Cruise lines try to restore consumer confidence

Have you ever booked a cruise early and then been left feeling gutted when you've noticed it for half the price on a last minute deal?
Many people have and in the last six months or so the problem, (if that's the right word for it), has only gotten worse.
Last year there were several cruise lines who all released some really great last minute offers. This was great for anyone booking last minute but as you can imagine it really annoyed everyone who'd booked their cruise early, back in 2010.
The problem the cruise lines then faced was that everyone took the line of, "well I'm not booking early again, I'm waiting for a last minute deal".
This meant that once again for this year the cruise lines have had to drop the price on all their sailings and offer cheap last minute deals.
Whilst this is great for me and you, it's obviously annoying the cruise lines who don't want to have to keep offering cheap last minute deals to fill their ships.
But now that everyone's got into the habit of waiting for a last minute cruise what can they do to rectify the problem?


Several cruise lines have, in the last couple of days, introduced a price promise guarantee much like Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Azamara cruises currently operate. They are P&O, Cunard and Fred Olsen. In a nut shell the price promise means that if you book a cruise early and the cruise lines then drop the price of the cruise on a last minute basis they promise to refund you the difference in on board credit, an upgrade on your cabin or in extreme cases as a cash refund. The idea behind the scheme is to restore cruisers faith with booking early.

Sounds great doesn't it? And fingers crossed it should work really well. The only problem is those pesky little T&cs in the fine print. The cruise lines have stated, in the fine print, that they reserve the right to still release last minute cheap fares to help fill their ships if needed, that will be exempt from the price promise.
In their defence they don't want to do this. They'd much rather fill their ships early but if the scheme doesn't take off we're going to be in the same position that we're in now except people will be even more annoyed because they thought their price was protected.

So what do you think? Will these new schemes encourage you to book early? If enough people ignore it then the current trend of last minute deals should continue but then again if people do start booking early we'll start finding all the best 'deals' will be found when the cruise is first released.
So what are your thoughts? Will this inspire you to book early or will you cross your fingers and wait for the last minute bargains?

Happy cruising