…

In addition to the fall months, the off-season period for cruising usually includes parts of January and February, but varies by region.

Traditionally, the summer months of June, July and August are high season in many cruise destinations such as the Caribbean, Europe and Alaska. Periods around major holidays – such as Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day – are also considered busy seasons to travel and bring higher prices.

Book early

It’s a growing truism of the cruise world: the earlier you book, the better price you’ll get.

Cruise lines often open departures for bookings with the lowest prices at which they want to sell trips. Then, as departures begin to fill in, they gradually raise prices on the remaining inventory.

To get the best price on any particular sailing, your best bet, in many cases, is to book right when the sailing opens for sale. This means planning way Many cruise lines open their reservations for voyages two or three years in advance of departure.

Booking in advance can be paid in more ways than one. A big advantage of booking ahead of time is that you are more likely to get the exact cabin type you want. On many ships, the least expensive cabins and most expensive suites often sell out first and quickly.

Worried about missing out on a deal by booking a cruise in advance? Here’s the good news: If, for some reason, the price of your cruise drops at a later date, you can often lower your fare to match the lower price. This often happens in the last few months before the voyage begins, when the cruise enters what is known as the “final payment” window. At that point, the rent you paid is locked in.

Note that not all fare types allow you to change the fare you pay after booking. It is important to read the fine print for the fare category you are booking.

Book late

As noted above, cruise lines typically offer their lowest fares for any given voyage just after it opens for bookings—often two or three years before it’s scheduled to depart.

Generally, the fare will increase as the sailing date approaches. But in some cases, cruise lines will do Significant last minute cruise price reductions. This can happen when the line finds a voyage with too many unsold cabins.

If you’re flexible and can travel on short notice, you can sometimes find a last-minute deal on a cruise where lines are squeezing to fill berths.

The important thing to know here is that last minute discounting is not as common as it used to be. Like airlines, cruise lines have become more savvy about revenue management over the years, and it’s rare that they have a lot of unsold inventory on a sailing before departure.

You also have to be flexible to take advantage of these deals. If you have a specific cabin type on a specific ship that you’re looking at for a vacation, you can’t count on it being available—especially not at a rock-bottom rate.

Also, don’t forget that you can pay a lot more for cruise and precruise hotel flights if you wait until the last minute to book them. Last-minute cruise deals often work best for travelers who live close to a departure port that they can easily reach by car, avoiding the expense of last-minute flights and hotels.

A big reason for this is that cruise-selling travel agents have access to wholesale cruise fares that are not available to the general public. Large travel agencies will block a large portion of cabins on ships immediately after they open for bookings to lock in such group fares and then sell them in the coming months.

In addition to lower fares, cruise travel agents sometimes offer additional benefits such as onboard credit or amenities when you book through them.

Travel agents specializing in cruising will also be able to guide you through the many types of cabin categories on some cruise ships and steer you away from cabins to avoid. Plus, they’ll be there for you when things go wrong on the cruise.

Consider a repositioning cruise

Cruise ships are voyages that cruise ships make as they move from one part of the world to another.

This is because cruise lines often have difficulty selling these trips. Those are the trips that usually have oddball itineraries with very few port calls and lots of sea days – something that doesn’t appeal to many cruisers. They’re also significantly longer than standard weekend getaways or weeklong trips—which are off-limits to many travelers who have limited vacation days.

To sell them, cruise lines often have to drastically cut their per-day prices, making them bargains.

The most common repositioning cruises are sailings between the Caribbean and Europe in the spring as lines move ships to the Mediterranean for the summer. Similarly, there is always a wave of repositioning cruises between Europe and the Caribbean in the fall.

You’ll also find several repositioning cruises each year between the Caribbean and Alaska, and between the US and Asia or the West Coast of Australia.

Planning a cruise? Start with these stories: