Pros and Cons of booking 2022 before first cruise!

[Sunday]

I haven’t yet cruised with Disney (or anyone for that matter) but have January 23rd 2021 7 nights Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy booked. I can pretty safely say we are going to love it.

Bookings for 2022 cruises will open up around late September / early October 2020, before we have cruised. If we assume we will indeed want to book for 2022, should we book when the bookings open or wait for the placeholder booking in January 2021? We are price sensitive, and less concerned about getting an exact room. What are the pros and cons of booking when they open vs. on board?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I haven’t yet cruised with Disney (or anyone for that matter) but have January 23rd 2021 7 nights Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy booked. I can pretty safely say we are going to love it.

Bookings for 2022 cruises will open up around late September / early October 2020, before we have cruised. If we assume we will indeed want to book for 2022, should we book when the bookings open or wait for the placeholder booking in January 2021? We are price sensitive, and less concerned about getting an exact room. What are the pros and cons of booking when they open vs. on board?

It's best to go ahead and book when the reservations open. Then, when you're on your cruise, reshop the cruise. Since the discount is taken on the prevailing rate of the cruise, if the price hasn't risen enough to negate the savings by booking onboard, you can go ahead and make a new reservation and cancel the one you're already holding.

 

[otten]

I haven’t yet cruised with Disney (or anyone for that matter) but have January 23rd 2021 7 nights Eastern Caribbean on the Fantasy booked. I can pretty safely say we are going to love it.

Bookings for 2022 cruises will open up around late September / early October 2020, before we have cruised. If we assume we will indeed want to book for 2022, should we book when the bookings open or wait for the placeholder booking in January 2021? We are price sensitive, and less concerned about getting an exact room. What are the pros and cons of booking when they open vs. on board?

There really are no cons. If you book opening day you lock in your price. If prices don’t go up you can reshop on board with a placeholder and if they do you’ve already gotten the best price you can.

If it turns out you hate cruising you can cancel so long as you are before the PIF day

 

[o&smom]

Fully agree with other posters. Book opening day and then reshop on your cruise in Jan.

 

[Intr3pid]

And if you aren't sure of the exact dates, put down deposits (if you can) over a couple or even a few and then consolidate into one once you know.

 

[TikiThunderPirates]

I would always go ahead and book the cruise on opening day, and as PrincessShmoo said, reshot on board. Here is an example why. We booked a cruise opening day, and several months later we were on a cruise and went to the Future bookings desk to re-shop (check the price and see if the price offered with the onboard booking discount and at the time the stateroom credit was lower then we paid). Even with the 10% discount and the stateroom credit (not offered anymore) the price was only $200 lower because the price of the cruise had increased. We couldn't decide if we should use our 1 "credit" for only a $200 difference. Also we really wanted to keep the room we had booked, and to guarantee that, the best thing to do is book a placeholder and then call DCL once your on land. Which is what we did.

Once we got home and thought about it for several weeks, the $200 difference was so small we decided to just hold onto our place holder. Which turned out to be a good thing because about 2 months later we decided to book another cruise and that discount saved us almost $800.

Always book as soon as you can and then re-shop onboard. Currently DCL isn't giving out the stateroom credit for non-concierge rooms, so it's just a 10% discount. Opening day prices can be around that 10% cheaper. But for sure do go book a placeholder once onboard so you can use it for your third cruise when you book that on opening day!

 

[Numtini]

We have done this: booked on opening day, did a comparison when we had a placeholder and rebooked because it was cheaper. It's no problem.