Today (Saturday) is the last
day to enter to win both the wine pack here on the Shereen Travels Cheap blog and the Knock!Knock! travel pack on my Facebook page. Make sure you enter! There
aren’t that many entries in either, so you have a good chance to win.
These would both be a great gift for Mother’s Day, too!
These would both be a great gift for Mother’s Day, too!
Do you dream of
getting on board a cruise ship with your bag full of shorts and bathing suits
and sailing the seven seas, all while being completely catered to and visiting
new ports of call? With Summer fast approaching, there are cruise deals galore!
Of course, not all of them are for Summer, many are for late Spring and even
Fall. Luckily, with the exception of Alaskan cruises, the weather will be warm
and (hopefully) beautiful. I learned a lot on my first cruise, both while I was
planning it and while I was on it. Here are some deals for you and also tips to
help you get the most from your money both onboard and in port.
The price you
see is not the price you pay
– It’s true! When you see a cruise rate that seems too good to be true, it’s
because it isn’t listing the taxes and port fees that each cruiser has to pay.
The more ports you visit, the more fees you incur. One could, theoretically,
pay twice as much as the listed price once fees and taxes are added. Don’t let
this scare you, though. I was able to Google port fees for my chosen cruise and
find out exactly how much they would add to my rate. It may take a bit of
detective work, but you can find it. If you don’t want to take time for
that, just assume the cost will be twice what you see and anything less will be
a nice surprise when you’re ready to book!
Get involved – Your cruise is (mostly) all-inclusive.
You’re paying for activities and entertainment whether you use them or not. My
suggestion? Use them! If there’s miniature golf or a shopping talk or a trivia
session available, go do it! Unless it sounds like you’ll hate it, mark all the
things on the daily schedule you want to do. It’ll keep you busy, keep you
moving, keep you from being bored and give you the most value for your dollars
spent. We never once set foot in the pool on our cruise. Not because we didn’t
plan to, but because we ended up being so busy that by the time we thought
about it, it was time to go to sleep. Also, the water slide was shut down
practically the whole time we were on board. Some activities do cost
money, like some exercise classes, rock climbing and dinners you need to make
reservations for, but there are a lot of free things to do. Between crushing
other passengers at trivia, going to the rivalry party, dancing, taking in an
art auction, playing extreme dodgeball, watching all the entertainment and
sleeping and eating, we didn’t really have time to be sitting around doing
nothing.
Book your own
excursions – No, don’t
book it yourself through the cruise line, unless you want to pay double
or triple the going rate. Book it completely on your own. There are many
reputable excursion companies out there and you’ll find them if you look. I
employed Google for this one again: (destination) excursions. You’ll get a
whole host of companies that specialize in excursions that fit into the
cruiser’s schedule. In my quest to find something fun and affordable to do in
Grand Cayman (which we ended up being refunded for, because the ship couldn’t
dock), Belize City and Isla Roatan (Honduras). I found some fantastic tours
that were highly recommended by other cruisers and similar, if not exactly, to
what the ship offered, but at a fraction of the price. Two tours were half the
cost of the similar one offered onboard and through the Carnival website and
the other was only one-third the listed price! The cruise line takes a cut of
each excursion you book online and on board with them, so they mark the prices
up higher than retail.
Most people
don’t realize they can book on their own, or they are scared of doing it. As
long as you find a reputable company with good reviews, you are safe in booking
and also on your tour. My husband and I were the only two on our Isla Roatan
tour and we ended up getting an extra 90 minutes out of it. Our Belize City
tour only had two other people on it and we all had a great time. All the tours
I booked were guaranteed and only required a 20% deposit. My Grand Cayman tour
was cancelled due to weather. I was sad that I wouldn’t be swimming with the
sting rays, but our deposit was refunded to our credit card, as it wasn’t our
fault that we couldn’t dock.
Looking for something "exotic"? Travel 8 nights to Italy, Croatia and Slovenia on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas from $1399 per person. That's over 40% off similar packages. Your package includes round-trip air from NYC, 1 night in a Venice hotel room before you cruise, meals and transport from hotel to port. Book by May 11 for cruises June through October.
Book early – The earlier you book your cruise, the
better chance you will have of getting a great deal on a good cabin. You’re
bound to be given some extras as well, like onboard credit, cabin upgrade and
more. If you aren’t sure what cabin is right for you, take a trip over to CruiseCritic and you can get the
low-down on which decks have bigger and/or quieter rooms, which cabins and
decks to avoid and more.
