It also never hurts to ask. We booked late after all the FE groups for our cruise were closed, and we asked on the facebook page (had wanted to do one here, but the only meet for our cruise was on FB) if there were any latecomers who wanted to start a FE group. It turned out there were a bunch of us in the same boat, and we now have a pretty large FE group less than a month before our cruise. With all the last-minute discounts, I think there are lots of people that book late these days.