Booking next cruise while onboard...

[Cricket538]

Just wondering -
Is it REALLY a good deal to book your next cruise while still on your cruise?

What kind of discounts apply?

And what if you find a lower price later on, can you transfer your deposit?


Thanks so much!!

 

[Hygiene99]

yes I believe booking onboard is a good deal u recieve a 10 %
discount and also a shipboard credit for a 7 day it is $200.00
so that is like your tips being taken care of ...

and when we get home we transfer our reservation to our TA

and recieve any discounts they offer..usually 100.00 to 200 dollars less
if u find alower price Just transfer your reservation
to that TA be careful sometimes Travel agents price are lower because the buy blocks of rooms and the Shipboard credit will not Be honored......
Peter

 

[RachelTori]

If you book the 7 night, you receive a $200 credit; the 3 or 4 night, a $100 credit. We did it knowing full well we would have to change the date (we just picked a date that sounded good). They get your deposit this way, but you have the luxury of changing your dates without penalty as long as you're not in the "60 day window" yet. Here's what we did: booked an Oct 2004 cruise; about 2 months later, we decided on an April 2005 cruise so we transferred our ressie to Dreams Unlimited, they took care of the date change for us and they were offering a rebate so we saved an extra $75!! The DU rebate comes off the cruise price; the $200 credit is an "onboard" credit which you can apply to excursions, pictures, souvenirs, the spa.... Also, if you should end up cancelling all together (although why would anyone do that?!), you would get your full deposit back - again, as long as you are still more than 60 days from your cruise date.

 

[kcashner]

The above is correct...you get 10% off the DCL price, plus a $200 stateroom credit on a 7 day cruise.

Discount TAs work in 2 ways. SOme give you a portion of their fee as a discount. In these cases, you will keep your same reservation number when you transfer the ressie to them, and the DCL credit will still apply (since DCL is getting the same $ for your ressie, only the TA is getting less). Since they still get a percentage of the ressie, they discount to you part of their percentage and DCL gets it's full fee (less the 10% they gave you.)

Other discount TAs work by buying up a block of cabins at a discount, then selling them to the public at less than DCL rates. If you transfer to one of these, your $200 stateroom credit may not apply since DCL was actually paid less for the reservation.

 

[Cricket538]

Thanks so much for the valuable info!!

I haven't even been on my first Disney cruise and I'm already planning my second!!

 

[smahoney6]

thanks for the info- we leave today and already planning my deposit for 2006!

 

[Cricket538]

One more thing,
is the 10% discount off of "brochure rates" or off of other discounted rates?

I mean, right now I'm paying much less than 10% off brochure rates for my current cruise (thanks Dreams Unlimited!!!).

These cruises aren't easy to come by...
Just want to make sure it's a true "deal."

Thanks again!!

 

[kcashner]

Cricket:
The 10% off is off the current selling price thru DCL. This is not the brochure rate. It is the same rate that DCL would quote any travel agent who called to book for you on that day and hour. Any early booking discount is applied.

If you then transfer to a discount TA, you will get a further discount. For instance, I booked my cruise while on board. I got 10% off the lowest rate that DCL was quoting plus the $200. (this was 10% off the whole price--like if the quoted price was $1000, the discount was down to $900) Then, after I got home and got my confirmation, I transferred the ressie to a discount agent who gives a 7% discount on the cruise fare--the 7% applied to cruise fare only, not to port taxes, etc. So, in the above example, the $900 is the cruise fare and all taxes...they would take 7% off the portion that was the fare only...like $700 if $200 represented taxes, so they would discount another $49. THus, my total fare would have been reduced from 1000 to 900 by the early booking, then to $851 by the discount TA.

You can do exactly the same thing with DU. Book while on board and get the 10%, then transfer the ressie to DU and get their discount as well.

What you cannot do is to transfer to an agent who buys up blocks of cabins and re-sells them at a discount. In that case, you will lose the stateroom credit because the agent is selling you the cabin rather than DCL....in effect, the agent has already gotten the money that would be used to make up the credit.

 

[videoman]

Does anyone know if you keep the $200 shipboard credit if you transfer to Allseastravel? I know DU lets you keep it.