When to buy Cruise tickets to Alaska?

Kelso · Oct 6, 2009

I know Alaska cruises get booked earlier then most. When is the BEST time to buy to get the BEST price and still know you will get on the cruise you want?

For example I have been told that the spring time is great for airfare because of sales. My price shopping shows that I get the best deal by dealing directly with the cruiseline. I have also used CruiseCompete.com.

Any help is appreciated. :wall:

SDKath · Oct 6, 2009

Are you asking when is the best time to reserve a cruise or buy airfare??

Reserving a cruise should be done as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more prices tend to go up. Until the very last minute (or month), at which time available rooms get discounted. Usually this occurs after final payment is due from all the reservations and then the cruiseline has a better idea how many rooms will go unfilled.

With cruiselines, the worst deal is to book with them directly. The reason is because they never give onboard credit. Most discount cruise companies WILL not only beat the cruiseline price but will give you $200-$500 of onboard credit. What I do is reserve with the cruiseline and put down the deposit. Then I look for a travel agent who will give me a good price and transfer the reservation over to them later. Then I get my OB credit too and I get exactly what I want as far as room location, etc.

One more thing to convince you to book early -- if the prices go down, almost every single cruise line will send you a refund. So as you get closer to your sailing date, if you see discounts, just call them or your TA and they will refund you the difference.

As for airfare, no one knows. But if you want to use FF miles, I would think the sooner you book the better....

Hope that helps a little. Visit CruiseCritic.com for great info on various itiniaries, ships, reviews...

Katherine

jodivk · Oct 6, 2009

Alaska Cruises

Hi. I would say part of it depends on when you want to travel. Early in the season or late in the season are cheaper cruises... Cruises generally start in April and there is often still snow on the ground here. May is usually a beautiful month in SE Alaska (in general).

I haven't looked at the consolidated cruise websites / groups. I do see that on RCI and on Alaska Airlines sites, it's all about the travel date.

AK Air is running a special right now for to/from Alaska flights (nicknamed pfd special).

Happy to help with any questions that I can.

In Juneau.

Jodi

Kelso · Oct 9, 2009

Alaska Cruise

Thanks for the great information. I was going to book directly with Royal Car. but thanks to your info, I know not to do that now. I will book it ASAP too.

I will wait until the spring to buy my airfare.

I noticed that there were northbound cruises, southbound cruises and roundtrip. It looks like I should book the roundtrip cruise because the airfare will be cheaper in and out of Seattle.

How do I get the cheapest prices for the land excursions?

Any other tips?

Thanks Tuggers for saving me money and mistakes. :cheer:

SDKath · Oct 9, 2009

Kelso said:
Thanks for the great information. I was going to book directly with Royal Car. but thanks to your info, I know not to do that now. I will book it ASAP too.

I will wait until the spring to buy my airfare.

I noticed that there were northbound cruises, southbound cruises and roundtrip. It looks like I should book the roundtrip cruise because the airfare will be cheaper in and out of Seattle.

How do I get the cheapest prices for the land excursions?

Any other tips?

Thanks Tuggers for saving me money and mistakes.

Book directly with RCCL now. Then find the travel agent that offers you the lowest quote and move the booking over to them (this is easy to do, usually just takes you giving your ressie number to the TA). You have nothing to lose since the cruise is fully refundable.

Cheaper to fly to Seattle than Vancouver. If you do RT, it will be less expensive but definitely try to find a cruise that goes INTO Glacier Bay (not Tracy Arm) and one that sails inside the Inside Passage (not on the outer rim). Are you set on Royal? Princess has the Sapphire up in AK next year and it's a GORGEOUS and new ship. NCL's Pearl has also gotten rave reviews. Both are kid friendly and both have better food in general than RCCL. HAL and Celebrity are more pricy and more adult-geared.

Unless you are a frequent cruiser with RCCL already, I would avoid it as a line as I hear that their food and service has really gone down a lot in the last 3-4 years. I have never cruised with them but many of my friends have.

In 2011 Disney is putting a ship there too, round trip from Vancouver! Pricy but cannot be beaten for children's entertainmnet and great service.

As for shore excursions, book your cruise first. Then get on line and google shore excursions in the ports on the dates you will be at. If you arrange them yourself, you will save $20-$30 per person on the same excursion as the ship's. One catch -- if you make your own arrangements and your excursion is late somehow and you miss the boat, you are doomed. It will not wait for you. If your excursion is arranged via the cruiseline, they will hold the ship for you. This sounds unimportant but with the bad weather in Alaska, late excursions are not unusual! It may not be worth the $ saved!

Katherine

Art · Oct 9, 2009

Cruisecritic.com is the Answer

All of the OP's questions can be answered in great detail over at cruisecritic.com In fact, log in and post specific questions; there are boards for all the major cruise lines that serve Alaska.

