one will be a long wait.

The furthest out we've booked a cruise was 23 months. The shortest - 4 days.

I tend to book about 18 months in advance. This gives me plenty of time to pay it off.

As soon as they are released for booking.

I generally book our cruises after the final payment date. The longest ahead of time I've booked is 9 months. The latest was about four weeks--at Thanksgiving for a Christmas cruise. This year we're taking post-Christmas short cruises. I booked them on November 8.

I try to wait until the cruises are at the best price possible. One secret is that you can't have your heart set on one particular cruise, or, if you do, you're prepared to skip going if the price doesn't get to the right point.

With more supply than demand these days, I generally book after final payment--ideally 30-65 days prior to sailing. What I do book in advance is the airfare and I am sure to "box" the maximum number of possible sailing dates/itineraries.

We book as early as we can.

On one line they put out itineraries so early that we have booked a little under three years in advance.

Keith

We book cruises anywhere from 1 1/2 to 2 years out.

Why -- because we know what cabins we like and want to make certain that we get them.

My upcoming cruise is the 1st one I ever booked before final payment was due. Usually we don't book until later because it's very hard to schedule time off that far in advance.

I would only book 1 year out. That gives me plenty of time to save and supposedly get fit (which didnt happen this year - lol!) I don't know what family members are going to be doing any more than a year out. Plus a 12month countdown is the most I could cope with. Any more than that is too long to wait!

I have an upcoming cruise that I booked 13 months in advance. The rest were booked with less than 90 days to go.

One cruise we booked 13 months ahead. We had tried to book this one at another time and it was sold out. We booked a different itinerary and after that one, booked this cruise.

One cruise we booked eight days prior and in a three day period, I booked the cruise, the flights, pre-cruise hotel, several post-cruise hotels (we were going to check out the Keys plus do a stay in Hawaii) and the post-cruise rental car. And this is back when we had molasses-slow dial up, so part of the arrangements had to be done over the phone.

We put down a deposit for a 'future cruise request' to do b-to-b cruises over Christmas and Millennium New Year's Eve far in advance. I think we made the deposit something like summer 1998. We sailed Rotterdam for those cruises and being on that beautiful ship for Year 2000 New Year's Eve was outstanding.

We usually book a year or so in advance. The biggest problem I have, is DH won't even consideranother cruise until the current cruise is over. :mad:

I book mine and don't tell DH until after I have booked. Most of the time, he is fine with it. Or sometimes, I just say, surprise honey!

We usually book a year or so in advance. The biggest problem I have, is DH won't even consideranother cruise until the current cruise is over. :mad:

:) My late DH was exactly the opposite. He never wanted to go on a cruise without knowing we had the next one booked. :D He got no argument from me over that.