Cruise Pricing May Finally Have Reached Its Low

Better book soon if you're hoping to lock in one of the super deals on cruises that have been floating around the marketplace in recent months. Executives at industry giant Carnival say prices may finally have bottomed.

"We have started tweaking pricing on a variety of brands," Carnival Corp. CEO Micky Arison told Wall Street analysts today during a conference call to discuss second quarter earnings. "Pricing is being taken up."

Cruise lines began dropping prices drastically late last year in reaction to a sharp slowdown in bookings brought on by the economic crisis, and fares for many itineraries remained unusually low through the winter and into the spring.

Carnival -- the parent company of more than half a dozen brands including Carnival, Holland America, Princess Cruises and Cunard -- says the prices it's getting for cruises in the third quarter still are substantially below the level of a year ago. Prices for fourth quarter cruises are down year-over-year, too. But in recent weeks there's been an improvement in pricing off the lows as demand for cruises returns.