This is especially true of the shore excursion question. Check on the Alaska port of call board for suggestions. If you see a shore excursion recommended that you like, book it ASAP. Many of the favored operators are small which means that they don't have the capacity to do business with the cruise lines. This also means that the good ones book up fast; cruise critic posters are pretty aggressive when it comes to reserving what they want.

CC also has a broad assortment of reviews of the various cruise lines and ships including information on food, entertainment, children's programs, etc. It is helpful to consider all of these since the good in one area may more than balance a lower rating in another aspect of the cruise, or vice versa.

Incidentally, in terms of any cruise line/ship not being as good as it used to be, it is almost a sure bet that there will be one or more posts to that effect on CC. Take those posts with a grain of salt. Look for the balanced reviews that point out both the good and the less good of a cruise line or ship.

In terms of the best time to cruise to Alaska, mid-summer is probably best. Early season, such as May, there still may be ice in the water around the glaciers, and your ship may not be able to approach them as closely as she might later in the season. We encountered this when we took an Alaska cruise at the end of May. At the other end, one needs to remember that Alaska is a temperate rain forest. In other words, the chances of seeing rain many days is very real. (Ketchikan has a "liquid sunshine" gauge at the dock. The average annual rainfall is 180 inches per year; that's a half inch per day). The chances of rain increase even more from mid-August on into September. It is a probability thing; our first AK cruise was the week after Labor Day and we had one rainy day.

Booking directly with the cruise will give the highest (list) price. There are some discounts in the form of on-board credits available when booking with one of the on-line agencies. However, some of the cruise lines are really limiting discounting so the advantages relative to booking through a local TA are usually not great. That is even more so with a complex decision like an AK cruise where having a local voice to talk with may be of great value. With the announced reductions in 2010 AK cruise capacity, I would expect prices to go up as the ships fill; if prices happen to go down, one can get a price reduction if one catches it.

Art

krj9999 · Oct 9, 2009

2010 Alaska cruise prices are reasonable now, and if prices happen to fall before final payment is due you should be able to get the lower price. We did the NB from Vancouver in 2008 in mid-June; the same cruise in 2009 was about half the price we paid the year before since the economy went into the crapper.

If you can swing the time and cost, do the 1-way trip as Alaska has much to offer.

But yes, go to cruisecritic.com for more advice.

pedro47 · Oct 9, 2009

All the cruise lines are having some serious sales on all sailing's right now.

Egret1986 · Oct 9, 2009

Good info to get started

Art said:
All of the OP's questions can be answered in great detail over at cruisecritic.com In fact, log in and post specific questions; there are boards for all the major cruise lines that serve Alaska.

This is especially true of the shore excursion question. Check on the Alaska port of call board for suggestions. If you see a shore excursion recommended that you like, book it ASAP. Many of the favored operators are small which means that they don't have the capacity to do business with the cruise lines. This also means that the good ones book up fast; cruise critic posters are pretty aggressive when it comes to reserving what they want.

CC also has a broad assortment of reviews of the various cruise lines and ships including information on food, entertainment, children's programs, etc. It is helpful to consider all of these since the good in one area may more than balance a lower rating in another aspect of the cruise, or vice versa.

Incidentally, in terms of any cruise line/ship not being as good as it used to be, it is almost a sure bet that there will be one or more posts to that effect on CC. Take those posts with a grain of salt. Look for the balanced reviews that point out both the good and the less good of a cruise line or ship.

In terms of the best time to cruise to Alaska, mid-summer is probably best. Early season, such as May, there still may be ice in the water around the glaciers, and your ship may not be able to approach them as closely as she might later in the season. We encountered this when we took an Alaska cruise at the end of May. At the other end, one needs to remember that Alaska is a temperate rain forest. In other words, the chances of seeing rain many days is very real. (Ketchikan has a "liquid sunshine" gauge at the dock. The average annual rainfall is 180 inches per year; that's a half inch per day). The chances of rain increase even more from mid-August on into September. It is a probability thing; our first AK cruise was the week after Labor Day and we had one rainy day.

Booking directly with the cruise will give the highest (list) price. There are some discounts in the form of on-board credits available when booking with one of the on-line agencies. However, some of the cruise lines are really limiting discounting so the advantages relative to booking through a local TA are usually not great. That is even more so with a complex decision like an AK cruise where having a local voice to talk with may be of great value. With the announced reductions in 2010 AK cruise capacity, I would expect prices to go up as the ships fill; if prices happen to go down, one can get a price reduction if one catches it.

Art

I went on CruiseCritic a couple of weeks ago and didn't really have the time to spend doing research. It was overwhelming at first glance. So much info. I've got time though to research. We were initially looking at Summer 2012, but it may be Summer 2011 instead. It will be our family of 4. Our sons will be either rising Seniors or graduating from high school.

