The Calm Before the 2009 Cruise Booking Storm
December 28, 2008 
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As I had mentioned in the December 15th post, I noticed what was looking like a bottoming of Cruise Prices. With my very active weekly research on cruise prices I noticed that there was a lot of rapid fluctuations in prices. The overall trend was a slight increase in pricing but with the fuel surcharges being removed from the major Cruise Lines, the total price for the cruises were the lowest they had ever been.
It looks to me like that week would have been one of the best weeks to book your 2009 cruise. The great news is that this upcoming week, starting on Dec. 29th is the calm before the storm known as Wave Season. Employers have started asking employees to put in their time off requests as early as possible. So this means that we book 70% of our cruises between January 2nd – March 30th. This increased demand is accompanied be an increase in pricing. December 29th – January 3rd will still have very enticing rates because the heavy booking volume will start the following week.
Do not miss out on the current low prices because you think people will not travel in 2009:
Most cruises sailing in the next two weeks are sold out, which means that ships are full and that people are still traveling. Cruising offers an incredible value compared to land based vacations…people are still going to travel in 2009 and the value of cruising may draw a lot of first time cruisers. If you know you are going to be cruising in 2009, then I advice booking early to take advantage of the current pricing. Cruises booked through agencies such as CruiseDeals.com that are scheduled more than 75 days out are held with a fully-refundable deposit, so if prices were to go down prior to final payment being due you could cancel and rebook at the lower rates. But just as I was correct on December 15th about the rates going up, if you book a month from today you will pay more for the same 2009 cruise. This is FREE Advice, try to book your 2009 cruise this week…and if you do not get the opportunity to this week, then book it as close to January 1st as possible!
A major part of my job is to track cruise pricing and to find the best cruise deals that are going to be the most popular with our subscribers. Take advantage of the many hours that I spend tracking prices and sign up for our free Email Newsletter with Exclusive Deals: Click here to sign up for SEAMail.com!
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[...] The last week of December 2008, I told readers that this would be the best week of the year to lock in the lowest prices for 2009 Cruise. Click here to read The Calm before the 2009 Booking Storm. [...]