In this video you're going to learn how to get the best price for your next cruise.
I'm Gary Bembridge of Tips For Travellers. I'm going to share with you a series of
tips on how you can get an amazing price for your next cruise. Tip number
one: there are two best times to book which are either very early or very late. So when
cruise lines launch new itineraries and announce itineraries for the coming
years, they normally launch those with deals and incentives. There might be
upgrades, there might be a on-board credit, they might include things like
drinks packages or excursions. But they will normally have various incentives
and deals to get people to book early. So when itineraries are launched that's a
great time to find a great cruise price. After that, the next best time is after
90 days and the date of sailing. Basically what happens with cruises is
you have to pay your final balance either 90 days or 60 days and
sailing. So at that point the cruise line knows how many cabins they've got left,
and then they work to get rid of all of those cabins. If there's
lots of capacity they will start to slash prices to sell all those cabins,
because they want to sail full. That's very important because they make a
lot of money once you're on board. So very early when itineraries are launched
there'll be a window of time and then after 90 to 60 days and the day of
sailing is when you're likely to get the best cruise deals possible. The
second key thing to getting a great cruise deal is flexibility. The more
flexible you are, the better the price you're going to pay. So if you know that
there's a specific itinerary on a specific date on a specific ship in a
specific cabin that is a chance that you're going to pay the highest amount for
your fare - because you're very very fixed. However if you're very flexible. If
you're very open, you're going to find a much better price. What do I mean by
flexibility? Well first of all, choose a broad region so that's the
Caribbean or it's Mediterranean or whether it's Alaska, bearing a mind that
most cruise lines in those regions will have very similar itineraries. The second
thing you need to look at is when you want to go. So if you've got a broad
period of time you want to go, so it's anytime in a particular month, then again
you are likely to find great Cruise deals because you're going to be able to move
around between ships and dates that have the best deals. The third
thing is if you're not fixed on an particular cruise lines and you're quite
happy to go on any cruise line, or perhaps a a small group of cruise lines.
So if you like resort type cruises you might want to have a little bundle
between Norwegian, Royal Caribbean and perhaps some of the MSC ships, or perhaps you're
looking at a boutique ships. So you're looking more at your Seabourn,
Silversea , Regent Seven Seas or Hapag-Lloyd. Also importantly is you're flexible
about the cabin. The cheapest cabin that you're going to find, whether you
want to go for an inside cabin, ocean view, a balcony cabin or even a suite, is
instead of choosing a very specific cabin you go for what's known as a
"guaranteed cabin". So whatever level you are, you don't book a very
specific cabin but book a guaranteed cabin. The cruise line allocates the
specific cabin. So flexibility is very important. So if you know you
want to go to Alaska for example sometime in May or June,
you don't really mind which Cruise Line and you're really clear about I want an
inside or a suite (but I don't really mind which cabin it is). If you have
that degree of flexibility as you start to look for prices and deals you have a
huge and wide range of options and you're going to find the best price.
Flexibility is the secret to getting a great cruise deal. Now the
third tip is about when you want to go. If you want to cruise in the key
school summer vacations or you want to cruise at Christmas, you're going to be
paying the highest prices going because there is huge demand. The
secret is choose what's known as the shoulder season. That's the beginning
and end of a season. This is when prices are going to be sharpest. So, for example,
if you go into Alaska you want to go at the very beginning of the season so you
might want to go around May or August time. If
you want to go to the Mediterranean or Caribbean the secret is to go at the
beginning and the end of the seasons. So for example March /April time and
September / October time and similarly for the Caribbean because that's when most
of the ships will move between the Caribbean and the Mediterranean as ships
redeploy at the changeover of those two seasons. You need to avoid peak times like
the summer school holidays, Christmas and also the big holiday
weekends like Easter and Thanksgiving. My next tip in terms of getting a
great cruise deal is get them sent to you. There's two things that I
really strongly recommend you do. The first is for any cruise line that
you're interested in is sign up for their email newsletter, and whenever there's a
deal or a promotion they send those out by email. Another thing I
strongly recommend you do is sign up for the newsletters from cruise aggregators.
