Beat The Cruise Fare Hikes And Don’t Overpay!
6 Top Tricks I Use To Beat Today’s Fast Growing Cruise Fares

Every cruiser can see that cruise fares have been rising scarily fast, and cruise lines are telling Wall Street investors that they expect fares to keep rising well over inflation as demand for cruising is so high. But despite that, I have found ways of paying less than most people on every one of the 12 upcoming trips I’ve got booked.

I’m going to show you how I, and other smart cruisers, cruise for less than others in this time of rising fares.

Get In At The Start

First, I try and book when lines launch new itineraries.

When cruise lines launch new itineraries, you’re going to get the best prices for any cruise because fares move up from launch prices due to a dynamic pricing. Lines use lower fares at launch to get us to commit and then as the ship fills up, fares are programmed to shift upwards.

Before the pandemic when ships were sailing less full, you could sometimes find last minute deals that came close to or beat those launch prices. But these days this is rare, though I’ll share some late booking tactics that can work later.

I really like that when cruise lines launch new itineraries, in addition to having the lower fares, they often have offers like getting a grade higher for price of lower grade and bonus extras.

For example, at launch I booked a “bucket list” 31-night South America circumnavigation on Holland America for 18 months’ time. I got a great fare, but also the launch deal included the “Have-It-All” add-on covering drinks, Wi-Fi, gratuities and excursion and specialty dining credits.

This was worth over $2,000 (£1,700) that others will have to pay booking later.

I also booked a 25-night Regent Seven Seas Navigator West Africa trip at launch because they not only offered a grade higher special, so I got a Concierge cabin which has more perks for the price of a Balcony Cabin, but they threw in a 3-night post-stay in Cape Town visiting sights and safari parks.

I’d have been charged for it if I had booked after the launch period.

Deal or No Deal

The next tool I use a lot are promotions. While this might sound obvious, there’s some important things I’ve discovered you must focus on with promotions.

First, I ensure I am ready to take advantage of promotions as I keep a list of all the places, cruise lines, and ships I’m interested in. But I hold off booking, until any of those go on offer.

Most cruisers tend to focus on the much-hyped Black Friday / Cyber Monday, and the New Year “Wave Season” promotions when all cruise lines are promoting and fighting to get bookings as a huge percentage of bookings happen in these times. I do not though as I’m not sure from what I have seen that those deals are as deep and promising as they make out. Especially compared to the more ad-hoc ones run during the year, which I see are deeper.

The deals seem to be better as they seem to run when the lines are trying to hit sales targets at the end of a quarter or year or need to fill up certain sailings with capacity. These ad-hoc deals usually run for short periods of time, often over a weekend. So, you need to be on the ball to catch them. How do I do this?

Best Ways To Track Deals?

Two ways. First, I’m signed up for email newsletters for every cruise line I’m interested in, as this is what they use to announce promotions.

Second, I keep an eye on social media, mostly Instagram and Facebook, as they run them there too.

As a tip, make sure you follow the various cruise line accounts, and interact with cruise posts on those sites as then the advertising will target you as the algorithms know you are interested in cruising.

Over the years, I have kept email folders to track cruise line promotions and here’s what I’ve found are the best ones to look out for.

These days, flash sales have great deals with deep discounts, bonus add-ons, upgrades or extra onboard credit.

I recently used one when booking a Crystal Cruises Asia trip to review this newly relaunched line from Japan to Manilla. I could get a better cabin than the entry level one I could afford by using their limited-time upgrade promotion.

Another trending promotion is driven by lines seeing more families and people sharing cabins, so the offers have the second, third or fourth person sharing a cabin free or at a huge discount.

I’ve used this to make some great savings versus what others will be paying by missing the promotion.

For example, I used one when it broke to book a 16-night Celebrity Silhouette Canada, Greenland and Iceland trip I wanted to do on my list. I saved a fortune as the second person had 75% off the fare. We saved almost $6,000 / £5,000 versus if we had booked without waiting for that promotion!

Solo Travel Deals

As a frequent solo traveller, promotions are an important way to cruise for less and although not that frequent, I rely on these.

