Cruise Mouth

Dean Caporella asked:


With the warmer months approaching, cruising will be one of the more popular summer vacations on people’s minds however, if it’s a cheap cruise you’re looking for, then you may struggle to find one.

The summer period, especially the holiday time is prime time as far as cruise companies are concerned. This is the time of the year they have little trouble in filling their cabins.

This doesn’t mean you cannot cruise cheap. Let’s take a look at two solid options which will help you land that bargain vacation on the high seas.

Travel Agents

Many people seem to overlook travel agents and one reason for this may be because they are such an obvious choice. They should be the first port of call simply because of their connection to the cruise companies. Connection as in receiving an order of tickets to fill that is.

Filling cabins is what it’s all about with cruise lines and their number one aim is to make sure there isn’t a vacant cabin left when the ship departs port. The travel agents job is to fill these cabins and they have the ability to be negotiable on the price of tickets.

A good tactic is to come up with a list of travel agents and then speak with each one individually over the phone. You are simply asking about the cruise you’re interested in, what’s the cost and what sort of a deal they can do.

Some may be hard to get on with and others will be very accommodating. This is simply shopping around for the best price and don’t be surprised if you can get your cost down anything up to 10% of the original quote.

It’s a great way to come up with a cheap cruise deal. How many travel agents should you contact? That’s entirely up to you but try to speak with at least five. Obviously time will be a factor but in the end, even if you are looking at saving $100 of your trip, it’s an extra $100 you can spend on your holiday.

Online Cruise Sites

This is a must alternative simply because of the power and competitiveness of the internet. Cruise companies proliferate the online scene all competing for your business but they also have the ability to locate and get you on a cheap cruise holiday.

Join some of the site’s who offer newsletters and correspondence with their visitors. This way, you can be kept up-to-date with what’s coming up and one of the advantages of these mailing lists are you’ll usually be the first to hear about the super deals.

Cheap Airfare

Clark Norton asked:


Nothing makes cruise lines happier than convincing passengers that booking their cruise early is their best chance to land a great discount cruise deal.

Selling as many cabins as early as possible helps the cruise lines in their planning and means they don’t have to worry about whether or not a particular ship will fill up.

So to encourage passengers to book cruises as far in advance as possible, cruise lines will often offer plenty of incentives, such as “two-for-one” deals with “free” airfare for early bookers.

Besides taking advantage of such special offers, it makes sense to book early if you don’t have much flexibility in your travel plans.

For instance, if you:

**need to take your cruise during summer vacation when your kids are out of school,

**know you’re going to need several nearby cabins to accommodate a group of friends traveling together,

**or want to travel to a popular destination such as Alaska in the summer,

then you might be out of luck if you wait too long to choose your ship dates.

Also, the most desirable cabins (not necessarily the most expensive) on the most popular routes and on the most popular ships tend to sell out early.

If you do book early, don’t settle for token discounts or offers such as a “free bottle of wine!” or “free souvenir photo!” that don’t amount to much at all.

Comb the Internet for the most attractive offers or insist that your travel agent nail down the best discount cruise deal you can get.

Fifty percent off printed brochure rates is a good target price, especially for the big mainstream cruise lines, which routinely offer huge discounts late in the game if a cruise isn’t selling fast enough.

Luxury lines or smaller expedition-style cruise ships may not offer as good a discount cruise deal for early booking, but many do sweeten the pot by offering cabin upgrades or other perks.

On some voyages, kids go for free as the third or fourth passengers in their parents’ cabins. But like most early booking offers, it could be withdrawn at any time.

The bottom line is that if you know you want to take a particular cruise at a particular time to a particular place — in short, if you don’t have much flexibility in your travel plans — then it generally pays to book your cruise as early as possible.

And in most cases, the cruise lines will offer a discount cruise deal that makes it worth your while to do just that.

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Clark Norton asked:


Many cruise lines, travel agents, guidebook writers, and “cruise tip” websites will try to convince you that booking a cruise as early as possible will result in the best discount cruise deal. Not true — you’ll often save more money when you book a last minute cruise.

Passengers who book a last minute cruise may save hundreds — or even thousands of dollars — more than passengers who book their cruise many months in advance.

That’s because the hottest deals and deepest discounts in cruising are usually available within two to three months of sailing, or less. That’s when cruise lines offer a discount cruise deal on the cabins they’re afraid will go empty unless they cut their rates drastically.

It’s not uncommon to see a “last minute” discount cruise deal as high as 60 percent, 70 percent, or even 80 percent off the brochure rate.

Choosing to book a last minute cruise is not for everyone. You need a fair amount of flexibility in your travel plans to take advantage of this tactic.

If you have to sail on specific dates, or over a busy holiday or vacation period, or if you have to have a certain type of cabin or are traveling with a large group, then booking your cruise early will better assure you of getting your top choices.

