Thanks QB ... I didn't find any reference to that by searching the site but have just located it in ' Tailor Made '
Out of interest I looked for Hong Kong to Cape Town but that one was split into two separate cruises within those destinations thus making it considerably more expensive than P&O. Hong Kong to Southampton, on the other hand, is a steal at £3,399 for an outside cabin for 51 nights.
Thanks QB ... I didn't find any reference to that by searching the site but have just located it in ' Tailor Made '
Out of interest I looked for Hong Kong to Cape Town but that one was split into two separate cruises within those destinations thus making it considerably more expensive than P&O. Hong Kong to Southampton, on the other hand, is a steal at £3,399 for an outside cabin for 51 nights.
If you're seriously interested in Hong Kong to Southampton then I suggest a quick call to see what they can offer.
Even before these deals were on offer we would ring around to all the travel agents to find out who were doing the best deals for us. This was in the days when the TA were selected by the cruise companies who would be allowed to give the biggest discount. Of course today the cruise companies now do this as part of the 'customers choice'.
We have 99% of the time gone for guarantee fare basis even when we have done a select fare which is rare for us , we do this on world cruises and I think they called it an early bird but it was really a select. On all our recent world cruise we had selected guarantee on the select fare and received a cabin one grade up.
For us, price is key as to whether we book.
1. We don't mind where we are on the ship.
2. We don't really mind where we go.
3. For us the benefits of some of the select fares don't always measure up
a. parking or obc, we can do our own parking (often cheaper than the difference), obc we can get from share benefits & the amount you get is less than the extra you pay extra for in select. i.e you may get £200 obc but pay £400 each for it.
b. complimentary shuttle buses. if we can, we walk and in fact one cruise we went on there wasn't a single need for shuttles as there were none. Even if there were the amount you pay still falls short of the extra you pay for your cruise.
I do believe though that there has been a very rare occasion when a select fare was of a good price and there was OBC, think we had that last year not realising it was a select fare. They are out there but its a very competitive market out there and P&O are reducing quite early and giving reductions to different TA's to reduce more to pass onto customers for a short period of time before it goes up again.
The upshot is we like the saver fare as it suits us.
Did I answer the question?
For at least 10 years we always booked on the first day that cruises were on sale and booked a specific cabin and dining.(Now we much prefer Freedom Dining.)
A few years ago we were unable to book ahead due to health reasons so bookednearer departure,often a saver fare but on ships that we had sailed on before so that we knew what cabin we might be getting, (research here is imperative).Had some great cabins allocated, even an aft cabin on Arcadia.
Last year, we booked two long cruises for this year, one whilst on board, ( and another soon after we got back from our 23 night Caribbean cruise), both on the £50pp deposit and both select fares. Within weeks both cruises had been heavily discounted with huge amounts of OBC added.
We cancelled both cruises, forfeited the small deposit of £200, and rebooked the same cabins for both cruises with a huge amount of additional OBC. We saved well over £3000 by doing this.
A few months ago, our next cruise had been reduced, yet again, by a considerable amount, I am not talking 2 figures or even 3 figures, but 4 figures and even more OBC. I contacted our cruise agent and they had received numerous complaints; many of their customers had cancelled and rebooked, because, even forfeiting their full deposit and rebooking made such a huge difference to the cost. However, I decided to take a different route on the advice of my cruise agent and am glad to say that, with me on a mission to disprove that booking early secures the best prices for loyal passengers, and refusing any more OBC, ( have more than we could possibly spend, even if we spent all day in a bar!!)wereceived a cash refund which covers cost of a private transfer to Southampton for this cruse and a few more cruises. A resounding result!
So, saver V select? No contest in future, even on a cruise that has many new ports of call and that,years ago, one would expect to be oversubscribed and fully booked the first day that bookings opened, we won't book ahead any more. This was such a cruise, a new and innovative itinerary.
When I say that our initial cost pp was just under £5000 and, despite cancelling, rebooking,and further efforts to reduce this, the cost was still around £4000: recently guarantee/saver cabins were on sale for half this cost,admittedly without the large OBC, we won't book so far in advance any more.
We have booked both select and saver fares in the past depending upon the factors in play at the time we booked the cruise. If the cruise is one we especially want to go on because of the itinerary, destination,special occasion etc then we will book the select fare. ( we did this when we went on Oceana to the East.Med and for our upcoming cruise on the Oriana to the Caribbean.This is for our 30th anniversary and have never been to that destination before,but as it is for 50 days ,my wife had to negotiate holiday time off from work.Therefore we took a gamble and booked the select fare ,almost as soon as the cruise came out, to enable my wife to give plenty of advance notice to her employers and if unsuccessful would only lose the deposit if we had to cancel ( luckily she did manage to wangle the time off) However, if dates/ destination aren't a factor we would look for saver fares as the "benefits" of booking the select fare such as choosing your cabin, choice of sittings, shuttle buses etc do not IMO outweigh the huge financial benefit you receive in booking the cheaper saver fare.
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