Planning
Matt Berry
Vacations can be expensive, so naturally, whenever there’s a study that suggests ways to travel cheaper, it’s worth digging into. According to an extensive study that followed price drops in the cruise industry, Thursdays may be the best day to book a cruise. Prices associated with travel are always in flux due to supply and demand, so the prices of a cruise can change daily. Prices could spike on a Wednesday and drop, well, on a Thursday.
The CruiseWatch study analyzed 600,000 price reductions over a few years. Thursdays featured the most discounts, while the most price hikes occurred on Wednesdays. Overall, cruise prices over weekends tended to stay pretty consistent. Does this mean you should always buy cruise vacations on Thursdays? Maybe, but it really just depends.
Overall, this admittedly interesting finding is impacted by a bigger sea of variables. Buying on Thursdays is just another arrow for your value-finding quiver, but in the travel industry, data trends can change rapidly.
Other times to find cruise deals
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Cruise lines, like other travel companies, invest heavily in revenue optimization, so if Thursdays tend to offer more discounts, then their pricing algorithm understands something we don’t, and who are we to argue? However, fundamentally, price fluctuations revolve around dynamic pricing models based on supply and demand, and accurately gauging when lower prices will occur is tough.
That said, there are a few specific times when you’re more likely to score cheaper cruise tickets: wave season and at the last minute. From January to March, cruise lines offer wave season promotions to entice early bookings for the next 12 months of cruises. It’s always in the cruise line’s best interest to fill their cabins, helping to ensure fuller ships at discounted, but not slashed, rates.
Conversely, you can roll the dice and try to book a last-minute cruise. Typically, all final payments from pre-booked passengers are due 60 to 90 days before sailing. After this final payment, cruise lines have a better idea of the ship’s vacant cabins. If the ship is too empty, the cruise line may offer last-minute deals to fill unsold cabins. But whether you book your cruise during wave season or at the last minute, it couldn’t hurt to check out the prices on Thursdays.
