Booking a new cruise while on board

[Yesimapirate]

My wife and I will be sailing in December. Extremely experienced travelers averaging over 200,000 miles flown and 200+hotel nights a year for nearly 20 years. Far less experienced with cruising having oy done a 3 day cruise with friends to test the waters.

 

We are sailing in Dec and already looking at dates to book our next cruise. Is there any advantage to booking a cruise while on board?

 

I'm familiar with CruiseNext and used it for this cruise. Is there any additional incentive?

 

TYIA

[Shellbelle28]

We recently booked while aboard. The only benefits we got that wouldn't have been available booking from home was the $250 OBC given to us to use on the cruise we were on, and that we only had to make a $1000 deposit instead of $1500 to book a suite.

[BirdTravels]

Unless you have already picked the exact ship/dates of your next cruise, it is probably not worth your while to try and make that decision in a "pressure situation". Yeah, everything is fully refundable until the final payment date. But adding more stress on your vacation is not always the best thing to do.

[KeithJenner]

To answer your actual question, There is a very small benefit to booking onboard, as you do get an extra offer.

 

I believe that this is still an upgrade of one cabin category. That doesn’t mean that you get upgraded from a balcony to a mini suite, for example, but from one type of balcony to another.

 

It doesn’t apply to all types of cabins, so can be limited. The actual effect is that you may save, say $50 compared to booking online after the cruise.

 

Personally, I see no harm in that if you know what you want too book. I’d only do it is I had previously decided. If you use a TA then I guess you are likely to miss out on perks they offer (although I believe the booking is transferred to them, so can’t say for sure).

 

 

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[JamieLogical]

The two times I have booked on board so far, we have received a free category upgrade (not meta upgrade). Both times we got a BA for the current BD price. Saves roughly $50 per person. Also, the CruiseNext people always seem to add on "extras" like cakes or chocolate covered strawberries... somehow we ended up with TWO cakes on our upcoming Encore TA. For our upcoming Bliss sailing, I think we got chocolate covered strawberries and an extra bottle of sparkling wine (beyond the one we get for Latitudes).

[Diana68]

I've done this over 10 times in the last year and a half. It can save you a lot more than $50, it just depends on the sailing. You pay for the lowest priced cabin in a category, and move up to the highest. You can even pay the sailaway price, move up, and get to pick your cabin(sailaways are guarantees), but then you don't get the perks. Booking a sailaway inside, I've saved over $700 on a sailing (minus the perk) of what an IA was priced. Booking Obstructed Ocean View is usually a great deal, because you get both perks, and move to an OA. I've saved over $600 doing that.

The chocolate covered strawberries are just an added bonus.

 

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Edited September 27, 2018 by Diana68