We have visited many National Parks and the Great Outdoors and natural landscapes are something we all enjoy very much. This will probably be the last major vacation together before they head off to college.

So, the quick tips you gave, give me things to consider before delving into all of the info to reseach on Cruise Critic. TUG was my first forum and is currently the only forum I look at or participate on. I'll just have to alot the time to another forum in order to try to be as knowledgeable about the in's and out's of cruising Alaska, shore excursions, possible land tours, and visiting the Parks before making decisions and purchasing a cruise.

This could be a once-in-a-lifetime trip for us. There are so many places in this great world to see. Although I have vacationed all of my life, I haven't even gotten started good yet.

Thanks, to you, and the others that have shared info about cruising Alaska. I'm sure there is a wealth of info here on TUG about cruising Alaska when I do get the time to start researching.

lily28 · Oct 9, 2009

I recommend the northbound or southbound initiary with stop at alaska. You might want to consider also the land tour in alaska either before or after the cruise. Flight to alaska does cost more but if you have frequent flyer miles, you can use them to fly one way to alaska and return from vancouver; it costs only 25,00 miles per ticket.

davhu1 · Oct 9, 2009

We went last Aug on the Norwegian and book early in the year with cruise.com. Booking thru cruise.com saved $200 for four people plus one category upgrade. Saved another $1,000 when price dropped at the time of final payment.

Advantage of booking early is you have more choice of cabin. Important if you get seasick and may want a cabin in the middle of the ship. Water in Alaska was not too rough. Booking later the price may drop more but there is a chance the cabin or the category you want is no longer available.

Excursion is more expensive if you book thru the cruise. You can book most of the tours at the port or thru the internet in advance. Their sales pitch: If do not book with the ship and you get back late, the ship will leave without you. A good tour operator would tell you you are cutting too close your sailing time. For us, it was good we waited because the whole time was either rainning or cloudy. Water was also too rough for some excursions on small boats and were cancelled (I heard the cruise line gave refund on cancelled tours).

We flew out a day before sailing. Do not wait the last minute to book hotel. We found price going up as we got closer to our sailing day. Bidding pn Priceline is the cheapest but you cannot select your hotel and they only guarantee a room for 2. If you plan to get 2 room then that may not be a problem.

Twinkstarr · Oct 10, 2009

SDKath said:
Book directly with RCCL now. Then find the travel agent that offers you the lowest quote and move the booking over to them (this is easy to do, usually just takes you giving your ressie number to the TA). You have nothing to lose since the cruise is fully refundable.

Cheaper to fly to Seattle than Vancouver. If you do RT, it will be less expensive but definitely try to find a cruise that goes INTO Glacier Bay (not Tracy Arm) and one that sails inside the Inside Passage (not on the outer rim). Are you set on Royal? Princess has the Sapphire up in AK next year and it's a GORGEOUS and new ship. NCL's Pearl has also gotten rave reviews. Both are kid friendly and both have better food in general than RCCL. HAL and Celebrity are more pricy and more adult-geared.

Unless you are a frequent cruiser with RCCL already, I would avoid it as a line as I hear that their food and service has really gone down a lot in the last 3-4 years. I have never cruised with them but many of my friends have.

In 2011 Disney is putting a ship there too, round trip from Vancouver! Pricy but cannot be beaten for children's entertainmnet and great service.

As for shore excursions, book your cruise first. Then get on line and google shore excursions in the ports on the dates you will be at. If you arrange them yourself, you will save $20-$30 per person on the same excursion as the ship's. One catch -- if you make your own arrangements and your excursion is late somehow and you miss the boat, you are doomed. It will not wait for you. If your excursion is arranged via the cruiseline, they will hold the ship for you. This sounds unimportant but with the bad weather in Alaska, late excursions are not unusual! It may not be worth the $ saved!

Katherine

I don't think DCL is going into Glacier Bay from the discussions I've read on DIS. That is a huge issue with me(done Alaska twice with Princess, so I'm biased), as I think Glacier Bay is a must for an Alaskan cruise.

I never thought RCCL was on Princess's level. Way back in the day, did a 14 day Carribbean cruise with them. It was nice, but my mom kept saying, "but not as nice as Princess." Though she did win $500 playing bingo on RCCL. :cheer:

Other than just tooling around a town, I would book excursions through the ship. I remember running down the dock with a bus load of other passengers, we had been on the snorkling excursion to Buck Island in St. Croix and were late getting back. It must have been :hysterical: to watch us because we all had imbibed the rum punch on the boat ride back. The ship didn't leave without us, and we got back 15-20 minutes past sailing time.

SDKath · Oct 10, 2009

I think you are right. Disney is going to Tracy Arm. BUMMER. And the RT from Vancouver is a bit of a downer too since flights to Vancouver are MUCH higher and require a passport for everyone including the kids...

