The biggest cruise hack you're not doing that has saved me thousands of dollars

Although cruising continues to be one of the most affordable vacations you can take, you still want to be as savvy as you can when it comes to saving money. Almost everyone is looking to get the most bang for their buck when it comes to booking a cruise vacation. 

Unless you have an unlimited travel budget (and if so, I am very jealous), you’ll want to make sure you are getting the best possible rate for your cruise fare. To start, money saved on your cruise fare gives you more room in your travel budget. This allows you to splurge on things that are important to you while cruising, such as exciting excursions, wifi, drink packages, specialty dining and more. 

Read more: Top things that are totally worth spending extra for on a Royal Caribbean cruise

For me, saving substantial money on a cruise fare allows me to cruise more frequently. I love to travel, so getting a great deal is very important to me when booking a future sailing.

We’ve all heard people say you should book your cruises as soon bookings open to save money. But, cruise lines release itineraries as far as two years in future. Others suggest waiting until the very last-minute to get the best price possible. So, which is actually the best approach to save money?

Between constant price promotions, changing sales and dynamic pricing from Royal Caribbean, it can be difficult to know when the best time to book a cruise is. Depending on when you book your cruises, you have a sweet spot for the time you’ll be able to save the most money.

I am going to share with you the biggest money-saving hack for your next cruise. This trick has worked for me on almost every cruise that I’ve booked in recent years since I learned it was possible. I’ve saved anywhere from $50 to $1,500 with this hack. In fact, I just saved $572 on an upcoming cruise to Africa that I’ll be sailing on in January! 

This hack is all about booking that cruise now and repricing it later to save money. Here’s why I book my cruises far in advance (when possible) and how I take advantage of repricing policies to save anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars. 

We recently asked our Royal Caribbean Blog followers on Instagram how far in advance they prefer booking their next cruise. 

Of those that responded, 48% of our followers prefer to book cruises within 6 to 12 months before the itinerary’s departure date. On the other hand, 40% of cruisers said they prefer booking booking further in advance with at least 12 or more months. Finally, just 13% of our followers said they prefer booking cruises at the last-minute with less than 6 months in advance.

As you can see, there is no single approach that works for everyone, as we all have different schedules, budgets and travel preferences. Some people cannot plan two years in advance while others cannot financially risk waiting until the last-minute and hope for a fantastic deal just for the price to be hiked. 

Personally, I’ve booked cruises with both approaches. For some highly-anticipated itineraries, like my recent sailing to Israel on Odyssey of the Seas, we booked more than a year in advance to snag a good cabin. On the other hand, I’ve found awesome last-minute deals sometimes too.

But, I’ve also been burned a few times booking cabins at the last-minute, which left me spending hundreds of dollars more. 

But, the most money I’ve saved when booking cruises involves the following strategy: book now and reprice often.

While this might not seem like a revolutionary secret, this strategy has been proven successful time and time again. Repricing my cruises has saved me a lot of money over the years and I cannot believe people do not do it more often. 

This strategy involves booking a cruise as far in advance as you can with the expectation that you can (and will) reprice your cabin as the departure gets closer. 

Keep in mind that only residents of certain countries can re-price a cruise after booking, such as the United States or Canada.  Sorry Brits!

You want to give yourself as much time as you can to reprice your upcoming cruise. This allows you to monitor the price periodically to see whether you can save money on your booked sailing. Preferably, you should book cruises that are around 8 months or more in the future to allow you the opportunity to reprice often. 

I’ve also found that the more time I give myself to make a final payment, the more likely I am to receive an American Express offer for the cruise line to earn extra cash back or point bonuses. 

Because of Royal Caribbean’s dynamic pricing system, the cruise prices are constantly fluctuating with supply and demand. The more popular sailings will see prices slowly increase as departure of the cruise approaches while less popular sailings will have no choice but to drop prices to entice people. 

Ultimately, repricing takes advantage of prices ebbing and flowing to save you money. If you book a cruise and the price only goes up, then you know you snagged the best price possible. But, if the price drops, you can take advantage of this by getting your reservation repriced. 

Once you see a lower price for the exact stateroom category and sailing you have booked, you simply contact the cruise line and ask for them to reprice your cabin; or, even better, book with a travel agent and let them handle the repricing for you, which requires even less work on your part. 

But, the key to this strategy is ensuring you have enough time to reprice before final payment is due on a cruise. 

Once you’ve made your final payment on a cruise reservation, you do not have much wiggle room on the final price. Therefore, booking with the intent of repricing should be done far in advance. 

Note: You might remember the only exception to this policy was during the post-pandemic restart when you could reprice your cruise reservations with Royal Caribbean up to 48 hours before departure. This policy (one that I truly loved, as you can imagine) has since been retired and no longer applies. It was fun while it lasted!

For most cruises, Royal Caribbean states that payments are due 90 days in advance from a cruise departure date. Shorter sailings from 1-4 nights are required to make final payments at least 75 days in advance. This timeline is one that most cruise lines follow, but it’s important to confirm when you need to make a final payment before you plan to utilize this strategy.

If you’ve made your final payment, you probably won’t be able to reprice your cruise with a lower published fare. In fact, I have a theory that Royal Caribbean drops the current price of a cruise right after an itinerary passes the final payment window (but, I have a trick for still saving money that I will discuss later in the article – read on!).  