The reason I was able to cruise the Kimberley in Australia, was Seabourn ran a 20% solo supplement deal on selected sailings via one of their email newsletters.

There are other promotions that may appeal to you but do less to me, like advanced full payment discounts, and added discounts for loyal travellers only.

I have some rather unusual tips that people just don’t think or know about that I am excited to share, but before that here is one that I get asked about often.

Getting On Board

I use this trick less often, but it does work and is booking a future cruise on board as the line usually offers an added discount only available on board.

For example, I was on Silver Endeavour in Antarctica recently and they were offering a 10% discount if booking any other Silversea cruise. This was on top of any other promotions or discounts available at the time, like the 5% I get from being a loyal cruiser.

I only book on board if I already have plans to cruise on the line.

In this case, knowing I was going on Silversea and wanted to do a repositioning cruise from Alaska to Japan on Silver Nova in 20 months’ time to try the new ship, I held off and only booked once on the ship, so I got a 15% discount and not just the 5% of I had booked it before boarding.

Now let me move onto some of the more unexpected and unusual ways I find I can cruise for less than others on the same ship as me.

The first of these is going on a group cruise or bundled cruise.

Pays To Be In A Group

Here is a group cruise example close to home.

I am hosting my next group cruise in 2026, which is a 15-night Holland America Zuiderdam Panama Canal cruise. I negotiated and locked in group fares just as that cruise was launched.

I have seen the fares for that cruise rise significantly. I noted by how much when my sister decided to come on the group cruise. We had a look online and my group rate was almost 30% less than the going rates now.

So, she is coming on the group at the group rate knowing she is paying way less than many people on board in the same cabin grade.

Group packages are also a useful way to find late deals. If a specific sailing is not full, occasionally the cruise lines will offer group rates to clear a block of cabins to travel agents that create and sell packages bundled with flights, hotels and transfers.

These disguise the discounted cabin fares from us passengers as there is no direct comparison possible.

You’ll find these offers mostly via online cruise travel agents or those that take adverts in the weekend papers as they can clear these at relatively short notice.

I personally do not use these as I plan my cruises way ahead and like to choose my specific cabin, which these usually do not allow me to do.

Next is a very underused way to cut your fares by using other people to do it for you!

Help From Your Friends

Many cruise lines will give a credit to be applied to current or future bookings if you refer a new traveller to them and they make a booking. And the person who you refer will also get a credit, so reducing their fare too!

For example, on the Silversea Nova cruise I mentioned I have had $350 cut off the fare as a follower of the channel named me as referring them. They also got $350 off their cruise.

On Silversea I can have up to 10 people naming me as a referral and receive a total of $3,500 added discounts.

I am about to head off on a Regent Seven Seas cruise and they have highlighted their “Ambassador Program” where both myself and the person referring me will each get $250 credit if they complete a form with my loyalty number within 14 days of booking.

So, if you ever make a booking based on one of my recommendations consider naming me as a referrer and we can both benefit, Or, of course, if any of your friends or family have been on a line you have not then name them.

As I mentioned earlier, last minute cruises are less of an opportunity to get lower fares than in the past, but there are a few things you can do.

Leaving It Late

Some cruise lines offer last-minute options, for example Holland America have standby fares if you can get to the port at short notice. Silversea offer what they call “Essential Fares” close to sailings, and others list last-minute cruises on their sites.

Although it is easier to check online travel agents focusing on last-minute cruising.

Many cruise lines use travel agents to clear any unsold cabins rather than advertise the last-minute discounted fares on their site. Why? It could mean people who have booked spotting the lower prices on the cruise line site and hassling them to reduce their higher fare to the lower one.

By using these agents, lines can reduce that risk. One that has an active last-minute listing is a site that I’ve mentioned many times before in my videos which is VacationsToGo.com who have a 90-day ticker page listing upcoming last-minute cruises.

If you have a favourite last-minute cruise site that has worked for you, leave that in the comments to help fellow travellers.

Of course, one of the key things to do to make sure that you aren’t paying more than others on your cruise is to do fare tracking. I have an article on my blog at tipsfortravellers.com/faretracking on what it is it and how to effortlessly do it.