Cruise Booking

cruiseships

We started cruising because we stumbled upon an unbelievable deal (under $200/person) in 2007. It was a 4-night Royal Caribbean cruise out of Long Beach, a 20 minute drive from home. We liked it enough that we thought we could do more. Well, the next didn’t come till 5 years later, a 12-night cruise on Celebrity Silhouette, a brand new ship at the time. And our strategy for selecting a cruise have grown from there: Nowadays we cruise about 1-4 times a year. We see a sale price we like & check the itinerary. If we like it, we book it right away. Yes, we have a rather flexible schedule & we can decide quickly. Sale prices may come back later, but you never know.

finding deals:

  • Price: That is the #1 factor in our cruise booking. In general, advertised cruise prices are pretty much the same every where. Almost nobody pays the full price of a cruise, and some form of discount is included in these prices. But, every now and then, there is a real sale. These sale prices are no secrets & you can find them on all different websites. Simplest way of knowing is to be on the mailing list of one or some of the cruise booking websites.

Typically, there’s a sale around the major holidays such as 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving. Then there are all sorts of minor sales around any kind of excuse: Valentine’s , New Year’s, End of Winter, anniversaries of some kind, etc. etc.

Which online agency you should use? There are so many of them, and, even airlines and credit card companies offer cruse bookings these days. We originally signed up for a newsletter on Crucon & they pitched in extra $25 or $50 ship credit here and there for being a “Member” of their website. However, Crucon’s offerings are not as strong post-pandemic, thus, I use cruisesonly.com, and vacationstogo.com more these days. You can try one of these, start cruising, and ask around on the ship and compared the notes. Most people love to do this, thus, don’t be afraid to ask.

  • Perks: If the prices are similar, the difference can be the “perks” offered: free tips (pre-paid gratuities), ship credit (money you can spend onboard), drink packages (bottled water, soda, alcoholic drinks are often not included in the cruise price), free internet, specialty restaurants etc. Of all the perks, “ship credit” is often the most significant difference between various agencies. The amount difference may not be significant – $25 to 50 – but the credit coming from the agencies are refundable whereas the ship credit offered by the cruise line is not. The unused portion of the non-refundable credits are gone once the cruise is over whereas unused refundable credits will be refunded. (NOTE: some cruise lines, such as Norwegian, will start using the non-refundable credit first so that you will have less chance of getting any money back. Royal Caribbean and Celebrity start with refundable, thus, we often get to keep the refundable credits at the end of a cruise.)
  • Last minute deals: For those who have time and energy to snag a last minute deal, here is an article about that. The two sites mentioned above are good for finding the last minute deals as well.
  • repositioning cruises: When the cruise company needs to move a ship from one area to another (summer in Mediterranean to winter in Caribbean, for instance) they would offer deep discounted rooms rather than sailing empty. These repositioning cruises are frequently trans-Atlantic and make just a few stops along the way. (There are trans-Pacific offerings at times.) This is not for everybody, though. We like sea days when we just relax all day, thus, 7-8 days at sea doesn’t bother us. Friends frequently ask, “what do you do all day on a ship?” Nothing, and that is the point. If you are horrified by this, this option is not for you. Me? I usually park myself in a comfortable chair at a lounge with a view and read or do sudoku puzzles. Crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific while changing the clock one hour each day means no jet-lag at destination & this is such a civilized/decadent way of traveling compared to cramped airplanes if you ask me.

So, what is “cheap?” To us, a trans-Atlantic cruise of 13-15 days is a bargain if the balcony price comes under $1,000. These repositioning cruises do not offer many perks. Thus, we’ll have to add tips on top of the usual taxes and fees. Europe, Asia, or South America cruises with 13-16 day itineraries will catch our attention if the price comes under $1,300 for a balcony room. But if free gratuities and ship credit of at least $300 come as perks, we will consider as high as $1,700pp.

spotting good price –> making your choice

Once you find a good price for a cruise that goes to some place you would like to go to, then you can start booking. Before this, though, everyone asks,” which cruise line should I try?” This really is a personal preference. There are dozens of cruse lines in the U.S. and Europe and else where. Here’s a partial list. The luxury lines offer smaller ships and include more perks (drinks, shore excursions etc.) for much much higher prices.

We’ve only sailed on Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and one each on Carnival, MSC, and Norwegian. We got hooked on Celebrity & became their elite member. They treat us well, thus, we stay. We prefer a balcony room, but, occasionally, we will take any room if the price is exceptionally good. As elite members, we get some free wifi time, free cocktail hours, free laundry service etc.

  • A few observations on different cruise lines we experienced:

Carnival: one we were on out of Long Beach, California, was known as a “booze cruise,” and it was. People having fun was fine, but, a bit loud. It was a rather old ship, thus, the lay out of the ship was not very customer friendly. Food, in general, was not bad, but, not exceptional either. They had some choice of free restaurants other than the buffet, and that was good. [based on one 4-night cruise out of Long Beach, CA]

MSC: Being an Italian company, they do serve great pasta. Their service was not attentive and the food in general was ok at best. [based on one 2-week cruise out of Dubai on MSC Lirica]

Norwegian: We liked having several different music venues every evening. Having smaller main dining rooms that did not require a reservation was convenient. Food, in general, was too salty and sweet for our taste. The food at their specialty restaurants was not any better (was actually worse at the Italian place) than at the dining room. The service was friendly but not very attentive. [based on one 1-week cruise out of San Pedro, CA, on Norwegian Bliss]

Celebrity & Royal Caribbean: Great service, good to great food. Celebrity has classical music on board. A logical layout of the ship – in our mind. [based on multiple cruises on both]

We have to fly to the departure city, and we have to fly home from arrival city.  So we add a pre-cruise trip & a post-cruise trip to take advantage of being there.

Here are some websites that you can play with to see what’s out there:

Total Cost: so what is the total cost of a cruise? There are usually taxes and fees. Then, yes, tips!

1.Cruise fees and taxes — which include U.S. and/or foreign government taxes, customs fees and port charges to cover the ship when leaving, entering, docking and anchoring: $100 to $250 extra per person, depending on itinerary & length. (Crossing the Suez or Panama canal add hefty fees.)

2. Gratuities are automatically charged to your onboard account ($13-18 per person, per day, on average for standard staterooms; note that suite-level passengers usually pay a couple of dollars more each day).

If you want to learn more about the extra fees, click this link.

River Cruise: we’ve only done one river cruise, thus, we can’t offer much. Ours was on Vantage river cruise in summer of 2016 @ $899pp for a standard room. 15 days from Bonn to Budapest sailing the Rhine, Main & Danube Rivers. It was a Travelzoo bargain & we have never seen that price since. River cruises mostly cost around $2000pp for a week. Unlike ocean cruises, shore excursions and beer/wine are included in the price. River cruise ships typically hold 100 – 200 passengers.