dbuckho

I have never booked a cruise, but due to some changing vacation requirements considering one for the upcoming Christmas holidays. Have been reading this thread and cruisecritic to try and get up to speed - very helpful but also a bit intimidating even for an experienced traveler as cruising seems like a whole world unto itself - but still have one question about what a good sale would look like for the holiday timeframe.

There is one specific RCCL cruise leaving San Juan on Christmas Eve that meets our dates and interests. Will be 2 adults and 2 kids (ages 7 and 1).

Right now RCCL is having a labor deal sale where the 2nd person is 50% off. Added on to that is some cash to spend onboard coming from both a labor day and a holiday promotion. Seems if you book through a travel agent they can use the same promo pricing and either add a small amount of additional onboard credit or a combo of spa treatment and specialty dinner (put out a bid on cruisecompete just to see what came back) vs. what I can book directly with RCCL on their website.

Googling for past sales, this summer they had a 60% off second person and kids go free, but it did not apply to a Christmas week sailing. In general most of the past deals I have seen posted that would offer a better price than the current promotion would exclude the holiday timeframe, though there appears to be some other promo codes that might be stackable. Considering how much they want to charge for our 7 year old and baby, a kids go free offer would be very advantageous.

Question I am hoping for insight on is what my expectation should be on pricing? Is the current labor day set of promotions close to the best I can expect for Christmas week just over 3 months out? Anything else I should be looking at? Besides Amex Platinum any other credit cards that are beneficial for booking a cruise?

Also it seems like I can book now and put a deposit down -- and if the pricing gets better we can change to it? Is that the same if I book through an agent?

Kagehitokiri

dont know re adjustments, but depending on cancellation, you/agents can rebook, even repeatedly. holidays usually have stricter cancellations.

virtuoso etc can be similar to amex platinum travel benefits. a few agents have a lot of pull.

are deals/prices ok vs non holiday? or in other words not a crazy holiday premium?

as you noticed sometimes dates may be pretty close and have a deal, vs excluding deals.

because its FlyerTalk, might compare holiday cruise vs non holiday cruise, and compare to traveling (award?) to a place where xmas/nye is low season. (pretty much excludes north america area for example.) there can be properties similar to cruises, although often not quite as much on offer as the very largest ships. can include all-inclusive, including high end where they don't put "all-inclusive" in the name. of course the way cruises can visit multiple places is not something that can be matched.

Romelle

I had one experience where I saw the rate had dropped. When I called the agent, she moved me to a better stateroom and got me some one-board credit. A refund wasn't an option.

On www.vacationstogo.com I can see what I think is the cruise you are considering.

Since they are Houston based, they might still be a little backed up in responses, but I've had good luck with them in the past. I also find their web site one of the easiest to use for research. It does just show double and single booking, but the agents can give you numbers for the added kiddies.

YZF_Elite

I have been trying to find an affordable cruise for this Christmas without much luck. If this is the cruise on the Jewel of the Seas I just looked up, the price is competitive in comparison to others I've seen. The itinerary for that ship is great, but keep in mind that the Jewel is an older ship without the same amenities many larger ships have, especially for your older kid.

The cruise industry seems to have improved significantly from a couple of years ago (my analysis only) as it seems there is now an even larger premium during holidays/spring break and sales aren't as good as I've seen in the past.

Something else to check is the price for 3rd/4th passengers. It changes over time by deal and cruise line, but FWIW, I have found RCCL to be amongst the most expensive for kids in your same cabin. I recall sailing the Oasis in her first year and we had to pay $1500/kid while on other lines (NCL/Carnival for ex) we took them for just the port fees and free otherwise. I don't see a huge difference lately between lines, but worth checking out.

Some people like my wife and I love cruising, others not so much. You really have to try it to see.

Good luck.

dbuckho

Thanks for all the input. Since I spent the better part of Labor Day weekend researching and eventually booking, thought I would report back.

