Depends how flexable you are on ship and date.
I am sure there will be a deal somewhere

May has a couple of bank holidays and a 1/2 term that can make prices a little higher than early June.

Royal Caribbean and Princess cruise lines will refund the difference if you see a cheaper price after you book. Worth bearing in mind.
Royal Caribbean's Management has just decided a new policy on last minute wholesale cutting of prices in order to improve occupancy. They plan to maintain the agreed price and sail with less pax if need be...
Bookings this year, surprisingly, with the 'credit crunch' etc are on a good course.
We booked a very last minute cruise in the W Med last May- we did 5/4 days back to back and each cruise was $200 plus taxes. So for both of us the total we paid was $800 plus fees for 9 days cruising the Med.

To be honest I can't see any holidays coming down in price, even though this is what you'd expect in a credit crunch. Our holiday for Easter has gone up by over £300 pounds.

We booked a Princess cruise last August and when the price dropped we asked Cruise Kings to try for a refund but they couldn't get one for us. We phoned Princess direct and spent ages on the phone without success. They wouldn't even give any OBC, so it is by no means automatic.

If i were stuck to dates then i would book the cruise of your choice, if you are happy with the price you have to pay. If you can wait because you are not stuck to a time frame then i would wait. Some friends of mine went just after new year on a late deal round the Caribbean for 2 weeks for £649 each, they booked the week before. It was with Thomsons, and they had an inside cabin, they had a fabulous time and enjoyed telling everyone what they paid. My self i like to have the choice of cabin, itinery, and ship i am on, but for that price i would have been tempted.

TBH I am very surprised with bookings at the moment. I work for a specialist agency in this field and we are ahead year on year, by a fair bit as well, and on Saturday I was in town locally and every travel agent had a queue in the shop, so whilst many people are tightening the belt financially, it seems holidays are not something that people are willing to go without. So with reduced capacity in many areas this year you might struggle.
In general booking late is ok if you are solely price driven, but I think with cruises there are so many things you have to consider. Obviously if you book late your are going to get the left over cabins, in many cases and if you want a specific dining time you may not get it on a late booking, but as long as you are happy with getting what you are given, thats fine book late.
As someone else said, some companies are stopping last minute discounts and after the recent bad press that P&O had I wouldnt be surprised if they do too.

peakta wrote:

TBH I am very surprised with bookings at the moment. I work for a specialist agency in this field and we are ahead year on year, by a fair bit as well, and on Saturday I was in town locally and every travel agent had a queue in the shop, so whilst many people are tightening the belt financially, it seems holidays are not something that people are willing to go without. So with reduced capacity in many areas this year you might struggle.
In general booking late is ok if you are solely price driven, but I think with cruises there are so many things you have to consider. Obviously if you book late your are going to get the left over cabins, in many cases and if you want a specific dining time you may not get it on a late booking, but as long as you are happy with getting what you are given, thats fine book late.
As someone else said, some companies are stopping last minute discounts and after the recent bad press that P&O had I wouldnt be surprised if they do too.

Remember the credit crunch is not effecting as many people as people might think.

Those that keep their jobs and have mortgages are seeing loads of extra money in their pockets and allthough some will be saving many will spend.

Is there really reduced capacity in any area most cruise lines are bringing out larger ships to replace the ones they are retiring or moving to other lines(so still part of the total berth count) I guess reduced capacity for land holidays keeps their prices up so makes the Cruise more attractive as people cant get their land choice.

I am not convinced that the sail with lots of empty cabins policy will work they lose to much on board revenue and the cabin steward/waiters get lower wages, NCL use upsell(they call you to offer the high grades at a discount, but not if you book in the UK another reason to book US) to keep the headline prices high so the late discount tend to be on the lower grades.

We may see the discounting start a bit early and go to new bookings only

The way to fill the ships is to price very keen early on and capture the bookings reducing the dependancy on the late booker, we have seen some of this with higher OBC and good 2+pax prices(ncl are now $99 for some cruises) toattract families, but prices now seem higher than they were last year for the med/europe cruises we are looking at, perhaps it is an illusion because we got good deals last year.

I think there will may be some crafty discounting perhaps through one agent to offload cabins, RCI now own cruise1st(acording tothe web site) thats were the Island cruise cabin ofloads went, perhaps we will see RCI offloading cabins without changing the prices on their own web site.

One thing that has happened is to regionalise the price drops so for example to keep prices in the US high and discount only in the UK or the other way round especilay cruise that are generaly 50%+ US passengers.

I wasn't suggesting that cruise companie were reducing capacity, they are indeed increasing it, but in other areas of travel, capacity is decreasing, such as flights etc.

peakta wrote:

I wasn't suggesting that cruise companie were reducing capacity, they are indeed increasing it, but in other areas of travel, capacity is decreasing, such as flights etc.

