Early Booking Savings?

[lsutigger2]

DH and I are seriously considering a cruise in April 2004. How far in advance do you need to book to get the "early booking savings"? and how much do you save? When I checked the Disney site today and got a quote it noted an "early Booking savings". This is all very new to us, but it looks so very exciting!

Any help from you veterans will be appreciated.

 

[mac_tlc]

Hi lsutigger2,

DCL is a little different than most of the other cruise lines. Its prices are the cheapest the farther in advance you book. As you get closer, the prices will rise. DCL has different levels of Early Booking Savings. You may check a price on their web site and it will be higher than a previous price, but it still may say "Early Booking Savings". The actual savings vary, based on time of year you want to cruise. For April 2004, especially the weeks surrounding Easter which is April 11th in '04, it is definitely not too early to book. Be a little careful of any "savings" measured relative to the brochure price, since that it the absolute highest price and is rarely paid by anyone.

mac_tlc

 

[Hersh]

Yes, book early !!
We booked ours last Valentines day for April 2003(not Easter) and the price has doubled for the same cat and we still have seven weeks to go.
Hersh

 

[Michelle]

Book NOW!

There are 12 "tiers" of early booking savings for each sailing date and as the cruise books up the pricing moves into the next (more expensive) tier. April is a peak sailing month so all levels of EBS will go more quickly on those sailing dates.

Good luck!

 

[lsutigger2]

Thanks to all for the quick replies!!

I think we're going to go ahead and book it after I do a bit more investigating!

 

[DreaminDisney]

we booked our 5/04 cruise 11/02.........Now I'd say that's an early booking It gives us plently of time to save save save

 

[jeanie]

Just to give you an idea of how much you can save the earlier you book...

I booked our Apr 2004 7 day cruise back in June 2002 and
I just checked the DCL site and we have saved 1200 by booking early! Plus we have the $200 rebate and $100 shipboard credit from DU!


Only 431 days!!

 

[NYDisneyMom]

I got in just in time to take advantage of the January pricing! I booked our 5/04 cruise last week. The price went up $400 last weekend! Whew!!!!!!

 

[Minybear]

Book your reservation ASAP. I booked my reservation while on the ship about 2 weeks ago for next January 2004. Since I got back I noticed that the prices went up today. For cat 5 it went up $100 for and for cat 7 it went up $300. So if you see a rate today and it may not be there tomorrow.

 

[happydays]

Gotta add to this thread. We've been on three DCL cruises but could never afford to take them when the kids were on summer break. In March02, after the reservations for summer03 opened up (not sure how long they had been available for booking at that point), I checked once again and prepared for disappointment. However, this time, I saw that the mid August Western 7-day was much lower than the other summer cruises. And it would be back a few days before school started! I booked it right away. I just compared the current price and found that our cat. 6 for four would now cost us an additional $2540!!! Talk about early booking savings! That's like a free cruise on the side!