Booking A Cruise After Final Payment Date Has Past

[PROCRUISE]

I usually book cruises as much as a year in advance. This way I can usually select a cabin I'm happy with and decide whether to pay for perks or not.

I have a cruise in March 2024 that I'm interested in and I know final payment date for this cruise is 12/24/23. I'm interested in experiences that others have had, both pro and con, with waiting until just right after final payment date has pasted and then booking that cruise. Naturally I have to assume that cabin choice may not be as great but are there other advantages, or not, that others have experienced?

Cruise Critic always seems to be great place to get answers.

[USN59-79]

We generally book a cruise about two months before its departure.  The reason is that many have booked it and a few other ones, sometimes at the $1. booking rate and decided not to take it.  So there are many cabins available because they have cancelled.  Often the cost is much less for the cruise, so we decide to book it.  That is the advantage.

Ray

[sunviking90]

3 hours ago, USN59-79 said:

We generally book a cruise about two months before its departure.  The reason is that many have booked it and a few other ones, sometimes at the $1. booking rate and decided not to take it.  So there are many cabins available because they have cancelled.  Often the cost is much less for the cruise, so we decide to book it.  That is the advantage.

Ray

We also book most of our cruises after final payment now that we are retired and flexible with dates. We generally find we get the best price this way and have never had a problem getting a satisfactory cabin.  If you are someone who cruises in suites, they are usually gone by then so that could be a con.
Exceptions for us are new destinations that we would be adding land portions to which need more research and planning. Those we would book farther out.

Edited October 29, 2023 by sunviking90

[ontheweb]

If you have to fly to get to your embarkation port, you might want to consider the availability and possibility of higher prices for your airfare.

[kazu]

Booking after final payment can be a savings for the right itineraries.

 

I tend to do longer ones and for the few I have cruised since the pandemic - the prices went UP after final payment, not down.  I think it very much depends on the itinerary.  Caribbean, etc are bound to be cheaper after final payment if the ship is not sailing well.

 

From what I have seen when I do the Bon Voyage threads, many of the sailings are sold out.  Granted every sailing is not listed on the Future Cruise Listing but it does seem to have been more of a trend than I can recall in the past.

[FrankieSue]

There is no telling when the best time to book is…. We booked a cruise 8 months ahead and actually saved over $2,000 as the price kept going up plus we were able to get the HIA Early Bird package which has many extra benefits…. So I would say, the best time to book is when it feels right to you

[POA1]

Cruise prices can go down. They sometimes go up though. Airfare almost always goes up closer in. There can be issues with excursion availability. The perks of booking early, like Have It All Plus usually are not available.

 

However, if you don't care about the excursions and you can drive to the port, it could make sense.

[Heartgrove]

I have heard that around 157 days out airlines are at their lowest for International flights. I haven't found that to be the case but it could be true. This year I happent find an unbelieveable airfare 218 days before the date we flew. It was RT in Premium Economy for $2,244.00 for three ($748.00/pp) IAD - CPH. Subsequent days after we booked I occasionaly check and found the same itinerary for up to $7,000+!

[SargassoPirate]

Keep in mind there's probably a reason certain cabins are available  after the final payment date.

 

I prefer to carefully select my cabin location as soon as I decide to cruise, and I stick with it. 

[Heartgrove]

The best thing to do is keep an eye open for true sales, not just the ones with a lot of hype. That means doing your homework and keeping track of fares over a period of time. Last year we had booked a cruise on MSC with connecting staterooms. We booked in early September to take full advantage of  MSC's Voyager Club amenities. Their Black Friday Sale had a huge savings! That meant that we needed to do a complete rebooking. We had a very helpful representative that I ended up walking through some parts of the booking (we had a special fare code to be used) but kept the same staterooms., etc. We saved about $1,500! We only lost the double points in the Voayager Club with the rebooking.

