Frequently asked questions

Royal Price Matching, an independent service operated by Velatris Analytics Inc., started as a tool to stop checking cruise fares by hand, and grew from there.

We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Royal Caribbean Group, Celebrity Cruises or Carnival Corporation.

You create a watcher for a sailing — the cruise line, ship, sail date, cabin type and who's travelling (or an onboard package). We check the fare three times a day, save every price to your history chart, and e-mail you when it changes. The alert shows the old and new price and links to the sailing on the cruise line's website.

The watcher guide walks through it step by step.

Fares are checked three times a day for every plan, at about 07:05, 13:05 and 19:05 UTC. What differs between plans is how often alerts can reach you:

• Deckhand: at most one digest every 2 days.
• First-Mate: at most one digest a day.
• Captain: after every price check (3× a day).

Digests include every change since your last e-mail, so you won't miss a move — you'll just hear about it a little later.

Often, but not always — it depends on the cruise line's fare rules. As general guidance:

• Royal Caribbean and Celebrity generally let US and Canadian guests ask for a lower fare before the final-payment date, if the same cabin category has dropped and the new fare isn't limited to new bookings.
• After final payment, Royal Caribbean's Best Price Guarantee usually gives the difference as onboard credit (or an upgrade) until 48 hours before sailing; Celebrity usually offers at most a cabin upgrade.
• Carnival's Early Saver fare includes price protection until 2 days before sailing: a lower fare before final payment, onboard credit after it. Other Carnival fares have different rules.

Our alerts track the lowest fare per cabin class, so check your exact cabin category before you contact the cruise line or your travel agent. Always read the line's own terms on its website — we can't guarantee any adjustment.

• Deckhand (free): 3 watchers, 2 weeks of price history, the cheapest 10 results in Find Deals.
• First-Mate: 15 watchers, 2 months of price history, the cheapest 50 results in Find Deals, 14-day price insights, custom alert thresholds.
• Captain: 50 watchers, 6 months of price history, the cheapest 200 results in Find Deals, 30-day price insights, custom alert thresholds, Best Value badges, priority support, early access to new features.

See Pricing for current prices, or which plan suits you.

Find Deals searches the fares we've already collected for upcoming sailings on all three lines. Filter by cruise line, ship, cabin class, number of guests, sail dates, trip length and departure port, then sort by price, price per night, date or length.

From a result you can open the sailing on the cruise line's site, or press Watch to start tracking that cabin in one step. How many results you see depends on your plan (top 10, 50, 200); paid plans add price insights, and the top plan adds Best Value badges for the lowest price per night in each cabin class.

Yes, for Royal Caribbean and Celebrity sailings. (Carnival only shows package prices for a specific sailing to guests who've booked it, so we can't track those.) When you add a watcher, choose An onboard package and pick the category and package — drinks, Wi-Fi, dining, shore excursions and more. Packages bought before the cruise can often be cancelled and re-bought at the lower price; check the terms in the cruise planner.

On Royal Caribbean and Celebrity: 1 to 4 adults, 2 adults with 1 or 2 children, 3 adults + 1 child, or a single parent with 1 to 3 children. On Carnival: 1 to 5 guests of any age (Carnival prices the 3rd to 5th guests the same whatever their age). Pick exactly who's in your cabin: per-person fares are the cabin's fare split across everyone in it, so a different party means a different price, and sometimes a different cheapest category. Five or more guests in one Royal Caribbean or Celebrity cabin can't be tracked. More on parties.

On paid plans you can set a minimum change in dollars, in percent, or both, when you add a watcher. We'll only alert you when the fare moves (up or down) by at least that much; if you set both, a change has to meet both. Leave them empty to hear about every change. The free plan alerts on every change.

It's where you tell us the cabin category you booked (like 4D), the cruise fare you paid (the cabin total is easiest) and your final-payment date. In return we tell you, honestly, whether you can claim money back: an exact saving when your category is the cheapest one in its cabin type, a "maybe, go check" when the cheapest fare in your cabin type has dropped since you added your booking, and a clear "no drop yet" when even the cheapest fare costs more than you paid. Cruise lines only show us the cheapest category per cabin type, so we never pretend to know more than that. The full story.

A few common reasons:

• We show the price per person; the cruise line may show a total for your whole party.
• We track the lowest fare in a cabin class (for example, the cheapest Balcony). Your booking may be a specific category within that class.
• Prices are in US dollars as offered to US guests. Sites for other countries can show different prices and currencies.
• Fares change between our checks — the cruise line's site is always the final word.

Alert e-mails now say who each fare is for, like “2 adults + 1 child · cat 4D”. Alerts sent before October 2026 used short fare codes instead:

• Royal Caribbean and Celebrity: I = Interior, O = Ocean View, B = Balcony, D = Suite, plus C = Concierge and A = AquaClass on Celebrity. A code on its own means 2 adults; “Family (2+1)” means 2 adults with 1 child.
• Carnival: IS = Interior, OS = Ocean View, OB = Balcony, SU = Suite; “2pax” means 2 guests.

It's the cabin category the price belongs to. Each cabin type (say, Balcony) has several categories, and the price we track is the cheapest of them. "cat 4D" means 4D was the cheapest balcony at that check. If you booked 4D, that's your price. If not, add your booking and we'll explain what it means for you.

No. We only e-mail when a price you're watching actually changes, plus the occasional account e-mail (like confirming your address). How often alerts can arrive depends on your plan — see “How often do you check prices?” above. If you'd like fewer e-mails, set a threshold or remove watchers you no longer need.

We started collecting fares on 18 April 2025, and added prices for 3 and 4 guests in May 2025. Your chart shows everything we have within your plan's history window (2 weeks on Deckhand, 2 months on First-Mate, 6 months on Captain).

Open Manage billing from your account menu to change or cancel your plan. If you cancel, you keep paid features until the end of the current billing period, then move to the free plan. Payments are final except where the law requires a refund — see our Terms of Service.

Go to Account settings and choose Delete account. Deletion is immediate: your account and watchers are removed and any subscription is cancelled straight away, without a refund for the unused period. Stripe keeps billing records as required for tax purposes. Details are in our Privacy Policy.