The cruise is the Jewel of the Seas leaving San Juan on December 24th. We normally do go wherever our frequent flier miles and points will take us for the holidays (which has luckily been places like South Africa, Rome, Thailand, and Brazil/Argentina/Chile). But this year we are meeting my in-laws in St. John for a week. Originally that was Christmas week and we were heading to Cuba the week after (have a family friend who does tours there). But we now have some constraints that eliminated Cuba.

So we started looking at other options - just spend the whole two weeks in St. John (too long), perhaps stopover in Miami (we used to live there), or perhaps take a cruise and explore islands we have never been to before. When you factor in the earliest we could make a cruise based on the last day of school in California and flying time, yet leaving at least a week after for St. John, and an itinerary that did not include a stop at St. Thomas/St. John, it pretty much left this specific sailing. Plus the itinerary appealed to me. There is definitely a premium -- the same itinerary/ship two weeks earlier would be thousands less -- but if we were going to do a cruise, this would be the only one that worked.

As to the ship, my last cruise was a Disney cruise in the late 90s and my only other experience was a Sitmar cruise to Alaska in 1988. Wife and kids have never been on a cruise. I know it is one of their "older" ships but it will probably be just fine for us, especially since there is only 1 day totally at sea. Reading the reviews the one let down may be the food -- probably fine for my son but I still have very fond memories of that Sitmar cruise - fine Italian dining every night!

Over on the RCCL cruisecritic forum there is a lot of discussion about the days of deals being over -- and that basically all the promotions are just marketing, the price will be the price, the price generally goes up as the sail date approaches, and the agents now compete on service and the extras they can offer. I also looked at probably every kids sail free promotion over the past several years -- all of them excluded peak/holiday sailings. Having to pay 3rd and 4th person cost for my kids - especially the baby - is a bit hard to swallow.

I put a bid out on cruisecompete and received 10 responses. 8 of the 10 bids quoted the same "list" price for 4 people - i.e. the same price I found on the RCCL website. The onboard credit ranged from 5% of the cruise cost (which is also what the RCCL website offered with the labor day and holiday promos) to 15% - so it was a wide range. Most included an upgraded dinner and a spa treatment. One offered included gratuities instead. A few also threw in a coupon book.

2 of the 10 bids actually offered a lower quoted cruise price. Not sure exactly why considering what I read in the forum about prices being fixed. One was 9% off the list and the other was 15% (they called it a weekend special - had to be booked by a certain time). The 9% just offered the minimum onboard credit and the dinner/spa freebies. The 15% less price also offered onboard credit in the middle of the ranges I saw -- so effectively about 21% off -- plus free internet which is a benefit I will actually use.

The bid that quoted the "list" price with 15% onboard credit came back with additional credit if I booked with Amex - they are an Amex partner - so it ended up being competitive. But I thought putting out less actual cash with the lower actual price/mid onboard credit/free internet was the way to go.

After hours reading the forums over there and researching online I had a price per day target in mind for a holiday booking this late. Did not quite get there, but the lowest bid got within 5% of my target. I sort of equate what I am paying as not paying for my 1 year old, and paying the premium for a holiday week and my lack of flexibility. So we decided to go ahead and book!

If the price does drop it can be rebooked with this agent, but there is no guarantee the same set of incentives would apply at that time.

Also, after looking at travel insurance options, it seemed like booking this with either my Chase Sapphire Reserve or CitiPremier would be better than the Amex, with a slight edge to the Sapphire Reserve because of 3x points for travel.

Again thanks for the responses and we are excited to try this out. Now I have to dive into each island and what we want to do on those days!

DanJ

Our last cruise was on Royal Caribbean, and during the lead up to booking and the following few months of hoping for price drops, it became clear the various promotions were basically gimmicks. I saw a kids sail free where the final price was higher than what I had booked for. Christmas, Thanksgiving and summer usually go up as time progresses, so you probably did the best you were going to do at this point, and risk the ship selling out on you.

And I agree that the 3rd and 4th fares are ridiculous now compared to several years ago. We actually went with a balcony and an inside cabin across the hall for very little more than all 4 of us in the balcony cabin, and the inside also got $100 on board credit (obc was only good for the first 2 in the cabin anyway).

