Last minute bookers: Share your strategies

[Daghis]

In general, I usually get my week-long cruises booked well in advance (at least six months, sometimes over a year). But, I've had several occasions to take weekend cruises, and I've found that there can be some great deals to be had if you're willing to wait to book until it's closer to when you want to cruise.

 

For me, I try to do as much research as I can to get an idea of what trends there may be. I look at upcoming sailings at RoyalCaribbean.com and see whether prices seem to drop and, if so, how far out in the future. From what I've gathered, it looks like three weeks in advance is a pretty good sweet spot.

 

I also found a cruise price monitoring web site (that I cannot mention by name here) that includes a page that shows historical information. I try to look up the same cruise from a year ago and see how its price changed over time. This may give me some information about seasonal trends. There I've seen that sometimes there are price drops in the week leading up to the cruise, but I don't think I could wait that long.

 

Lastly, I've also been using Cruise Critic's roll call threads to gauge how popular an upcoming sailing might be. One particular sailing I'm looking at doesn't even have a roll call thread started. Sure, it's on Majesty of the Seas over the summer and those roll calls can tend to be hit or miss, especially this far out, but it's yet another data point.

 

For others who tend to try and get the better deals, what strategies do you use for getting the best deal?

[reallyitsmema]

I watch the weekly sales link that is updated usually by end of day Thursdays.

 

http://www.creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Multi_Dest/Special_Offers/rci_sales_event.pdf