This will just make it almost impossible to fill the ships if people cant get there.

Transatlantics allready suffer from this because it is not easy to get one way flight at good prices from the UK to the US(the other way is much easier) so some of the cruses are down to $30pppn. and even UK prices are sensible direct with RCI
Vision of the seas 14night £275 might even be some senior discount on that.

This is where a TA or the cruise lines and airlines need to get creative to get people to the ships

BA have flights to BCN almost empty if they packaged up the seats especialy business with the cruise say the suites they could offer some great deals but still keep the headline prices looking good.

In fact BA have just cancelled their LGW-BCN service for the summer season, so that has put the cat amongst the pigeons as far as people travelling that route, they now have to go from lhr or indirect via a european gateway.
Is this a response to decreasing pax numbers in the credit crunch? No i dont think so its a response to the many people who prefer to fly with lo-cost carriers instead and 'diy' their holidays. No point flying an unprofitable route.

I had a long chat with the cabin attendant on the LHR-BCN and she said that on that route they had seen the decline start around the end of Nov on some of the flights, like ours out at 7:30 the return flight was full.

The cost of the BA flight was at £99 for some time and EJ was around £70 by the time you added bags, which you will nearly allways have for a cruise.

After costing all the options, bags, transport, parking etc. the BA flight was cheaper and was lower risk since they operated more flights in the day.

Exactly, so why was the flight empty? People had perceived that the flight with easyjet was cheaper, but infact the BA was and safer(fiancially I mean).

people switching or fewer people flying I think the latter.

we've been looking at booking a med/greek cruise with thomson......for august.
we did the similar one last year (same dates, same cabins) and the holiday last year was over £1000 cheaper last year (we booked it around April)
I am holding out for cheaper prices as I refuse to pay £3300 for 3 peeps for a weeks cruise......(I have tried other operators too and price hardly varies)
Ok I am taking a risk.....but if it goes it goes......we will get a fab holiday SOMEWHERE for that price

fitzy2 wrote:

we've been looking at booking a med/greek cruise with thomson......for august.
we did the similar one last year (same dates, same cabins) and the holiday last year was over £1000 cheaper last year (we booked it around April)
I am holding out for cheaper prices as I refuse to pay £3300 for 3 peeps for a weeks cruise......(I have tried other operators too and price hardly varies)
Ok I am taking a risk.....but if it goes it goes......we will get a fab holiday SOMEWHERE for that price :D

With you all the way, once you have had a deal you are reluctant to go higher next time.

fitzy2 wrote:

we've been looking at booking a med/greek cruise with thomson......for august.
we did the similar one last year (same dates, same cabins) and the holiday last year was over £1000 cheaper last year (we booked it around April)
I am holding out for cheaper prices as I refuse to pay £3300 for 3 peeps for a weeks cruise......(I have tried other operators too and price hardly varies)
Ok I am taking a risk.....but if it goes it goes......we will get a fab holiday SOMEWHERE for that price :D

This is the secret, like fitzy have your eye on something (or a small number) specific, but try and give yourself a slightly wider window and flexibility. We have never failed to get a good deal using that strategy. There is no specific timescale in which to book...we had a fantastic deal on Ventura last year which had been booked at marketing "launch" time more than a year before the cruise, although most of our deals have been at 3 months in.

We also are looking at the Thompsons Greek Isles cruises (September) & have noticed exactly the same. Prices are far too high at the moment, we have decided to wait, although the price of the AI package is tempting!

Ahhhh, and there's the other sting in the tail.....the AI package WAS £49 per adult......until last monday (2nd feb)......

it is now £169 per adult. i wouldn't take it at that price.....as at most i would have 5 or so drinks on an evening.....and my husband drinks Strongbow so has to pay the supplement. i did try bargaining with them but they werent budging!

I wouldnt pay for the AI package either, you would have to stay on the ship 24/7 to get the full benefit. Our last cruise we didnt have the drinks package and our bar bill was £176.00. My husband likes a drink and had wine every night with dinner along with beer, and i had my fare share. We had what we wanted when we wanted it. We like to get off the ship, and we do spend quite a lot of money, but we dont feel that the drinks package is worth it for us.
We have also booked a cruise in October, with the drinks package included, it is now £400.00 more expensive, and no drinks package included. We are happy with the price we are paying, and even if the price is reduced it will not trouble me. I have noticed that the price of the Thomson Cruises have risen in price since we booked ours. We have also booked our stay and cruise with Thomsons for Jan 10, it is the same holiday we have just had in the Caribbean, without the drinks package. We have now got the drinks package included and an up grade in cabin, it is £350.00 cheaper than what we paid for Jan 09.