First cruise, should we be booking now with January sale?

[Gillybean08]

Hello! We are adding a cruise to our Florida holiday this year, I've narrowed it down to Royal Caribbean Cruises sailing late October. For a family of 4 for 4 nights including 2 days at Coco Cay its currently £1010, they have an offer for a discount on your second adult which apparently ends tonight, is this a good price? Do they do regular offers through out the year? I've also no idea about the dining options if anybody has any suggestions, thank you all in advance 😊

[Smilesonfaces]

We have only been on one RC cruise so no expert. I found when I booked that there were constant offers. As soon as one deal finished another started and the end price was always the same. Go with the deal which suits you the best. I can remember being told that £100 pppn was about the right price for a cruise. Of course it also depends on which cabin your price is for.
Your cruise will include all meals but you will either payg for drinks ( they were very expensive) or buy a drinks package. The drinks packages do come on sale regularly and you can keep looking on your cruise planner for deals which quite after appear around bank holidays. You can book a deal and cancel to rebook if something better comes along. We booked a really good speciality dining package for about £10 a night each. This was well worth it as these were lovely restaurant meals. It isn’t really necessary though as the food in the main restaurants was excellent.
We went on Harmony of the Seas and will definitely cruise again as we loved it.

[duchy]

I too work on £100 per person per night.
I was looking at MSC which seems to get very Marmite reviews.
I’ve cruised the huge cruise ships before but OH only the smaller ones .
So I picked one of their biggest with lots of fun stuff like proper water slides MSC Seaside
For 7 nights ocean view (which I prefer , I find I spend too much time in the cabin with a balcony ) full drinks package included (MSC do a cheaper one with less alcohol choices but I do like cocktails on a cruise) and also gratuities included (not sure about WiFi) £1500 so a whisker above the £100pp pd but with the extras already included. Fifty pound total deposit was an added bonus (and the nice lady on the phone at Hays knocked off £100 too with very little prompting.
I have a big birthday on board too.

[Ciano]

That sounds like a great price for the 4 of you. Is it a 3 night cruise? We are 2 adults and 2 children also but mine are 16 and 11. We get 2 interior connecting cabins so everyone has a bed. Be warned it is addictive! We have our 4th one booked for this yr!

[cheekydeeky]

We’ve sailed five times with RCI and love them.once with Marella - never again.

Usually there is a deal with RCI. Last year we booked and about two weeks later the free drink package deal was on (which would have been better for us). We usually pay approx £700 each for a week Caribbean cruise. The drinks are expensive so we always take the package. Last year we paid £37 per day each. Started at £42 and I cancelled/rebooked three times as and when the price dropped.

Coco Cay is fabulous! We loved it but didn’t do the water park.