Questions!

If you have a cruise booked and paid for....and prices go down or are less expensive now, is your cruise cost adjusted or are you given on board credit or bumped up to a better cabin? Any choices or options?

Do 'cruisers' often book excursions outside of the ship? What is the benefit of booking an excursion through an outside source other than NCL? Cost?

Sailing Dawn....March 29th!:)

Price adjustments depend on the cruise line and on the lower price offer - sometimes they specify 'new bookings only'. It also isn't always advantageous to ask for the lower cost; if your original booking included perks (drink package, prepaid gratuities, OBC) that are not included in the lower price offer, you could lose them. You have to look at it on a case by case basis.

Many cruisers book independent tours rather than going through the cruise line. Many also don't do a 'tour' at all, but prefer to just wander on their own near the pier or hire a taxi to get to some spot they've previously researched. Factors to consider include cost (self-booked usually cheaper), crowds (private tours often include fewer people), timing (if time in port is very tight, you're possibly safer on a cruise-sponsored tour, especially in a tender port), your personal comfort zone in unfamiliar places where you don't know the customs, terrain, or language (here the ship tours may offer greater comfort level). We've done both and had some hits & misses with both.

Ya, what Kartgv posted.

After "final payment date" nearly all low price deals are for "new bookings only".

We rarely book excursions through the ship. Ship's excursions tend to have a higher cost and larger groups. If we do an excursion through the ship, its because we are not familiar with the port or the excursion activity is known to be a distance away from the port and we don't want to risk the chance a transportation problem making us late getting back to the port and miss the ship.

Welcome to Cruise Critic!

The two major advantages of booking an excursion through the cruise line are....

1) being able to use onboard credit (if you have it) to pay for excursions (on some cruise lines this is only true if you book onboard, not in advance

2) the ship will wait for you if the excursion is delayed returning to the port.

Check out TripAdvisor for ratings on independent excursion providers.