Last Minute Booking

[Maccabee18]

Hi all,

Does anyone know how late you can book a cruise with DCL? I am waiting on a job offer (as for when I get the offer, and also how long I have before I need to start) and would like to do a cruise to celebrate but it would be very last minute. I read on some places that it had to be at least three days out before shoreside closed the bookings and sent it all to port. I also read that people have booked as late as the morning of as they were on the way to the port, but that was back in 2012 and not sure how accurate that is.

Anyone know for sure?

 

[ScoutN]

I don't quite see how you could book at the port when your need your documents to even get inside of the terminal. But alas, I am not a TA.

 

[DisneyJoe]

I quickly tried a few online search engines for booking cruises, and even though I used today as a start date, the earliest it would give me are cruises that sail tomorrow.

Be aware that you would need to pay the cruise fare in full and be likely be within a penalty window of losing all of your money if you cancelled at that point.

You may be able to call a cruise reservation center on the phone the day of.

 

[COProgressFan]

Hi all,

Does anyone know how late you can book a cruise with DCL? I am waiting on a job offer (as for when I get the offer, and also how long I have before I need to start) and would like to do a cruise to celebrate but it would be very last minute. I read on some places that it had to be at least three days out before shoreside closed the bookings and sent it all to port. I also read that people have booked as late as the morning of as they were on the way to the port, but that was back in 2012 and not sure how accurate that is.

Anyone know for sure?

We planned and booked a last minute trip on the Dream with no problems a few weeks ago just 4 days prior to the sail date. Because it was last minute, we got a great price on a guaranteed stateroom (which just meant we got a guaranteed veranda but didn't get to choose the room -- and this was actually cheaper than a regular inside stateroom!).

I don't know what the exact cutoff is, but I checked again the next day looking at prices, and the DCL site still showed availability to book 3 days out.

Not sure if that's the definite answer you were looking for, but 4 days is perfectly fine, and 3 days appears to work too.

 

[jaklgreen]

We planned and booked a last minute trip on the Dream with no problems a few weeks ago just 4 days prior to the sail date. Because it was last minute, we got a great price on a guaranteed stateroom (which just meant we got a guaranteed veranda but didn't get to choose the room -- and this was actually cheaper than a regular inside stateroom!).

I don't know what the exact cutoff is, but I checked again the next day looking at prices, and the DCL site still showed availability to book 3 days out.

Not sure if that's the definite answer you were looking for, but 4 days is perfectly fine, and 3 days appears to work too.

See, this is why I want to be rich and live in Florida. LOL To just be able to say, "hey, lets go on a cruise tomorrow" would be my dream. LOL

 

[COProgressFan]

See, this is why I want to be rich and live in Florida. LOL To just be able to say, "hey, lets go on a cruise tomorrow" would be my dream. LOL

I wish I was rich and lived in FL too!

We are big planners so a last minute trip was completely unlike us. We were actually planning for a year out, and just for comparison's sake took a look at prices for next year vs. this year and found that a last minute cruise was about 40% less than if we booked for next April. Timing worked out great with kids vacations, and we were able to take days off from work, so we just jumped in and did it. We paid more for flights but still came out ahead over booking for next year.

It was a lot of fun and I actually think we might have enjoyed it a bit more because we really didn't have a lot of time to plan, overschedule, or build up expectations too much, etc.