These are sites which bring together all the cruise deals that are going from
all the different cruise lines all around the world, and these are great
because then in one email you will get lots of suggestions for lots of
different cruise lines. Sometimes they have deals that you won't get anywhere
else because these are big sellers of cruises and so they sometimes get
special deals. Three of them that I find really helpful are ROLCruise, they tend
to be much more uk-based. there's TravelZoo and another great one is CruiseDirect,
and they claim that no one beats their price. My next tip is once
you've booked a cruise keep an eye out for what that particular cruise is
selling for. If you find that the price has dropped the cruise line is not going to
tell you. What you need to do is get hold of the cruise line and point out that
the price has shifted and you want something. So for example you might ask
for an upgrade or ask for the difference in onboard credit. I've had some
great experiences where I booked a particular cruise and booked a
particular cabin and when I've seen the prices come down I've got hold of the cruise
line and I've got some fantastic upgrades and onboard credit. My next
tip is to focus on older ships. When new ships come along, everybody wants to
get on the new ship. So what normally happens is the cruise lines start
discounting or having lower fares for some of their older ships. So you can get
a great price by going on an older ship with a particular cruise line. So what I
like to do is whenever I know a cruise line is launching a ship, I start looking
at cruises on some of their older ships because you'll normally get fantastic
prices on those older ships doing the same itineraries. My next tip is also to
focus on the large ports. There's a huge capacity setting out of ports like Miami,
Fort Lauderdale, Barcelona, Rome as big cruise ports around the world have
lots and lots of cruise lines sailing out of them. They have lots and lots of
capacity and competition is much much higher. So also as you're looking for great
cruise deals ,take a look at the big ports. If you can easily get to one of those
ports, focus your search for great cruise deals out of those ports. My next tip
is if you actually want to find a great deal, and this is a particularly
when you look how much you spend per day, focus on longer cruises. Longer cruises
tend to be much cheaper on a per day basis and you might actually find that
you can get many more days on a cruise for the same price as a seven-day cruise
at a peak time. Also repositioning cruises are a great way of getting a phenomenal
deal. Repositioning cruises are when ships will change region, so for example
if they're sailing in the Caribbean as that season comes to end most cruise
lines will then reposition their ships into the Mediterranean, and you can
really get amazing deals. The reason for that is not everyone like that
there will be a lot of days at sea. There will normally be five or six
days at sea, so normally have perhaps a couple of ports in the Caribbean then
five or six days at sea and a couple of ports in the Mediterranean. But you do
get great prices on them. The next tip may be less practical, but it is a
way of getting a great price in fact possibly a free cruise! If you have a lot
of friends, or perhaps you have some club or Association that you run, if you
organize a group cruise the cruise line will normally throw in one or two free
cabins. You only often need to get together 16 to 20 people to
actually do that. So it's definitely a way where you could get yourself
potentially a free cruise. Another way you can get a great cruise deal is by
sailing on the same line. So I mentioned earlier flexibility is important, jumping
around between cruise lines you generally going to find deals because
you're not tied to one Cruise Line. But if there's a cruise line that
you really really like, building up loyalty and working your way through
their frequent sailing program is also going to be a great way of getting a
great cruise deal. Some cruise lines will actually give you free cruises as
you build up loyalty. Others will give you various discounts, like upgrades or
it might be extra on-board credit, internet time and all those sort of savings on
the other costs of cruising which are not included in the fare. So that's
another thing to look at if you don't like that being flexible do go to
the other extreme and actually be incredibly loyal and that's where you'll
normally get deals. One of the ways of getting great cruise deals is still,
despite all the things I've spoken about, is working with a cruise expert agent. Now
the reason for that is if you found a great deal you can go to the agent and
point out your found a great deal and ask them can they better it. Often
they can as that they will either have different deals, special pricing
and they have a lot of flexibility in terms of price or other things that they
can throw in. So what I like to do is once I find a great deal that I really
like, I ask my cruise agent to either match or beat that deal and normally
they can. They can also keep monitoring prices and can also deal with the
cruise line if price has gone down to try and negotiate extra benefits like
onboard credit or upgrades. They are likely to know the
great deals that are going around. Of course by following these various tips
you can be constantly and constantly looking to find a great cruise deal. My
advice I would have is, once you've found a cruise that you like and
a price that you think is reasonable book it! Don't just keep looking and
looking and looking because it's like an eternal Holy Grail you'll probably never
find the perfect price. The critical thing to remember is the more fixed you
are the harder it's going to be to find a great price. So if you know I want to
go on this very specific itinerary on this very specific date on this with
this very specific Cruise Line in this very specific cabin that is going to
most likely give you the worst price. The more flexible you are, the more fluid you
are, the best price you're going to get. I hope you found that helpful and it will
help you find a phenomenal cruise price. If you've got any other experiences I'd
love to hear about them, but very importantly I really love it if you gave
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