Our last trip to Alaska was with the Star Princess in 2004. We went one way from Vancouver to Anchorage (Seward) and then spent another 3 days up in the Anchorage area driving around, seeing glaciers and some of the gorgeous national forests. It was probably the best trip I have ever taken.

Hearing the glaciers crackling at Glacier Bay WAS the highlight of the whole cruise and something that I will never forget. We went the last week of July and the weather was perfect. We got to within about 50 feet of the glaciers! SOOO COOL!

We are heading back north in 2011 but with Crystal. This time we are taking the kids too. One of my dreams is to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge, so Crystal's RT San Francisco itiniary is PERFECT for us. Believe it or not, it's not that much more expensive than what Disney is asking for their cruise to AK in 2010

.

Kelso · Oct 11, 2009

SDKath said:
Our last trip to Alaska was with the Star Princess in 2004. We went one way from Vancouver to Anchorage (Seward) and then spent another 3 days up in the Anchorage area driving around, seeing glaciers and some of the gorgeous national forests. It was probably the best trip I have ever taken.

Hearing the glaciers crackling at Glacier Bay WAS the highlight of the whole cruise and something that I will never forget. We went the last week of July and the weather was perfect. We got to within about 50 feet of the glaciers! SOOO COOL!

The glaciers are a huge reason to do this cruise. After going over the volcano in Hawaii I realized I must see a glacier. Are you saying the Royal Car. will not go in to the glaciers. It says Tracy Arm Fjord on the itinerary. Some told me to Royal Carib, others said NCL, and now you loved Princess. I see they do use Seattle which will save us airfare money. We are retired traveling without family. Please share your thoughts. They are most welcome.

Twinkstarr · Oct 11, 2009

SDKath said:
I think you are right. Disney is going to Tracy Arm. BUMMER. And the RT from Vancouver is a bit of a downer too since flights to Vancouver are MUCH higher and require a passport for everyone including the kids...

Our last trip to Alaska was with the Star Princess in 2004. We went one way from Vancouver to Anchorage (Seward) and then spent another 3 days up in the Anchorage area driving around, seeing glaciers and some of the gorgeous national forests. It was probably the best trip I have ever taken.

Hearing the glaciers crackling at Glacier Bay WAS the highlight of the whole cruise and something that I will never forget. We went the last week of July and the weather was perfect. We got to within about 50 feet of the glaciers! SOOO COOL!

We are heading back north in 2011 but with Crystal. This time we are taking the kids too. One of my dreams is to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge, so Crystal's RT San Francisco itiniary is PERFECT for us. Believe it or not, it's not that much more expensive than what Disney is asking for their cruise to AK in 2010 .

Back on my first Princess cruise(on the original Love Boat) it was RT from San Fran. It's pretty cool sailing under the bridge.

One reason I was so bummed about my sister backing out on the New England cruise($1500 outside cabin, including transfers and airfare :bawl:

) was that it was RT from NYC. Sailing in and out of there is one of my cruise dreams.

I'm a DVC owner and love WDW, I'm not about to pay the mouse top buck to go to AK, when I know the smooth operations Princess, HAL and the others have up North. I'm not going to be a guinea pig.

lyndor · Oct 11, 2009

I've cruised twice to Alaska. The first was on Holland America, one way, Seward to Vancouver. The second was on Celebrity, round trip from Seattle. I greatly preferred the one way trip. We had much more time in each port, which might be something to consider. On the round trip cruise, we scheduled an excursion that left a little later than planned, and we didn't get into that port city at all...a real disappointment.

Art · Oct 12, 2009

On the airfare thing, there is at least one interesting pricing thing out there for next summer on Alaska Air.

We are doing a northbound cruise and cruisetour ending up in Anchorage. It happens that Alaska Air has an 8 AM non-stop to ORD for about $250, and occasionally some one stop flights later in the day for around the same. This appears to be hit and miss, depending on the specific date.

While it might seem that this only makes sense for someone flying to Chicago, it turns out that I was able to book a cheap flight from ORD to Buffalo. The flight combination was not available through any airline or on-line agency. Since I saw on Kayak that the combination was possible, I ended up making 2 separate bookings leaving a 4 hour gap in Chicago in case we can't check our bags through.

Anyhow, if someone's cruise travel plans could involve a flight from ANC to ORD, and perhaps the reverse, take a look at the Alaska pricing sooner rather than later.

Art

When to buy Cruise tickets to Alaska?

Kelso

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

SDKath

jodivk

Kelso

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

SDKath

Art

TUG Review Crew: Expert

krj9999

pedro47

TUG Review Crew: Expert

Egret1986

TUG Review Crew: Expert

lily28

davhu1

Twinkstarr

SDKath

Kelso

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

Twinkstarr

lyndor

Art

TUG Review Crew: Expert