According to Royal Caribbean’s policy, if you book a cruise within 90 days of sailing (i.e the final payment window) and you see a lower price within 48 hours of booking, the cruise line will offer you onboard credit for the difference. But, if you are outside of the final payment window, you’ll typically have the opportunity to contact the cruise line and have your cruise fare repriced to match the current price. 

The repricing process is even easier when you work with a travel agent – something we always recommend.

I only just started working with travel agents in the last few years, but it’s been a game changer for booking cruises. This is not a forced plug for our sponsor, MEI Travels, but truly my opinion on how valuable a travel agent can be in these types of situations. While we use MEI for our business travels here at Royal Caribbean Blog, I have started to use MEI for my own personal leisure cruises too. 

Read more: Top 5 things to look for in a good travel agent for your cruise vacation

To start, a good travel agent will know all of the repricing policies for different cruise lines. You can simply ask your travel agent to check for a reprice on your sailing and they can take charge with getting the price adjusted, if applicable. 

In this case, you are not only saving money, but also your valuable time. You don’t have to call the cruise line yourself and request the reprice, which involves time on-hold usually. Instead, your travel agent can advocate for you and get the reprice done without you needing to intervene. 

For my recent reprice, all I had to do was email my travel agent asking if she could look into possibly repricing my upcoming sailing because it appeared the price had gone down. I sent her a screenshot of the pricing that I was seeing on my end. She was able to contact the cruise line and reprice the cruise fare for me very quickly, saving me hundreds of dollars and my time. 

Here’s exactly how I repriced an upcoming cruise, step by step, to save $572.

After finding an itinerary that interested me, I started to price out a few different cabins and monitor the price for a couple of days. Once I decide to pull the trigger, I opted to book the cabin that best within with my budget. I put down the deposit to secure my booking. 

Now, you probably have seen that cruise lines are constantly running promotions. The cruise lines try to establish some sense of urgency that a current promotion is only running for a limited time. But, I can assure you, there is always some sort of promotion happening! 

After making the initial deposit, I started to periodically check the price of the same cruise. Since I work remotely from home on the computer, it only takes me a few minutes to go online and see what the current price is of my sailing. As holidays and promotions slightly change, you can see the price of the cruise change as well.

For a few weeks, the price was consistent with what we had locked in. But, over this past weekend, I decided to start booking excursions. During the process, I went to the website and looked at the current price of our cruise.

I was ecstatic to see that the final price of the exact same cruise we booked had gone down $572! Luckily, final payment for this cruise is not due until the end of next month so it was a quick process with my travel agent to get the price down. 

I’ve also used a similar strategy to save money on my cruises when booking far enough in advance. 

I have used a similar strategy for getting a great deal on balcony staterooms. The more I’ve cruised, the more I have come to appreciate having my own balcony. This is especially true on scenic sailings, like Alaska, Norway and Iceland.

But, the price for a balcony stateroom are normally double the cost of a inside cabin when I initially book a cruise. Instead, I will initially book the cheapest fare that I can get onboard and monitor the price for either an opportunity to reprice or cheaply upgrade to a balcony. 

For example, on my recent Iceland cruise, I originally booked an inside cabin guarantee for about $2,800. My ultimate goal was to get a balcony for much cheaper than the original $4,500 sticker price. This cruise was booked in October 2022 for a cruise in June 2023, which gave me around 8 months to snag a better deal for my inside cabin or upgrade to a balcony. 

In the months leading up to final payment, I continued to monitor the price of the cruise. Sadly, the inside cabin prices did not drop like I had hoped. As I theorized earlier, right after the final payment deadline had passed, the price of the cruise dropped drastically. 

An inside guarantee cabin was now selling for $1,400, which was half the cost of what we paid!  A gamble for a last-minute price would have worked out in this scenario, but since it was past final payment, we could not get a reprice.

However, you can always upgrade your cabin after final payments! Of course, cruise lines will not stop you from upgrading your stateroom, especially if they can get a little more money from you. In my case, the demand for the sailing was obviously a little low with the prices being dropped close to the sail date.

I took this opportunity to upgrade our stateroom to a balcony for just $200. Had I originally booked a balcony for us, it would have cost me around $1,500 more than waiting for the price to drop and choosing to upgrade then. Last summer, I was even able to upgrade my stateroom to a balcony from an inside cabin and it saved me $500! 

Of course, you risk that the demand for balconies will be so high that the price will also increase. But, in my experience, the prices will certainly fluctuate and if you book far enough in advance, you have more opportunities to snag a great deal. 

At the end of the day, the further in advance you book, the more opportunities you have to save money. 

There are many advantages for booking a cruise far in advance; for me, the biggest advantage is allowing myself enough time to reprice my sailings and get the best rate possible. I’d argue it might even be the most important reason to give yourself ample time to book a cruise, as you can either reprice or upgrade your stateroom in this case. In addition, you will have more lucrative cabins to select from if you book far enough in advance. 

I would also highly recommend working with a travel agent who can quickly reprice your bookings and deal with the cruise line directly for you. This will save you both time and money.  

Whether you choose to save money by repricing your current cabin or monitor prices for a cheap upgrade, you should be periodically monitoring your cruise fares after making a reservation. By monitoring the prices of your booked cruises for repricing, you’ll have the opportunity to save hundreds to thousands of dollars. A small effort on your end can be very lucrative for you, especially if you cruise often. 

It’s most important to reprice before final payment is due, as you won’t have much flexibility to reprice once the final payment date has passed. However, within 90 days of your cruise, you might be able to snag a very cheap upgrade for a higher stateroom category.