The advantage of booking early is getting the cabin type and location that you want. Also if prices go down you can call Princess and ask for the reduction (or if you book thru a TA they can call) so it's a win win.

Watch prices for this year and if you see a late bargain then thats your low target, then compare the early booking prices if they are close and you have a particular cruise in mind book.
When you are not flexable on a cruise the risks you take booking late are paying more or getting nothing. I prefer to be flexable and have a few options available for a late booking.

It is difficult to judge OV pricing they are discounting more this year than last with Princess you can get the reductions but they often wait till after final payment is due and the discounts are for new bookings only.

Ho both, that's very useful info to know....Windjammer, never thought of doing that! I have the Princess brochure for 2008 already so must be selling it and of course will be selling off this year's cruises too..so I will be off to their website shortly.
One other thing....do you generally get more discount from the cruise line's own website or from an agent?
I have also noticed that people buy cruises from American travel agents, does that work out cheaper?

I know, questions, questions!
Tinka14

In my experience you get more of a discount from the Agent rather than the Cruise Operator direct. For example we have a Costa Victoria cruise booked for October which we got an excellent deal through an on line agent. £612 per person with flights from Aberdeen to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Rome. Costa's price on their website is more than that for cruise only.

I have decided to treat my mum to come along with us so I phoned the agent I booked with (Victoria Travel) and got a price of £1399 for the single occupancy, flying from Manchester. That is more than the 2 of us have paid. I have an email contact for Costa and emailled her to see if she could better the price. She couldn't, her price was £1532. However she did say to me to go back to Victoria Travel as she could see they had some special deals, and that I should get them to recheck the price as she could see it was alot lower than what they had originally quoted me. I phoned back, got a very helpful gentleman, who quoted me £948. Obviously I booked at that and was quite shocked at the huge difference from their original price and Costa's price.

Wow sugarbabe61..that's a huge difference in price! I'm willing to try all routes, sometimes DIY doesn't work out cheaper as the agents have tie ins with companies...I found this out when booking our holiday to Miami/Bahamas cruise in November this year..saved £300 on my DIY price by booking through the agent who has tie ins with Virgin Atlantic and RCI! £300 in my pocket and to spend on my hols!
Tinka14

Occationaly it makes no difference where you book the price seems to be fixed and the TA will not give a discount, seems to be the case for the rock bottom prices and the shorter cruise, probably fixed commision so no money for the TA if they discount.

For Princess I work on 10% off the Princess on-line price but you can get more. Sometimes a TA will take on a block at a special rate but we have found it difficult to make changes with these like try to change grades and often they are on the GTY basis only.

The other thing with Princess is to take up the onboard offer for future cruises "holding booking" it costs nothing, no need to know where /when you want to travel, you get reduced deposit(£75pp) and OBC(upto $125pp).

A quick scan and there are plenty of ships in te area but getting all 4 portss will not give you much choice.

US agents are not allowed to undercut the Cruise Line's own prices,so what they do to attract your business is to offer 'perks' such as free insurance,paid gratuities,paid excursion.... etc. You just have to shop around if you want to book online with one and see what they're offering. You can try Cruise Compete- put in what you want and they will come back with every agent's price/ freebies offered. It gets interesting. Personally I like to control my own reservation and not go thru a third party so I mostly book direct with cruiseline.

Thought I would give cruise complete a try so far interesting results(positive but variable) lets see what comes in overnight.

Well not as many responses as a I would have hoped but did get 2 at the right price from what look like bigish TA#s need to check them out.

For comparison,(final prices inc taxes)

The cruise line leadin price is $1148 on US booking on the UK this is £599(GTY) or £679(I) (I=high deck inside)

Best UK agent wants £699 including transport to Dover and flight back(worth up to £100pp, DIY carhire/ easyjet is £50pp currently)

Best deals that came back was for $850(I) with some voucher book and $860(I) maybe with some OBC.

Going to research "bestpricecruises" first.

This is back to the pricing we were seeing last week so once the agents are checked out and my Nationwide CC comes(no exchange rate loading) ready to book.

Anyway back to the origional question I think I would broaden the cruise search and reduce the restriction of the 4 ports and look much wider for a deal. Especialy DIY using cheap flights, you may save enough to do the other ports on a seperate trip.

Hi all..we have visited quite a few of the ports I wanted to cruise to but want to see them again! Mykonos is a must though as is Dubrovnik so could narrow it down to those two...Windjammer those prices look good...
We are probably looking at travelling in September/October 08 and I definitely want a balcony so going to keep on looking!
Thanks
Tinka14