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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Cruises -- do people really book ~20 months out?
My H and I want to do a cruise through the Panama Canal and for various reasons I'm thinking it would be good around December 2013.
My travel agent's website is a tricky beast because apparently my searching the other day out of curiosity caused my email to get flagged and our agent emailed me asking me if I wanted her to price things out for me and give me estimates on cabins. LOL!
I'm interested, but this feels *WAY* too early to me to actually book travel, even if I can get a price adjustment if the prices drop. It seems like on Cruise Critic that are people who book 12-18 months out, but do normal people (aka non-hardcore cruisers) actually do this?
Re: Cruises -- do people really book ~20 months out?
We've taken 5 cruises, and I wouldn't consider ourselves "hardcore". We always book about 9 months out. Basically, I find the itin we like, and then watch a few cruises for specials. Once it drops, then I jump on it.
FYI: Twice (once with Royal and once with Carnival) the price dropped below what we paid and I got a refund from both.
I'm not sure I've booked any vacation more than a month out. Now, that's due to H's job, and he can't officially get approval for leave more than 2 weeks out, but by a month out we'll have some confidence. There are times when I wait until the 2 week point, and I'm glad I've done so as we would have had to cancel.
20 months would still be a no, even if H had a normal job. I just can't conceive of planning that far in advance.
OK, good, then I'm not crazy in thinking this is too early!
My friend and I spent over a year planning for Ireland, but we didn't actually book anything until about 6-7 months out. I was thinking that for this we'd book the cruise around April/May 2013, which is about the same time frame.
That's insane to me to book almost 2 years in advance! So much can change in 2 years...ya know? You could have a kid, or be working a different job, or have to move to Kentucky for your job, or be divorced...just way too much could change in 2 years!
We typically book about 6 months in advance.
I once booked a cruise the day it went on sale (due to the scheduling, it was about 13 months out, I think). I was tracking on CruiseCritic to get an idea when the next season's Alaska cruises would be listed, because we were sailing on a ship that had four cabins with double-size balconies (for the same price as the other balcony cabins). We were traveling with my parents, who were booking an inside cabin, and since we knew we would be sharing the balcony, we knew the extra space would be a huge benefit.
My parents are definitely way-in-advance planners, so we'd already decided the weeks we'd be traveling, which cruiseline, etc. Normally I don't even think about booking anything until 3-4 months out. The earliest I've booked on my own was 5-months ahead for my trip to Antarctica, and that was only because the trip was already selling out.
Ditto PP - some what very specific rooms so they book the day they are released. Also some cruises are only one sailing per year or very small capacity ships so they sell out early or the price just goes up. For those if you want the lowest price you book when it comes out.
Our cruise to the Galapagos was booked pretty soon after the dates were released, we were about 18 months out, it was only booked that early because DH had watched the prices the prior year.
Ours are normally booked about a year out, that is more due to DH needing to plan vacation times at work, that needing a specific room. DH has been known to book a week before because he has PTO that needs to be used and he wants to go diving.
Currently we have one we made about a year out - that would have been an earlier cruise if I thought I'd be medically cleared to go and the other was 15 months out - that one was a good price and BIL&SIL were already going, they had booked on board their last cruise to get the onboard credit.
The South Pacific one we had that was cancelled, was booked almost two years prior - we booked it onboard a prior cruise.
Cancer sucks.
For me it depends, we cruise a lot and generally book the next while still onboard the current one to get the best upgrades and on board credits. We booked our 2013 Asia cruise (January) in August 2011.
Some of the main reasons for booking so early are getting a great price upon releae of the schedule, getting a far better room for the money (there are little "secret" hidden gem cabins on every ship), and having 20 months to watch for and receive price drops.
If you know the cruise you want to take, why wouldn't you book it now?
I've never cruised but wanted to chime in on the planning part.
We have already booked our placed to stay on vacation for next March.
This allows us to plan appropriately financially.
Usually, the earlier you book, the better rate you can get. We booked our last (only our second, so we are not hardcore) cruise 18 months out to get in on a few stackable codes for a discount and OBC. We got a Jr. Suite on the hump on Oasis of the Seas for the particular dates we wanted to coincide with our anniversary. We knew that was what we wanted and the timing was right, so we booked it. The price never went down.
We tend to book vacations early in order to save up and plan out vacation time at work. I think the latest I've ever booked a vacation was 2-3 months out. We usually always have a vacation or two booked. For once, we don't have anything else booked after our WDW trip in May. We are tentatively planning a 2014 Alaska or Europe cruise though.