WWCCD? What Would CCer's Do?

Simple question, kinda.

I would make this a poll, but I want real answers.

If you are booking a cruise, what is the best option. Past guest or early saver? I understand all the rules and regulations, but I can't figure which way is for me. So let's say the options are within 100$ of each other. Do you go with taking a chance of maybe getting obc, or take the chance that your cabin will potentially get better?

I can't decide... :confused:

I am no expert, but I usually book ES. With this cruise, I did the past guest rate. It was basically the same price, but gave us a two category upgrade. I figured that the chances of my summertime, weekend cruise going DOWN was minimal.

The last past guest rate I booked lost me 200.00 bucks. I'd go ES and get the room I really want to begin with. You win both ways...

Simple question, kinda.

 

I would make this a poll, but I want real answers.

 

If you are booking a cruise, what is the best option. Past guest or early saver? I understand all the rules and regulations, but I can't figure which way is for me. So let's say the options are within 100$ of each other. Do you go with taking a chance of maybe getting obc, or take the chance that your cabin will potentially get better?

 

I can't decide... :confused:

I think it also depends on what the possibilities are of you having to cancel, or change the people in the cabin, etc. I felt pretty confident that these would not be an issue (school break doesn't change, and I am not thinking of changing sons) so we went with ES on two cruises. We got a very nice drop in price on one, and decided to upgrade from a reg. bal to an aft extended instead of taking the OBC. And now we still have accumulated more than $200 OBC from price drops for each cruise. We feel like made the right choice.

I'd go ES and get the room I really want to begin with. You win both ways...

...unless the OP needs to make changes to their reservation or cancel, even outside of penalty.

Carnival has said that the Early Saver has been "extremely successful". In other words, they are making a killing charging penalties to people who book their cruise under ES led by the lower price and then need to make some sort of change...

For us, ES doesn't work. We book very early, and normally in the meantime, we run across some deal on a different ship, sailing date, or cruise line that's too good to pass up. Booking Early Saver would mean being stuck with the original sailing or paying up.

We booked the ES for this year, it was a lower price and I got a room number right away but I have not seen any further savings with it.

...unless the OP needs to make changes to their reservation or cancel, even outside of penalty.

 

Carnival has said that the Early Saver has been "extremely successful". In other words, they are making a killing charging penalties to people who book their cruise under ES led by the lower price and then need to make some sort of change...

 

For us, ES doesn't work. We book very early, and normally in the meantime, we run across some deal on a different ship, sailing date, or cruise line that's too good to pass up. Booking Early Saver would mean being stuck with the original sailing or paying up.

All true! We're the type that don't book unless it's exactly where we wanna go and with ES we know we're gonna get the best deal out there. It works for us...

There's also 6 of us, so we're not going to make any changes in our adjoining rooms. No one else could fit with us and typically there's only 2 or 3 places we can fit, anyway! LOL

We always book the past guest rate (or sometimes the Interline rate). We never book Early Saver as we like to be able to make changes if necessary, and do not like the ES restrictions. No matter how inexpensive ES rates are, we have never thus far booked ES and don't plan to. Flexibility is worth more to us than any OBC we might get. But that's just us.

No matter the booking type, I always want one that allows me to choose my room. I like to know exactly where I will be. It's very important to me.

Early saver you would loose your deposit if you had to cancel. I stay away from those. Wait for past guest prices.

Well we just booked our Cruise last week and we did the Past Guest and we got the Room we wanted that was never an issue...Now the reason why we dont do ES is because it doesnt allow you to change anything or Cancel and for us Our school District changed our Winter Break for 2011 December and I had orignally booked it according to the calendar and well Guess What with them changing the Dates we werent able to go so we had to Change it to Thanksgiving Week..had we booked ES we wouldn't have been able to to it...We are also on the Lido Deck where we wanted in the room we wanted..

I booked ours on a Friday using Early Saver. Triumph's June 4 sailing. DW said the next morning, "You know, I would really rather have done the other one." (June 11 to Key West and the Bahamas also on Triumph.) Why did I not know that???? What clue did I miss?

Anyway, I called my PVP at home and she called her supervisor and got it changed for no extra money. And later she got the price drop form to me in time to score a $100 OBC when I was only expecting $40! I want more!!! :D

By reading these boards it would seem that most all sailings come down in price.

