Predicting/anticipating price drops

[CruiserRev]

Hello!

We are cruising on the November 13 Venice Overnight Equinox cruise. Couldn't be more excited!

 

We've already benefitted from some of the price fluctuation, and have an assigned room that came from an Aqua guarantee, having received the most recent $50 price drop a couple of weeks ago.

 

Besides my vigilant checking to make sure there isn't additional movement, I pay attention to prices of other cruises sailing before ours to see if the pattern of their price changes might apply to our sailing.

 

The November 1 Equinox sailing has similar availability to ours, and has seen quite a bit of movement (down then back up) in the suite guarantee and aqua guarantee categories. If similar movement were to occur on our sailing, we could, in theory, be looking at $250 p/p less to stay in aqua, or as little as $150 p/p to upgrade to a suite (right now the upgrade is $450 p/p).

 

Just curious if anyone else has paid attention to trends and could offer observations or wisdom for what to expect in the near future. For the record, we have OBC, but no other perks at stake.

[ariawoman]

I think if you can find an actual true correlation, you should play the lottery lol.

 

I'm not sure that one can apply to the other, for certain.

[Karynanne]

We watch price flucuations closely. Our particular cruise still has a large amount of cabins available, and there have been quite a few "guarantee" status cabins available on a weekly basis.

 

We did take advantage of the Suite guarantee. We had originally paid a much higher price for our cabin, and changed to the guarantee and was assigned a much larger cabin.

 

Does this always work? No. But after watching the inventory, and knowing which cabins were left in that category, we knew we had a good chance at great cabin. You have to be viligant if you're going go this route.

[neverbeenhere]

The old famous Saga, Seer, and Soothsayer.

[Toronto Guy]

Your final payment will be due in the next few days. Depending in space on your ship you may want to downgrade your cabin selection before final payment then upgrade it after final payment when the prices drop. This depends on how much you are currently paying of course....I usually book am outside cabin then upgrade to AQ once the prices drop. If prices drop below what you paid after final payment they quite often won't allow you to upgrade - usually have to pay a little bit more to be eligible. They "might" upgrade you but no discount after final payment for sure. Better to book at a low price and leave room.

 

 

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[Toronto Guy]

At least that is my strategy. Everybody has their own and different comfort levels in terms of booking security. Apologies for typos above!

 

 

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[CruiserRev]

That is a compelling strategy, Toronto Guy!

[Milhouse]

To state the obvious, the trend we've seen in tracking our cruise is with guaranteed cabins highly discounted post final payment.

We booked 10 months in advance with a number of perks. The pricing since has essentially been higher than what we've paid. Post final payment, assigned cabin pricing is still higher but the guaranteed cabins are notably lower.