But if your main goal is to snag a bargain and you aren’t too particular about where and when you sail, or on which ship, then patience can not only be a virtue but can help you land a great discount cruise deal.

The best last minute cruise deals are usually offered by big travel agencies — especially Internet mega-discounters — that have special relationships with the cruise lines.

The cruise lines make their best deals available to the mega-discounters, and the agencies pass much of those savings on to you. Sometimes the big mega-discounters will buy up large blocks of cabins from the cruise lines and then re-sell them to their clients at big discounts, making their profits from bulk sales.

Passengers may really benefit if these cabins don’t completely sell out. Rather than risk getting nothing for their investment, the agencies are likely to offer them for sale at bargain-basement rates.

The result for you is the same — you’re likely to pick up a great deal when you choose to book a last minute cruise!

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Daniel Jowssey asked:


Separate Air & Cruise Deals - An air & cruise package can look attractive, especially if they guarantee they’ll hold the cruiseship for you if your arriving flight is late. But it might be cheaper buying the airfare separately. If you use a good discount airfare search engine like Kayak.com, you can find out right away what the cheapest airfare is to your cruise departure city.

Just make sure you select an arrival time that gives you lots of “buffer time” before sailing (in case of delayed arrival, and to allow ground transfer to departure port)

It is possible to get a really good cheap cruise deal by booking way early. To get the best cabins, and to get the best cruise deal, it is best to book about five or six months in advance of the cruise date. That way you will be one of the first to be able to choose your cabin.

By booking this early, sometimes means you can save up to 60% off the regular price with an early bird special. Many times though your schedule just will not allow for booking that early. Next option is if you do have at least some flexibility in your schedule, where you can book a cruise at least 90 days in advance, you will be able to find a cheap cruise deal.

Sometimes waiting till the last minute will produce some great cheap cruises deals, because cruise lines really want to fill up those empty cabins. These crusies are not always easy to get, and you will need to have some flexibilty in your schedule. You might want to find an experienced travel agent online, that does this exclusively, to help with your mission. Having different destinations you are willing to travel to also helps, because if the destination you really wanted was not available, you might be willing to grab a cheap cruise deal to another.

Maybe you would be willing to book a cruise in the off seaon, the early spring and winter months. The discounted rates for the off season can be up to 40% to 50% off the regular prices.

There is possibly no better vacation available! You have so many activities on board it’s almost impossible to decide where to start while you’re out on the open water. Also the food is great and never ending, plus you are traveling to some of the most beautiful places in the world.

Remember to do alittle research about what the normal weather conditions will be for your cruise destination, that way you will be prepared for less than optimal conditions that can occur with an off season cruise. Getting that exciting cheap cruise deal makes it all worth while!

It is possible to get a really good cheap cruise deal by booking way early. To get the best cabins, and to get the best cruise deal, it is best to book about five or six months in advance of the cruise date. That way you will be one of the first to be able to choose your cabin.

Are you searching for a cheap cruise deal? You don’t have to search any further. Get some information that will get you to take that cruise of your lifetime! cheap cruise deals.

Discount cruise

Dean Caporella asked:


Cheap cruise deals are commomplace these days with many holidaymakers taking advantage of the excellent facilities on board today’s cruise liners for little out of pocket expense.
What constitutes a cheap cruise deal? Well, I recently returned from a Royal Caribbean holiday through Key West and Cancun, Mexico, enjoying five days and four nights of total luxury for four hundred bucks. To me, that was a cheap cruise deal well worth the effort.
There is so much competition among cruise lines today that finding a cheap cruise deal is easy. Magnificent ships built to carry thousands of passengers are luring a lot of first time cruisers off the land and onto the water. Cruise line competitiveness is only intensifying with the major companies getting involved in recent years in a “let’s see who can build the biggest ship” type of battle. These ships obviously need to be filled with passengers and cheap cruise deals are there to be enjoyed.
Don’t get a cheap cruise deal confused with a cheap holiday. Sure if you want to stay in one of the prime state rooms you’re going to be paying for the privilege but my experience tells me that a cruise should be enjoyed from the ships decks and wonderful amenities and not from your state room. If that’s what you’re after then you might want to consider another type of holiday.
So which cruise line do you select for a cheap cruise deal? Carnival, Celebrity, Crystal, Disney, Royal Caribbean… it depends on where you want to go in the world. Today, cruise lines are offering more of everything; more choices and simply more service. It’s all aimed at ensuring you just have more fun. Let’s face it, they want your repeat business.
There are many areas online for you to locate the best cheap cruise deals. I know of people who are total cruise junkies ( up to nine cruises a year ) who are always monitoring the latest cheap cruise deals. Cruise lines often advertise limited deals; you’ll want to be quick for these. Many people prefer to travel in groups which can reduce the overall cost of the cruise even further but for group deals, you’ll want to speak with your cruise line agent.
If you are a first timer and don’t know the process in first, locating, and then booking a cheap cruise deal then the best advice is to speak with someone who has done it before. Even better, your local travel agent will be able to answer most of your questions and if they can’t, then the alarm bells should be sounding!
Cheap cruise deals but not cheap cruise holidays. More like cheap cruise deals and luxury fun-filled holidays. That is the nature of cruising on the world’s oceans today. And your hip pocket won’t be unduly ravaged.

