Cheapest place to get a cruise?

Unit74

Unit74

Final Approach
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Unit74
seems like what I'm finding on a search all are the same crusises at the same price. Anyone have a go-to for a cheapskate like me? I see Vacatiosn to go, cruise critic, cruise deals, and of course the actual cruise lines. Not seeing that OMG I'll buy right now pricing I seem to remember last time we cruised.

And yea, I'd rather fly to some place cool of course, but that has not convinced my wife yet. She wants a cruise this time.
 
A pilot buddy is an "old school" travel agent that does a lot of destination vacations and cruises. I'll share his info by PM.
 
I usually book directly with the cruise line or through Costco. Not much price difference with Costco, but you do often get a “gift card” for a substantial amount of money to Costco ($300-600 depending on the cruise) that is effectively a discount.
 
denverpilot said:
Keep in mind the tickets are only a portion of the cost of a cruise.
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What more do you have to purchase? Meals, entertainment, lodging etc., are all included. Of course if you choose to do any excursions at one of the destinations, than that’s a separate fee.
 
Ryanb said:
What more do you have to purchase? Meals, entertainment, lodging etc., are all included. Of course if you choose to do any excursions at one of the destinations, than that’s a separate fee.
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Mandatory tips, adult beverages, parking at the pier, better coffee, soft drinks and bottled water. There are also some restaurants on the ship that are extra.
 
We have cruised quit a bit, so we are familiar. But since I bought a plane, it has been much less. I've had drink bills more than the "ride" fare before. Of course, specialty dining, excursions, lattes you though were inclusive and so on.

I think cruises are a way to grossly capitalize on a captive audience that happens to stop in tropical ports every day or so, so I can spend even more on stupid trinkets. But my wife sees it from a different perspective.
 
Yeah, but you can win it all back at the tables....o_O
 
Heh.

My wife and I call those, "Bacteria Barges," because of the recent spate of norovirus outbreaks (and yes, we know viri are not bacteria, so we maybe should have chosen "Virus Vessels"?).

A totally unfair characterization, but I'm old and crabby so, whatevs.

We did take a river cruise up the Rhine (Amsterdam to Basel), maybe 140 guests on board, and it was freaking awesome. AMA Waterways (I hear Viking is good, too).
 
There are aviation themed cruises available.
Probably won't be crowded lol.
But I don't like crowded anyway...so right down my alley, and I plan to go on one in Dec. to check it all out.
It's Caribbean, so I hope the swirlies don't tear everything up again this year.
 
Take her on this cruise and you will be flying next time...... but maybe by yourself.....

rowed-to-shore-2470049.jpg
 
We have been on several cruises, and they are a great value. BUT if you don't watch out, the extras will add up quickly.
 
Of all the cruises, my family’s favorite has been on Disney’s cruise line to Alaska. And it certainly was the most expensive by far with no discounting available. But the food and service were excellent, and the up-charge restaurant was fantastic. I’d do it again in another 20 years when I can pay off the 2nd mortgage I had to take out for the first trip.
 
Used to take a cruise every 3-4 years. Good way to sample places you might want to visit for a longer time. If you watch the extras and don’t splurge on drinks and upscale dining, it can be a cheap way to see different places and not have to pack/unpack every other day. Now that I know where I want and don’t want to go, Cruises are down the priority list.

Vacations to go has some pretty good deals but I usually book with the Cruise line direct.

Cheers
 
I’ve read that discount can be had if you book through the line at the last minute. The idea is that they’d rather sell the room cheap than leave it empty, I think to preserve the ambiance of the boat and not have to look empty. Never done it, though.

I have had them offer me “free” cruises on more than one occasion, though I admit I don’t really know what “free” really means in regards to a cruise.
 
Skip the cruise and go to an iberostar resort for 7 days. A bit more coin, but not to much and all your drinking and specialty dining and all is truly included. You don't have to spend a dime extra except on excursions.

