Onboard Future Cruise Purchase

This is my 6th cruise but only my second one with RCCL. My question is how good are the deals for future cruises that they encourage you to buy onboard? I haven’t done it before but if the deals are as good as they lead you to believe I am prepared to book on my sailing in three weeks. Thoughts?

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Our last two cruises I have gone to the future desk to compare prices I have already booked for future cruises, both times the price they quote have been hundreds higher. If you do use the future cruise desk you will see they offer a better deal the last few days of your cruise. If you do use royal to book your cruise they will book directly with themselves or to your TA of choice. If you book with Royal you have 60 days to turn it over to a TA and pick up TA perks and still keep anything royal gives you for booking on board.

This is my 6th cruise but only my second one with RCCL. My question is how good are the deals for future cruises that they encourage you to buy onboard? I haven’t done it before but if the deals are as good as they lead you to believe I am prepared to book on my sailing in three weeks. Thoughts?

http://www.royalonboardsales.com/content/assets/2015/05/FAQ-Trade-New-NextCruise-Offer-August-2017.pdf

In addition to the info in the flyer, you can get a reduced deposit of $100pp booking onboard, but only if you opt for non-refundable deposit.

Our last two cruises I have gone to the future desk to compare prices I have already booked for future cruises, both times the price they quote have been hundreds higher. If you do use the future cruise desk you will see they offer a better deal the last few days of your cruise. If you do use royal to book your cruise they will book directly with themselves or to your TA of choice. If you book with Royal you have 60 days to turn it over to a TA and pick up TA perks and still keep anything royal gives you for booking on board.

I found that the price quoted by NextCruise onboard matches the current price on the RC website. The price starts out the same, but they offer incentives to book onboard (discounted price or OBC credit in the same amount) making it a better deal to book onboard.

We booked our upcoming cruises (Symphony in May and Eclipse in Sep) whilst onboard Indy last Sep. The prices quoted were exactly the same as their UK website prices on the day.

The Symphony cruise gave us an additional $100 onboard credit per week for our B2B on Symphony, a transferable booking prior to final payment and a one time price drop matching if the price went down. The latter I later found out didn’t apply as it was a UK terms booking (given Indy sails all summer ex UK you would think the staff there would know that). I managed to get shareholder benefit added later too.

The Eclipse Cruise gave us $200 onboard credit for our 12 night trip and that was all. Shareholder credit was denied for this one as we had the next Cruise onboard credit - strange as it was the same offer as the Royal Cruise.

What struck me though was I used two different agents in the next Cruise office. Neither struck me as particularly friendly despite me making things easy ( I want to book this cruise, this’s date, this cabin etc) and I found out they were not as knowledgable as you would expect given all they do is sell Royal (and Celebrity) cruises. They told me we had to pay our grats upfront for the Royal Cruise if we wanted Mytime dining and I later found out that requirement was dropped over two years ago.

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We booked another cruise (actually pretty much the same cruise a year later) on board. And so far, the deal with the price and OBC has been the best deal available.

I transferred it to a TA who checks to see if the pricing is better on a regular basis, and so far, nothing better.

I have posted a response on here twice and it keeps disappearing. Any ideas what’s happening?

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I have posted a response on here twice and it keeps disappearing. Any ideas what’s happening?

It is against the rules of this forum to mention or request specific TA names.

Oh, thanks for letting me know. I was just curious how to find a reputable one as there are none showing on the RCCL site when I put in my city/state.

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Oh, thanks for letting me know. I was just curious how to find a reputable one as there are none showing on the RCCL site when I put in my city/state.

Word of mouth is a good way, speak to friends who have used travel agents.