Scheduling Your Next Cruise Onboard

[Ja-sun]

Can anybody tell me if the discounts are worth it, scheduling your next cruise while on board your current cruise, or just the same or better with a TA?

[AshleyDillo]

Pricing will be the exact same as the going rate online at the time you book with NextCruise. What NextCruise can offer is a some OBC the cruise you are booking and sometimes they offer reduced deposits or you can take the OBC offer and take that off the price of the cruise. Remember, the advertisements you will see onboard are for nonrefundable bookings. Refundable bookings will get a much lesser amount of OBC and won't get the reduced deposits. You will be allowed to make up to three reservations onboard, so you can book cabins for others who aren't sailing with you.

I never suggest waiting until you board to book unless you have a cruise coming up really soon. Prices can change and it's usually better to lock in prices early.

NextCruise also offers open bookings that will lock in the OBC offers in exchange for a deposit and then you have 60 days to decide on what cruise you want to book.

[Moby Dick]

20 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Pricing will be the exact same as the going rate online at the time you book with NextCruise. What NextCruise can offer is a some OBC the cruise you are booking and sometimes they offer reduced deposits or you can take the OBC offer and take that off the price of the cruise. Remember, the advertisements you will see onboard are for nonrefundable bookings. Refundable bookings will get a much lesser amount of OBC and won't get the reduced deposits. You will be allowed to make up to three reservations onboard, so you can book cabins for others who aren't sailing with you.

I never suggest waiting until you board to book unless you have a cruise coming up really soon. Prices can change and it's usually better to lock in prices early.

NextCruise also offers open bookings that will lock in the OBC offers in exchange for a deposit and then you have 60 days to decide on what cruise you want to book.

AND, there is the best price guarantee.  My wife checks the price of our category room almost everyday.  She has found price reductions many times, prices even better than what we got at the Next Cruise Desk AND we kept the OBCs as well as getting the price reduction.  So, I believe there are some benefits to booking at the Next Cruise Desk.  Also, when you get back home and you have a favorite TA, you can transfer your booking to the TA as long as you do it within 30 days of original booking date.  We did that and got an additional $1,500.00 of OBCs from our TA.  Win Win!

[Traveling Mike]

1 hour ago, Ja-sun said:

Can anybody tell me if the discounts are worth it, scheduling your next cruise while on board your current cruise, or just the same or better with a TA?

The answer is maybe.   When I booked in February, I got an extra $150 OBC for a $700 cruise.  I also told them who my TA was, and they placed my booking under my TA.  Then my TA got the booking and added their perks.

[JohnK6404]

1 hour ago, Ja-sun said:

Can anybody tell me if the discounts are worth it, scheduling your next cruise while on board your current cruise, or just the same or better with a TA?

Hi @Ja-sun!

As already mentioned, the price onboard in NextCruise is the current online prevailing rate. The benefit tends to be a reduced deposit and OBC. My wife and I have utilized NextCruise in the past. Most recently, we booked our JAN 2023 sailing last OCT while onboard and during our last cruise in FEB, we purchased a couple of "Book Later" reservations for the first time. For us, we got $100 OBC and only had to pay the $200 reduced deposit for each reservation. We elected to go with these non-refundable deposit booking benefits. You can of course continue to reprice if the rate goes down with any NextCruise reservation.

The current rules (for "Book Later" reservations) require that you select your sailing within 60 days of purchase to keep the OBC or you will lose it. However, you still have one full year from purchase to book a cruise before you also lose the $200 non-refundable reduced deposit (in our example). The deadlines are for making the booking, not the actual sail date. We used one when we returned home to book our OCT 2023 cruise.

Any reservation with NextCruise will default to the last TA on file (pulls current sailing info in the system I believe), but you can change it at that time. You can also tell them to leave it with Royal for now and I believe (from what I remember) you have 30 days to transfer the reservation to your TA of choice. I would just verify the TA transfer rules/timeframe to be safe!

They now actually allow you to book NextCruise reservations through the Royal app while onboard (at least Book Later option)... that's how I got into "trouble"... very dangerous!  

[Hotwheels]

4 hours ago, JohnK6404 said:

They now actually allow you to book NextCruise reservations through the Royal app while onboard (at least Book Later option)... that's how I got into "trouble"... very dangerous!  

I did this!  I wasn't sure which week would be best, so I used the app to "book later".  It was only $100/person (so $200) non-refundable deposit and was able to get $150 onboard credit if I actually booked within 30 days (could have been 60 days, now I don't remember).