We have done all include resorts exclusively for many years. Then we went on a carnival cruise and was shocked at all the extras..then I got sick last day on the cruise. Tried another shorter cruise and still couldn't stand the upselling and being around so many people and the musical chairs on the pool deck. No thanks
 
Paul Allen said:
Mandatory tips, adult beverages, parking at the pier, better coffee, soft drinks and bottled water. There are also some restaurants on the ship that are extra.
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Paul’s got it.

Skyrys62 said:
There are aviation themed cruises available.
Probably won't be crowded lol.
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LOL. Aviation themed? Aircraft carrier? :)

We do an annual music cruise. We buy either a beer and wine or soft drink package as one of the add-ons, since we did the math and it comes out even with our typical spend. On this particular cruise it makes things simpler since you get s wristband and you just order whatever. Their combo of free drinks (machine mixed lemonade, iced tea, coffee and water) is pretty boring after a week of it. Most will also use tiny little glasses and cups for this. Bring a refillable thermal cup.

Gratuities are the other big thing not included in the ticket prices and they’re mandatory, which is fine if you look up how the staff is paid. Not much. Most cruise lines will collect this on the last day and/or bill you. There’s sometimes an option to pre-pay the base gratuity also.

Also if the ship is stopping at one of the privately owned cruise line islands, expect everything on them to cost about double or triple what it would if the ship stopped at a “normal” port. That said, on our cruise anyway, they set up a stage and the music continues on the beach, so nothing to complain about. Regular cruises, it would just be a captive beach and restaurants, bars, etc. None of which is included in the cruise ticket.

Excursions through the cruise line are sometimes higher than the locals and sometimes not. Worth a little research. The convenience of dock pickup and on some lines if the excursion is theirs and runs late getting back to the boat for some reason they have more reason to hold the boat. Rare to have a problem with that but the boat doesn’t hold for anyone usually.

And someone already mentioned the upscale dining. If you don’t want the cafeteria style food or want to be able to not do the formal dining room and/or a different schedule than those have, or just want one of the upscale cuisines offered, those are an extra charge on board also.

So that’s some of the add-ons. You can avoid some of this but not the gratuities if you’re going “on the cheap” or if you’re a first timer and didn’t know about it and didn’t budget for it. Most lines give you a card for on board and pier ID that doubles as a payment card on board and these things go on your “onboard account” which they’re holding a credit card to pay at the end or you can deposit cash if you’re on a budget and run the cash down.

Have fun. We did one “regular” cruise years ago and it’s not our cup of tea. But we’ve been doing the music cruise for years now. The themed cruises can be great.
 
simtech said:
Skip the cruise and go to an iberostar resort for 7 days. A bit more coin, but not to much and all your drinking and specialty dining and all is truly included. You don't have to spend a dime extra except on excursions.

We have done all include resorts exclusively for many years. Then we went on a carnival cruise and was shocked at all the extras..then I got sick last day on the cruise. Tried another shorter cruise and still couldn't stand the upselling and being around so many people and the musical chairs on the pool deck. No thanks
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Interesting you should mention them. We’ve done Iberostar destinations twice as all-inclusive and they were great.

We spent an afternoon getting poured on by 80F rain on the barstools in a pool bar at their Cozumel location in 2001 as hurricane bands went overhead on the back side of one.

Bartender and the other guests blamed Karen for ordering a Hurricane drink just before the sheets of water started. We all just stayed there at the bar and talked as it dumped on all of us. Hahah.

That was a weird trip. October of 2001, a month after the September 11 attacks. Interesting barstool and dinner conversations though.

Oh and you’re right about getting sick on the boat. Since we go with a theme boat and see a number of the same people every year, everyone reports catching something sooner or later in different years.

Usually just a cold-like bug, but nobody knows if it’s from the boat or from the airplane travel to and from that everyone does. I only caught something once and I am sure it was from the obviously sick passenger next to me on the airliner, not the boat. Didn’t really kick in for a day or so after getting home.