Get an inside
cabin – Since we had
never been on a cruise before, we weren’t sure if we were going to like it or
not and decided that spending more money to get an oceanview or balcony
cabin wasn’t really something we wanted to do. Oddly enough, those rooms don’t
tend to be that much bigger and we figured we could just go up on deck to see
the ocean. Besides the big drop in price, inside cabins are very quiet and VERY
dark when you turn off the lights. If you have trouble sleeping with any sort
of light coming at you, an inside cabin is the way to go. I might suggest
bringing a portable nightlight with you, though, as trips to the bathroom can be
super tricky without turning on a bedside lamp or the overhead light.
Don’t tip the
staff – This sounds
really mean, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. You want to know why? All specialty
drinks (soft drinks and alcoholic beverages) are charged an 18% gratuity right
off the bat. If you throw extra money in the tip jar, you’re actually tipping
twice and making that drink – that’s already cost you twice what you would pay
in any restaurant or bar – even more expensive. Also, you will be charged a
certain amount of money for each guest for service gratuity. This includes tips
for your awesome steward, maitre‘d, waiter staff and more. I think it generally
costs $10-15 per passenger per day, so on a 7-day cruise for two people, you’re
paying an extra $140-210 for those people to do their jobs. Of course, you can
contest this at the purser’s desk and have them lower the amount if you feel
the staff didn’t deserve so much, but I think you’ll find that they go above
and beyond your expectations.
Save your
drinking for the ports –
I know you’re on vacation and you want to do some drinking, but alcoholic
beverages are marked up quite high. Seriously, I had a piña colada and it cost around $15 after
their added gratuity. Add up several of those per day across your stay and
you’re in for a heart attack come “cruise bill” day. Port cities are depending
on your business, so get several drinks on land for the same price as one on
sea and keep your wallet happy. You’ll help the economy and have a fun time
with your fellow cruisers.
A good way to
get free drinks on your cruise is to attend the captain’s welcome party. Anyone
can go and they generally serve free snacks and alcoholic (and non-alcoholic)
beverages. There is also the goodbye party at the end of your cruise where you
can take advantage of free drinks. And during your cruise, if you take
advantage of any tastings they are offering, you can get drinks for much
cheaper. On our trip there was a deal for a tequila tasting. Six different
tequilas for $20. What a bargain compared to my ONE piña colada. At least I got to talk to a
lovely waiter from Bahrain.
So, while it
seems like a cruise can be a money pit, there are a lot of ways to make it
affordable and even a cheap vacation. You can meet a lot of different people,
learn to be more outgoing and even discover more about countries around the
world both on the ship and off. Keep an open mind and make sure to participate
in games and other things around the ship. You’ll be surprised how much fun you
can have if you just let go. Hey, you’re never going to see those people again
probably. I made quite a fool of myself during the sail away party and again at
a blindfolded trivia and probably several other times over our week, but so did
other people and I just laughed about it and had a great time. That’s what
vacation is all about anyway. Happy cruising!
If you are planning a cruise trip, you know there is usually two formal nights on board. Depending on what items you plan on taking, dress up clothing can take up a lot of space in your luggage, especially men's suits. My favorite idea for this is the Skyroll Garment Bag. It is a small carry-on that is the size of a garment bag, but is cylindrical, so more things fit in a smaller space. The Skyroll is a favorite of business travelers, because they can pack several suits, many shirts, ties and even shoes and toiletries. The unique structure reduces wrinkles and has mesh pockets for items that can be folded. A hard plastic cylinder fits into the garment roll to keep its shape and also for you to insert your other necessities, like shoes and toiletry bag. With some strategic planning, you could get several formal outfits for two people, along with shoes and accessories for both inside.
For my UK readers and anyone else looking to save money on their travels, I have written an article for a fun website called Cheap Holidays 2012 (it’s UK-based), which is encouraging travelers to book their vacations for 2012 already to get even better deals. Check out how to stretch your travel dollars.
Next week, look for a post here about a new community I’ll be working with on Ebates. If you aren’t yet a member of Ebates, you should really join. It’s a great cash back site that pays you to shop and travel. They have hundreds of online retailers and travel merchants that you can make purchases through. Each merchant offers a certain amount of cash back to Ebates for bringing them your business and Ebates splits that with you 50/50. Each day they offer a new Daily Double, which is the participant for the day that will give you double cash back. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars by shopping with Ebates and it’s super easy, so there’s no reason NOT to sign up, too.
On or about May 11th, there will be a special blog post from me for all of you on a great new travel-planning resource. It’s the OneNote portion of Windows Office 2010 program. You can check out the 40 bloggers’ OneNote TripBooks that comprise the project “Around the World in 40 Days” where bloggers were asked to create a 24-hour itinerary in a randomly chosen city (mine was Melbourne
