Book Early

Book Early
If you have your heart set on a specific cruise during specific dates, and you can’t or don’t want to be flexible about your destination or the months when you will go, your best bet for saving serious dollars is to book early. And by early, the cruise companies mean very early-sometimes as much as a year in advance.

Princess, for instance, offers special rates on its cabins until about a month before each ship sets sail. However, these discounts become available as soon as an itinerary is announced, sometimes a year before your embarkation date, and as people book cabins and the ship gets fuller, fewer and fewer discounts are offered. If you are one of the last people to book a cabin, you are probably going to pay the highest price-and you may not get the kind of cabin you want. In this system, you’re not in a race to meet an early-booking deadline with Princess itself as much as you are in a race to book before other passengers who want to take the same cruise.

Another early-booking system is the kind used by Swan Hellenic. In this case, you can save as much as 45 percent off published rates if you are willing to book your trip eight months to a year in advance-by a date the company specifies in its brochure. However, the 45-percent discount applies only to certain cruising itineraries. Other itineraries are subject to smaller discounts, some as low as 20 percent. No matter what the discounted rate, only a certain number of cabins are reserved at the lower fares. Once those are gone, you will likely have to pay full price. In this type of system, then, you’re in a race to meet the company’s early-booking deadline and to do so before other passengers who want to take the same cruise.

Silversea’s program is similar to Swan Hellenic’s in that you can save as much as 35 percent off published fares. You must book and make your deposit by a certain date, and you must do so before all the cabins set aside for the special fares are gone. However, Silversea offers an additional 5-percent discount-which you can combine with the early- booking incentive-if you make your final payment by a date the company specifies. Again, the trick is to book

as early as possible and, in this case, to pay at or around the same time. Crystal Cruises is the same way: If you pay in full six months or more before your sailing date, you save an extra 3.5 percent off your fare.
Radisson Seven Seas offers yet another kind of early-booking program. On some of its ships, if you book travel 120 days before departure, you will receive the discounted rate. However, that rate is often not as substantial a savings as Radisson’s special two-forone cruise deals, which are-you guessed it-a full 50 percent off. Be sure to ask if the two-for-one program is available for your itin-erary (or for a similar one that you might choose instead) before you rush to meet the 120-day deadline in this case. Actually, that’s good advice no matter which cruise line you choose. Always call early and ask whether you qualify for any other special savings programs.

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