If you have a weak immune system, it’ll get you. We spend the majority of our boat time outdoors on the pool deck which is converted to a large stage for the music cruise.
 
X3 Skier said:
Used to take a cruise every 3-4 years. Good way to sample places you might want to visit for a longer time. If you watch the extras and don’t splurge on drinks and upscale dining, it can be a cheap way to see different places and not have to pack/unpack every other day. Now that I know where I want and don’t want to go, Cruises are down the priority list.

Vacations to go has some pretty good deals but I usually book with the Cruise line direct.

Cheers
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We usually book with V2Go. Every now and again, they would have a bottle of wine and chocolate strawberries in our room upon arrival. last time, 2 years ago, we got nothing. I'm basically looking at who is going to give me the cut throat rate to get me on the boat. I look at it more like a bus ride that serves food. We don't get in the pool or head to the casino at all. It's the ports we want, not the modality.
 
I've been on a few cruises. Meals were whatever I could prepare. Coffee pot was usually full. Somebody else prolly used the bunk before/after I did. No stabilizers but they usually ballast down. No booze at all. No casino. That's about it....oh, I didn't have to pay for a ticket.
 
Clark1961 said:
I've been on a few cruises. Meals were whatever I could prepare. Coffee pot was usually full. Somebody else prolly used the bunk before/after I did. No stabilizers but they usually ballast down. No booze at all. No casino. That's about it....oh, I didn't have to pay for a ticket.
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That sounds more like a tour of duty.
 
For anyone interested in the ecological issues in Southeast Alaska, I would highly recommend looking into a cruise sponsored by www.theboatcompany.com.

One renovated minesweeper, several modern aluminum hulled clones of the wooden minesweeper. (take the cruse on the m/s Liseron, the wooden hull - much quieter!) A week's cruise through s/e Alaska getting off the boat every day on skiffs, fishing, kayaking, whale watching, bird watching, etc. Crew includes several naturalists to explain what you are seeing. I've done it twice (long story) and although the cruise is expensive it is well worth it.

To the point of this thread, there are no upsells at all. The only additional expense (and a voluntary one at that) is a gratuity for the crew at the end of the cruise.

-Skip
 
denverpilot said:
Interesting you should mention them. We’ve done Iberostar destinations twice as all-inclusive and they were great.

We spent an afternoon getting poured on by 80F rain on the barstools in a pool bar at their Cozumel location in 2001 as hurricane bands went overhead on the back side of one.

Bartender and the other guests blamed Karen for ordering a Hurricane drink just before the sheets of water started. We all just stayed there at the bar and talked as it dumped on all of us. Hahah.

That was a weird trip. October of 2001, a month after the September 11 attacks. Interesting barstool and dinner conversations though.

Oh and you’re right about getting sick on the boat. Since we go with a theme boat and see a number of the same people every year, everyone reports catching something sooner or later in different years.

Usually just a cold-like bug, but nobody knows if it’s from the boat or from the airplane travel to and from that everyone does. I only caught something once and I am sure it was from the obviously sick passenger next to me on the airliner, not the boat. Didn’t really kick in for a day or so after getting home.

If you have a weak immune system, it’ll get you. We spend the majority of our boat time outdoors on the pool deck which is converted to a large stage for the music cruise.
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We have been to a sandals resort as well in St. Lucia. A bit more costly than iberostar but better food, and keep in mind iberostar has great food! And since we are scuba divers it was nice because that's part of the all inclusive at sandals!
 
steingar said:
I’ve read that discount can be had if you book through the line at the last minute. The idea is that they’d rather sell the room cheap than leave it empty, I think to preserve the ambiance of the boat and not have to look empty. Never done it, though.
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One of my friends said that was essentially what his parents did for their family vacations growing up. Book a last minute cruise for a deeply discounted rate.
 