Cruise Tickets

Cindy Heller asked:


Cruising has become a very popular way to take a vacation in the recent years and that is due to the fact that the number of cruise ships companies has grown considerably. Nevertheless, choosing the right cruise ship company for your cruise can make all the difference in the world between having a good vacation and having the vacation of a lifetime.

Caribbean holiday cruises are usually conducted on the eastern and western and southern Caribbean and each itinerary will differ very much in prices depending on the ports of call and the amount spent at sea. Caribbean holiday cruises are normally for three, five, seven and sometimes even up to ten days; the most popular Caribbean holiday cruise consist of seven days because it is made of the right amount of days in port and at sea in order for you to explore and have fun as well as to relax and rejuvenate before getting back at work.

You can make an effort to do some research online and read through some passengers reviews and comments before picking a Caribbean holiday cruise in order to find out which one will suit you and your requirements best or on the particular cruise liner’s website. Nevertheless it is recommended to book your Caribbean holiday cruise through your travel agent as that is the only way to get the best deals for any cruise at any time of the year.

Sequentially to fill the ships up there are Caribbean cruise deals that are available until the last moment and some of them can be as low as $99 for a length of seven days cruise with everything included; what more can you ask for. But of course, this is not a deal that you may get everyday but a good Caribbean cruise deal will easily be available from $199 and above depending on the length on the cruise and the cruise liner.

There are generally two ways to go about getting a good Caribbean cruise deal: one way is to try and approach your travel agent who will be able to track down the best deals on the market at any given time and the other way is to make your booking directly with the cruise lines online. There is yet another way to get a good Caribbean cruise deal but, this only applies if you happen to live in Florida and that is to try and get a cruise on the day the ship sails out as they almost always have vacancies and almost always they will sell it for some unbelievable deals. It is on the other hand not recommended to travel all the way to Florida hoping to get a great deal in the last minute as you can get disappointed.

Each cruise ship company caters for a particular type of guests for example; Disney cruises mainly cater for young families, which usually will make the ships activities, food and entertainment around those requirements. It is suggested that you check the cruise liner targeted guest types before you make your booking for a cruise so you don’t get stuck on what seemed like a great Caribbean cruise deal with the wrong crowd.

Cheap Cruises

Dean Caporella asked:


Today, taking a cheap cruise doesn’t mean having to do without certain luxuries associated with cruise ship travel. In fact, these days, the term cheap basically means getting all the optional extras at a bargain price.

The good news for prospective cruise travellers is these bargain holiday deals are happening all the time and if you follow some basic guidelines, then your next high seas adventure could be just around the corner.

Finding Cheap Cruise Deals

If you are working on a budget then consider travelling during off peak times. These are the high demand periods when cruise lines don’t have any problems filling their passenger quotas and are less inclined to “slash” prices. Summer is a season when people are very much in holiday mode and more likely to want to travel. Concentrating on periods such as the end of summer and beginning of fall will more likely get you a cheap cruise deal that fits well within your budget.

It’s these times when companies are keen to fill their cabins so they offer incentives such as lower prices. The good news for you is that despite the cheaper fares, the quality of the cruise holiday is in no way diminished.

Planning Your Cheap Cruise

Some careful planning is required when looking for a cheap cruise. Obviously, consulting a travel expert is the natural inclination for most people and always a good option. However, more experienced travellers have used the internet to great effect in recent years.

There are no shortage of cruising websites to sift through online, all with the aim of providing you with as much information as possible to make an informed decision. One of the best features online is the alert features offered by some of these sites. Look for newsletter offers; you sign up for a regular newsletter at varying intervals and receive the latest bargain offers. Some sites even provide price alert features which means you enter details such as how much you want to spend, where you want to go and when you want to travel.

Cruise Line Updates

Cruise companies also offer services such as regular updates. As with third party websites, companies also provide information services which will keep you updated about impending offers. The point to remember is cruise lines in most cases will do their best, within reason, to get you on their ships because setting off from port with many empty cabins simply doesn’t make good business sense.

There are more cruise ships on the water today therefore more cabins to fill. Bigger ships and more competition for passengers among companies means better deals for you. Just remember, create a budget, sign up for price alerts, avoid high season travel and be flexible with your travel schedule and you’ll be surprised at the number of cheap cruise deals you’ll have to choose from.

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