For us, in 15 cruises only two ever came down in price.

If you are cruising during an off time-- take the chance and book ES rate.

For my next cruise we are booking at the regular rate so we can get cabin credit. (group cruise) booking the ES rate we would lose the 100.00

By reading these boards it would seem that most all sailings come down in price.

For us, in 15 cruises only two ever came down in price.

 

Exactly my point. I don't expect mine to come down at all, so no need for the ES.

Simple question, kinda.

 

I would make this a poll, but I want real answers.

 

If you are booking a cruise, what is the best option. Past guest or early saver? I understand all the rules and regulations, but I can't figure which way is for me. So let's say the options are within 100$ of each other. Do you go with taking a chance of maybe getting obc, or take the chance that your cabin will potentially get better?

 

I can't decide... :confused:

I will always select the lowest fare..which is, generally speaking, East Saver. I wouldn't buy a "guarantee" if it were lower, however. I like to pick my own balcony cabin location.

Not only is ES the lowest, but I've received OBC on 2 cruises totalling 460.00 and a reduction in price of 150.00 prior to final payment on a third. On a fourth, it was the transcanal repo of the Elation last April..I booked as soon as reservations were opened. A week later the price had doubled...and, before the cruise, the price had quadrupled........

It's a no brainer for me. That coupla hundred dollars difference in the fares looks better in my pocket than theres....plus, I really like the idea of getting OBC if/when the price falls into the toilet.

ES for me/

This is only my second Carnival Cruise so I was not very knowledgable. However, my TA booked me ES and I now have a nice chunk of OBC. My question is this: If you take ES and you also have insurance with an outside company, i.e., travelguard, etc., couldn't you cancel for a good reason and still be covered?

The last two cruises I booked ES. I notice that the prices are going up. So probably no OBC(the price went up on the last cruise, so no OBC either) but I paid less, got the cabin I wanted, and since rain, shine, hurricane or earthquake, wont keep me from going, I will be on my cruise paying 200 less than a past quest price. Sail happy!:)

I prefer past guest. While I'm usually certain when and where I want to go, life often interferes with my plans and I don't like the nonrefundable deposit.

I don't care too much if the prices go down; if I couldn't afford the price when I booked I wouldn't have booked.

We book our cruises well in advance and ensure that are dates are firm so......ES has always been the way to go for us. With that being said if something happened to change that I'd be fine with paying the penalty of $50pp to change sailings. With all of the price drops/OBC we've gotten over the years from booking ES it's paid off very nicely. When the program first came out we had a cruise booked under past guest. The ES rate saved us a nice chunk of change by switching to it.

The ONLY exception for us is the Hawaii cruise we have booked for April 2012. When we were looking at that cruise the Carnival rates were higher than a CC group offering. Luckily we were invited to join a group of wonderful cruisers that we had sailed with previously and their group rates are incredible. We not only saved a huge chunk on the cruise but we are also receiving OBC. There is no way that our cruise prices will drop before sailing to anything near the rates we paid. In this case it makes total sense to not book with the ES rate.

After reading some of the above replies I just wanted to take a minute to add that there seems to be confusion with the ES rates.

ES deposits ARE refundable however a $50pp penalty is applied and you do not get that back. You are able to change sailings/dates etc and have the remaining $200pp applied to the new sailing. You will not get the cash back but they do hold it so you can apply it to another future sailing.

You DO get to choose your cabin with ES rates. The only time you do not get to select your own cabin is when you book a guarantee rate and ES is not available for those rates.

The one area most people get hung up on with ES is if there are 2 people booked in your cabin and if one needs to cancel you can not switch another person (using a name change) into that person's place. You can add someone at the current fare being offered but it's considered a new reservation for that person. Many choose to simply keep that original person and have them be a no show rather than add someone at the current price since it tends to be much higher.

I thought I was missing something on the various rates, but when I bkkd I wasn't eligible for ES, and our balcony rate keeps going up! It is now $260pp higher than I paid, so the ES wouldn't have helped me either.(as I understand it)

Exactly my point. I don't expect mine to come down at all, so no need for the ES.