Our first cruise was in 1998 on Windjammer Barefoot Cruises. On their "largest" ship. Held 120 passengers. Their idea of dressing up for dinner was a clean t-shirt. We loved them. Unfortunately, the family kept taking money out of the business, instead of investing it in maintenance and the like, and they went out of business.

Took NCL to Alaska out of Seattle once. That was our first cruise on a large ship. We had a good time. The warnings above about the price of the ticket only being part of the cost are very true. Be prepared to shell out a bunch more money.

NCL's US equivalent runs cruises around Hawaii. We made the mistake of taking one once. It was part of our 10th trip to Hawaii and we quickly came to the conclusion that we would have been better off parking ourselves on one of the islands for the week.

We've ridden Royal Caribbean three times. The first time was a 12 night cruise through the eastern Mediterranean. We enjoyed this as it covered a lot of places and we only had to unpack once. For some funny reason, they don't go to Egypt anymore, so I'm glad we went when we did. The pyramids and Cairo Museum were fantastic. The 2nd and 3rd cruises on Royal were in the Caribbean. Eastern islands and then the ABC islands. Great time on both. But, gain, plan on plenty of extra expenses for excursions and drinks on the ship (not to mention the mandatory gratuities).

One thing that can have an impact on the price of the cruise is the port that is used to originate and terminate the cruise. Just remember, you have to get there. For us, when the cruise originates in San Juan, PR, that airfare from SEA isn't cheap. Just keep that in mind.
 
We like Holland America (3 times) and Norwegian is a close second (my wife begs to differ that Norwegian was even close, but then she's Dutch and I'm Norsk, so how are you going to argue with that? You can always tell a Dutch ... you just can't tell them much). :)

She found our cheapest cruise a number of years ago on Overstock.com (believe it or not), and she finds good deals on a number of different sites like kayak.com, cruises.com and others - she says she doesn't have any one particular website as a favorite for booking cruises. If you're ok with last minute, then I concur with the note above regarding finding last minute cruises for deep discounts.
 
simtech said:
Skip the cruise and go to an iberostar resort for 7 days.
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What was your experience like?

Years ago I stayed at Club Meds. Not familiar with iberostar. What was it like?

BTW, their own webpage surprisingly misspells their own name: "From dining to sipping on cocktails, all-inclusive truly means all-inclusive at IBEROTAR"
https://www.iberostar.com/en/all-inclusive-savings?
 
NoHeat said:
What was your experience like?

Years ago I stayed at Club Meds. Not familiar with iberostar. What was it like?

BTW, their own webpage surprisingly misspells their own name: "From dining to sipping on cocktails, all-inclusive truly means all-inclusive at IBEROTAR"
https://www.iberostar.com/en/all-inclusive-savings?
Click to expand...

LOL. Typo and poor proofreading.

You should see modern “news” articles if that one bothers you. Heh.

Editors? What editors? We fired them a long time ago when we realized we could just change the article on the fly.

“News 2.2 has been released, would you like to reload this web page to read it?” :) :) :)
 
We've done a number of Iberostar resorts in Mexico as well and all were top notch.
 
NoHeat said:
What was your experience like?

Years ago I stayed at Club Meds. Not familiar with iberostar. What was it like?

BTW, their own webpage surprisingly misspells their own name: "From dining to sipping on cocktails, all-inclusive truly means all-inclusive at IBEROTAR"
https://www.iberostar.com/en/all-inclusive-savings?
Click to expand...

We have been to 2 different Iberostars and we really enjoy them. They have always been clean, up kept, and super friendly. The shows and games are fun and the staff makes everything fun. The food, well the food used to be really good at their normal tier resorts. But in the past 5ish years or so they have created the "Grand" series of resorts. They, from the looks of it and reviews, have OUTSTANDING food quality. We have never been to one but likely will this July (Iberostar Grand Bravaro). Now don't get me wrong the food isn't bad at their regular resorts its just not what it used to be. We have also been to a Sandals which is the same class as Iberostar grand. It too was really good but targeted more towards the romantic type stuff.
 
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