Best Time to Book a Cruise for the Lowest Price

A cruise fare is set per sailing, per cabin category and per fare type. A sailing that is filling well gets more expensive. One that is behind gets cheaper. Categories on the same ship move separately, so interiors can rise while balconies fall. Our guide to when cruise prices drop goes through what drives the movement.

Because of that, any rule of the form "book in January" or "book 60 days out" describes an average that your sailing may not follow. How often fares fall after booking, line by line, is on the price data page, measured on real fares rather than estimated.

Holding off in the hope of a lower fare has costs that are easy to underrate:

• Cabin choice. The categories and locations people want sell first. Waiting can leave you choosing from what is left.
• The sailing itself. Popular dates and holiday sailings can sell out.
• The fare you wanted. Some protected fares are only sold until a set point. Carnival's Early Saver fare, for example, is available up to 76 days before sailing on cruises of 5 days or shorter and up to 91 days before on longer ones.
• Everything around it. Flights and hotels for a fixed date rarely get cheaper as it approaches.

Booking early gets you the cabin you want. The fare you book at is not final, because every line CruiseSignal tracks has a published program that lets you ask for a lower fare if yours falls:

• Royal Caribbean and Celebrity reprice your booking to a lower fare for the same sailing and cabin type before final payment, refunding the difference if you have paid in full. After final payment the remedy becomes a complimentary cabin upgrade, subject to availability.
• Carnival Early Saver bookings can claim a lower fare up to 2 business days before sailing. The fare is repriced if you have not paid in full, and the difference comes as onboard credit if you have.
• Norwegian decides remedies at its own discretion, and they vary by region, fare type and booking channel.

So you can take the early cabin and still recover a later drop, as long as the drop happens while your claim window is open and somebody notices it. The full rules are on the price protection pages.

When you book matters less than what you book. The fare type decides whether a later drop is worth anything:

• On Carnival, Super Saver fares are not covered by Early Saver price protection. They can cost less on the day, but a later drop cannot be claimed. See Super Saver fare.
• On Celebrity, a booking on a non-refundable deposit fare can only reprice to the same fare type, while a refundable deposit booking can take the lower fare of either type.
• Royal Caribbean describes lower pricing as the key benefit of its non-refundable deposit fares. The deposit is kept if you cancel, and changes carry fees. See refundable deposit.

The guide to cruise fare codes explains how to tell which fare you are on.

1. Book the sailing and cabin you want once you are sure of your dates, on a fare type that carries price protection.
2. Put your final payment date in your calendar. For most lines it is where money back turns into an upgrade or nothing. Carnival publishes its schedule: 76 days before sailing for cruises up to 5 days, 91 days for longer ones.
3. Watch your exact fare until that date. Check it yourself, or have CruiseSignal check it every day and tell you the amount, the policy and the deadline when it falls.
4. When it drops, you or your travel agent ask the line for the difference. The line decides the claim under its own terms.

The lowest price you pay is rarely the fare on the day you book. It is the lowest fare your sailing reaches while you can still claim it. Cruise price drop alerts are how you find out the day it happens.