[sunviking90]

Wanted to add that if you cruise with the HIA it does seem earlier is better with extras sometimes included. For us, we don’t drink, and only cruise with the standard fare so later is often better. 
A few years back, when we were working and had to prebook vacations farther out, we did get burned a few times as we watched the prices drop after final payment for our cruises on HAL. This could be because we tend to book repositionings, etc and avoid the 7 day loops. 
I usually know what I want to pay for a certain itinerary, and when I see it at the point I’ll book. It usually works out. 

[countingbackwards]

I'm (usually) a value shopper when it comes to vacations, whether they're cruises or something else.  When you book a year out, you get to pick your room, but the pricing will be based on an "average" for similar cruises so it won't be the best value.  If you book within a month or 2 of the cruise, you can get advantageous pricing that came up due to circumstances.  As an example, in March, I got great pricing ~1 month out on an aft balcony on the NS that came up due to a cancelled dry dock for the NA that thus was cruising the exact same itinerary, departing 1 day earlier...so suddenly a lot of people moved their reservations to the NA from the NS, and lots of rooms were available.

 

A 2nd one, in 2019, I nabbed a 12-day Med cruise mid-summer on the Veendam departing from Venice that had a free kids offer right around final payment date...put 4 of us in an OV cabin, and had the least costly Med vacation imaginable, that was on an awesome ship that got into some smaller ports.  Those OV cabins on the Veendam (which I had been in before) were actually quite spacious, and the stairway to the promenade deck made them feel almost like balcony cabins.  It was absolutely worth the minor compromise to get a vacation of a lifetime and show my kids a bit of the world.  I would happily book a room like that again (think that the Volendam has a similar design).

 

For regions like Alaska, the Med or the Caribbean, where there are literally hundreds of cruises by different cruise lines running near-identical itineraries, my strategy is to wait until after final payment, and choose one that was under-booked on any decent line for some reason and grab it.  If it's a longer or more unique itinerary or you're targeting a specific ship, then that strategy would make less sense.

 

I would add - the difference in prices for nabbing an under-booked cruise are far more significant than the benefits of the early HIA promotion.  That promotion is valuable only if you have specific dates or ports, and can't risk just taking whatever is a good deal.

 

As to flights...when booking a cruise, I'll have a 2nd browser window to look up air pricing at the same time as I'm investigating the cruises.  You'd be surprised, but at about 2 months out, sometimes there's some cheap airfare to be had too.  Value vacationing is all about optimizing the airfare and vacation pricing in combination, then pressing the "purchase" button on both within minutes of each other.

 

 

 

[Hlitner]

We have often done last minute bookings (with HAL and other lines) and it is no biggie.  Simply book the cruise (using one of our preferred cruise agency web sites), enter our credit card info, and go.  As to the airlines, there have been times when I am booking the cruise on one computer and booking the air on another computer (simultaneously)  Like with cruise lines, one can sometimes get a decent airline price at the last minute.   All part of the fun of planning last minute trips :).  We recently booked a month-long Seabourn cruise only 19 days prior to embarkation.  So much fun.

 

For folks that really care about cabin categories/locations a last minute booking is often not a great option.  

 

Hank

[*Miss G*]

I book when I see an itinerary and a price that I like.  (And the stars align with our schedules.) If prices drop, my PCC will re-fare or offset the variance in some other manner (OBC, upgrades, perqs).  So — in this regard — I don’t worry too much about whether I should wait until we are inside the final payment window or not.

 

Cabin class/location has never been as good when booking after final payment, but I look at that as the price of the discounted rate.  If cabin class/location is important to me; see paragraph 1.

 

If you’re already in Europe when you book a last-minute European cruise, the cost of air/train fare has less of an impact on the budget than when flying in and out (and around) North America.  Certainly cost fluctuations are more of a factor in NA than Europe.

 

Bottom line:  If I am intent on a particular sailing, I will book it whether it is inside the final payment window or not.