The Jewel is part of the very popular Radiance class, and while older than their biggest ships, is still only 13 years old. It had a pretty extensive renovation in spring 2016 and carries about 2400 passengers.

6rugrats

Interested to know what, if any changes, have been made to your cruise itinerary after Hurricane Maria?

DanJ

I have the Royal Caribbean updates on my Facebook and they aren't adjusting them that far out yet. They say they will communicate any port changes 4 weeks ahead. St Maarten is hoping to start receiving cruise ships again on St Maarten Day in November (11th I think?). Royal Caribbean is hoping to start sailing from San Juan as of next weekend, although I'm not sure if that is feasible. They are using their large ship Adventure of the Seas (which is a San Juan based ship) for transporting aid to San Juan and the USVI and taking evacuees back to Florida until next weekend when they hope to resume cruises.

6rugrats

I can't imagine planning to sail from San Juan next week; don't see how that could possibly happen. Seems overly optimistic of them. It's great to hear how they're helping in this crisis.

Romelle

I have a repositioning cruise Nov 6 - Barcelona to Port Canaveral. A stop at St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands was just exchanged for a stop at Ponta Delgado, Azores. 4 days earlier of course, but same arrival and departure times.

dbuckho

As DanJ mentioned, RCCL is only providing updates about 4 weeks out. So no changes have been made to my Christmas week itinerary yet. Will probably not hear anything definitive until Thanksgiving. Over on the other forum this is driving some people crazy (not knowing/having their money held hostage) but others are hopeful the itinerary stays as-is and our visit can be part of the recovery.

Originally after Irma and Maria I was expecting many changes to our itinerary, but it looks like St. Croix and St. Maarten will be accepting cruise ships weeks before Christmas. Dominica looks in really bad shape - still not sure if that will stay or be switched. And even if St. Maarten says they are open, I still think there is a chance that will be swapped as well.

Biggest question is probably San Juan since the cruise starts/ends there. I am assuming that despite the slow start to things in Puerto Rico, 2 1/2 months from now San Juan will be back to some basic form of functioning and the Jewel of the Seas will still be based there this winter. With my in-laws place on St. John we have tracked the USVI recovery pretty closely and while it was very chaotic to start -- St. Thomas and St. John were really hit hard -- recently things seemed to have really picked up in terms of restoring power, distributing aid, stores reopening, and making the proclamation that cruise ships will be back in October. I have a feeling PR will be similar and things will reopen quicker than expected once they get organized. But for now it is a big waiting game.

slawecki

wife just booked 13 days on a no where trip(balt to balt). to get the super cheap suite, she booked in the back end of the boat. are there big problems with the back end of the boat? last time we had the "perfect" suite, until the 12 year olds ran back upand forth to the pool till 1am.

how badly disabled must one be to get a disabled suite?

Randyk47

Some people swear by aft cabins and on lines like Holland America the stern cabins have very generous verandahs. The only time we’ve been in an aft cabin was visiting a couple who invited us to a cocktail party in their cabin. I really could feel the vibration of the propellers but the couple said it didn’t bother them. Of course like cabins way forward there’s always the chance you’ll notice more movement in heavy seas.

To the best of my knowledge cruise lines can’t or won’t question a passenger requesting a cabin with accessibility features. Really up to the passenger to determine their ability and need. It can be a really touchy subject on some travel blogs, etc., because it gets into things like debating relative need, potential abuse, etc., etc.

DanJ

Regarding the touchy subject, one of the biggest arguments I have seen was regarding accessible bathrooms on the ship. Apparently, some believe that these are like parking spots, only allowed to be used by those needing them and they get quite pissy about a so-called able bodied person walking out of one while they had to wait.

slawecki

we just got moved from the back of the boat to the middle. looks like the place we would normally choose.

when we were wandering the corridors of the last boat ride, we noticed these displays of wine. they were offered for sale. when we purchased a few bottles, the wine was charged to our room, and the taxes and fees were much less than the RC prices. anyone have a list of those wines?