My wife and I want to cruise next year and have been trying to cram in a lot of research over the last two days.
We locked in a 7 night Caribbean Cruise on the treasure for June next year, we have until Wednesday until a deposit is needed.
The same 7 night cruise is almost half the price if we travel mid sept instead of June.
Is sept too but a risk for hurricanes? Is it a non issue? We want to do some excursions like zip line and etc and my wife is scared of the hurricane season. June is 9,500ish for a veranda and sept is 5,500ish
This would be our very first cruise so I’m super n00b at this
If the ports of call are crucial to your enjoyment of the sailing, I would say the upcharge is worth it. Although many, perhaps most, cruises will sail as scheduled even during hurricane season, the itinerary may very well be modified to allow the ship to sail around the weather. If you’re flexible about your plans, it could be worth the savings.
If this is your first cruise, do not go in September. The first 2 weeks of September is peak hurricane season. It is more than possible your route will reroute. For a seasoned cruiser, you go with the flow. Although even I wont cruise during late Aug through September.
The price difference is because it’s peak hurricane season. June is pretty pricey too! How is October looking price wise? October is a little safer with the storm impact. But June still has it’s fair share of storms. Just usually not as impactful. But man, that’s a big difference in price.
Also, I tend to recommend 5 day cruises for newbies. Make sure it’s your thing first. So is there a 4 or 5 day June option that would still be acceptable?
The 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise is fantastic! We did one in December 2022 and are going back this December. (Though if you think June is expensive, try near Christmas!)
We’ve done Eastern & Western Caribbean and Bahamas. Eastern Caribbean was by far our favourite. The islands and the timing just seemed perfect to us. We tend to like the longer cruises. Three nights is way too short. Four nights is okay but we definitely prefer 5 and up.
October.
June will be a family vacation month. Usually that bring higher prices (although it might not be that much different than June). Earlier June is sometimes reasonable for summer. October (away from Halloween cruises) seem to be fairly reasonable. We’ve sailed twice in October but both happened to be Carnival.
One thing to keep in mind. You can still have a hurricane in October. So if the price is similar I would pick June. But I have a feeling they will be just a little bit over the September rates- especially earlier in the month.
Our October cruises were 2nd and 3rd weeks.
A 7 day Eastern Caribbean will he nice! Labor Day weekend is peak of the peakiest of hurricane season. The further away you get from that, statically, the lower chance you have of a hurricane impacting your plans.
At the end of the day, the pricing is about demand. DCL has lower prices in Sept. because fewer people are booking then. Sure, that’s partly about hurricane season, but it’s other factors as well, such as the school calendar, which has a big impact particularly in the family cruise context. Personally, I would not hesitate to book Sept. over June if that worked for my schedule, understanding that I may be impacted by a hurricane. YMMV. I’ve had multiple vacations impacted by hurricanes (including on DCL in Oct.), and I still keep booking what suits me in the timing that suits me. Oct. will include Halloween cruises, and those are popular on DCL, so accordingly you may see a price increase for the theme spurring demand. Oct. is also fall break season for many school calendars, of course.
I’m not sure when fall 2024 schedules were released, but I did book a fall 2023 cruise. The dates/itineraries for those were released end of July 2022.
I think that this is really, really sound advice. We travel quite a bit in the fall and the most hurricane impacted trip I’ve ever had was in November. You cannot plan years in advance for a hurricane. Make contingency or insurance plans that make you feel comfortable with some level of impact but honestly that’s smart to do 365 days a year because life/weather can always happen.
I’d recommend booking the September trip while you wait for October to drop. If you find something in October you want, you can cancel the September booking. If you don’t find anything you want in October, you’ve locked in the September trip.
This is an itinerary I can’t wait to do (our first time doing this will be next June). I’ve heard only great things about the itinerary. It is your first cruise though, so going right to 7 days could be long if you don’t enjoy it. We went on our first cruise with extended family and some of them were really glad that we picked 5 days because their bodies were not dealing well with being on the ocean and struggling with seasickness.
It’s a risk for sure & definitely NOT a non-issue. But we cruised last year starting on Labor Day because it was dirt cheap and got us on a sailing that had the DCL 25th anniversary celebrations that we discovered existed after we fell in love with cruising our first cruise.
Here’s what helped me be ok with the risk of September:
Planning flights to arrive well in advance of the cruise (or if you drive, making sure you have time on your route). We planned to arrive 4 days ahead to allow for plenty of buffer time (and very lose plans in that time that could be axed if we were delayed in arriving).
Travel insurance with good coverage for delays/cancellations related to hurricanes.
Cruise lines will do everything they can to keep the cruise. It may mean changing ports or making a port day a sea day, but they’ll still make it as fun as they can.
We did end up having a hurricane threaten to delay our flight and that was definitely stress I didn’t enjoy, but if were an itinerary I wanted that worked with my schedule & budget, I’d cruise again in late August/September. And I would make sure that I’d figure out a way to be ok with re-scheduling/cancelling if by some slim chance your cruise is one that can’t go because the embarkation port is closed (which can happen if a hurricane is coming right to the port).
Looking at the history of itinerary announcements from 2015 to this year here. The earliest Disney has announced fall itineraries is May 11 and latest is July 23. So it could be sometime this month. Although I would not expect it to on the earlier end this year as nothing as ever been quite as early as it used to be going back before the 2020 closure.
I agree with the advice to lock in a sailing now and re-evaluate once Fall 2025 sailings are released. If you are leaning on the June one though, I would probably lock in that one in now, because being a summer vacation month will be more likely to jump in price between now & when the next round of itineraries are announced. But if you are really wanting to be cost-conscious & take the risk on hurricane season & will be just waiting to see if October is a similar price, then you could lock in September now. October does have a lot of fall school breaks so it won’t be quite as low as September, but it will definitely come in under that June number.
This is my main fear to be honest. My wife is dead set on the eastern Caribbean for when we do go and those are all 7 days. I’d actually prefer to go 4 and do 3 days at wdw also or something like that.
I do get motion sick on spinning rides , so I’m super scared of seasick. I gotta find a big boat nearby to test myself on
