Cruise Deals – How To Get The Best Cruise Deal Online!
Posted on | January 3, 2010 | 9 Comments
If you’re planning to take a cruise you want to make sure you get the best cruise deal bargain offered. And there are many ways to save a bunch of money on your next cruise if you know what to do. It isn’t hard to learn the secrets travel agents know when you’re looking for the best cruise deal. You can save as much as 65% scouting on your own or from 15-30% from the cruise line brokers and the cruise consolidators as they’re called.
There are many sites that offer clearance specials and last minute cruise deals. Then there are the possibly cheaper but much riskier last minute cruise auctions and classifieds which I won’t go into here. The last minute cruise deals are not hard to find because the cruise lines don’t want to have any empty cabins when they leave port and they make every effort to fill them.
Note that the offers you find on the cruise line sites are NOT going to be as good as those you find elsewhere or from cruise line brokers or the consolidators. So make sure you go to the other sites. Of course you can compare the prices you find with the cruise line’s site.
First of all to get the best cruise deal online you want to look for cruise sites that use the Revelex or OVS cruise reservation systems. This way you can easily compare prices on staterooms for many of the cruise ships at one time. Some of these sites have time limits on their offers so be ready but don’t buy on impulse either. Last minute deals can save you a bundle.
Once you find what you think is a bargain or a good deal you can contact your local cruise travel agent and see if they can meet it or beat it. Some of the cruise lines forbid travel agents to discount their cruises but it doesn’t mean the agents don’t know about already-discounted cruises.
Once you’ve found some good travel websites, sign up for their email alerts so you’ll get fast notice on last minute cruise deals, package deals or clearance cruise deals or any other special offers that might be floating around out there. Sign up at several sites because you want the ones that are going to email you soon and often with the alerts and some of them may be too slow.
You can ask for a discount even on the final price for any cruise. Ask if they have a senior discount, business discount, student discount, health professional discount or AARP discount or AAA for example. There are also resident discounts or special offers if you live in a particular state.
Make sure to visit several sites and compare, don’t just settle on the first one No matter what low rate you find keep searching for a lower rate. The sites that compare several cruise lines at once will often bring up comparisons that make it easy for you to find the best rate.
You want to compare the cruise lines, cruise ships and the itineraries besides the price. You’re looking for a bargain – the cheapest cruise rates. Make sure to read the fine print on any site so there are no surprises later. It’s absolutely necessary.
Remember that some offers may be for the second-rate cabins. This means the cabins that are near noisy service doors or elevators or under the ballroom floor or near children’s activity areas. You don’t want to find out later that the reason your cabin was cheap was due to the location on the ship. Be aware that the last minute cruise deals or clearance cruise specials may be non-refundable. Read the contract closely.
It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a Carnival cruise deal, Disney cruise deal. Royal Caribbean cruise deal, Crystal cruise deal or any other cruise line, or if you and a partner and/or your family plan to go to Mexico, the Caribbean, Alaska, Hawaii or the Bahamas or cruise with celebrities; if you spend a little extra time learning the ropes you’ll not only save yourself a lot of money but you’ll get the best cruise deal online.
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Tags: Best Cruise Deal > Carnival > Cheap Cruise Deal > Cruise Deal > Cruise Line > Last Minute Cruise Deal > Mexico
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9 Responses to “Cruise Deals – How To Get The Best Cruise Deal Online!”
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January 3rd, 2010 @ 9:47 am
Go to a travel agent and let them find a cruise that suits your requirements. You might even get a good deal, but they do all the work, finding the cruise.
Once you have your dates and a price, it is then a simple matter of looking on-line and seeing if you can find a better price.
If you can't find a better price, go back to the TA.
January 3rd, 2010 @ 10:40 am
Well the cruise season for Alaska is mid-May through mid-September and the lowest priced cruises will be the first couple cruises in May and the last couple in September. This is primarily because its slightly cooler, but not cold, in Alaska during those time frames.
All of the cruise lines give the best discounts for booking early So you are not really get a deal unless a cruise line has a voyage that is not selling out. My advice is skip Costco and all of the other cruise wholesalers and just go to the cruise line web sites and look for "specials" or deals". You may be able to find a good deal but at this point don't count on it.
I have found that Carnival and Royal Caribbean, and also Celebrity, cruise lines have the best web sites for finding specials. Carnival has a web link to take you to its specials. Royal Caribbean has a link on its home page titled "Hot Sails" that lists its specials. So try those.
Now you can use a travel agent to look for deals for you and it will not cost you anything as they are paid commission by the cruise lines for selling cruises. But you need to do some research on what exactly you want to do on your cruise because there are a lot of options on an Alaska cruise in terms of the departure port, ports stop, the order of the itinerary. Some Alaska cruises for example begin in Anchorage or Seward and cruise south while others start in Seattle or Vancouver, Canada. Some cruises are longer than 7 days if you want to do a land tour, which you can do either before or after the ocean voyage.
Several cruise lines do Alaska cruises and cruise tours and in my book the best would be Celebrity, Princess, Holland America, and Royal Caribbean, and maybe Norwegian. So you do have a lot of choices for good cruise lines. But that means that you have more options to sort through.
http://www.hollandamerica.com/
http://www.princess.com/index.html
http://www.celebritycruises.com/home .
http://www.royalcaribbean.com/gohome.do
http://www.ncl.com/
http://www.carnivalcruiselines.com/
January 4th, 2010 @ 1:02 am
check out http://www.vacationstogo.com for cruises
January 4th, 2010 @ 10:47 am
I love cruisebrothers.com. I have cruised four times and I always get a great deal from them, and I always shop around. I found out about them in Frommer's budget travel magazine- they also highly recommend them.
January 5th, 2010 @ 6:39 am
some good cruise info here http://allcruiselines.info
January 5th, 2010 @ 10:45 am
I have not checked all the various travel sites mentioned above. And that is great advice and all, I'm sure it will yield some rewards. I try the big name travel sites like Expedia, Aol Travel and Travelocity, they all have the same prices that the cruiseline directly gets. Travel agents have NEVER found me a cheaper price and really push for travel insurance and stuff like that. I'm not saying a travel agent isn't a good idea but they are not going to save you money.
One way I have gotten GREAT deals on Carnival cruises is through Costco Travel. All you have to have is a membership to Costco and the travel agency is free. I have gotten up to a 10% discount on cruises through them. For example, I'm looking at a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean in April of 2008. Carnival.com and all the other sites I mentioned are quoting $1811 for 3 people in an oceanview room while Costco can do it for $1695. Thats some darn good savings to me and I already have a Costco membership. I've gone through them before and they were super great as well.
I have not tried any other cruise line through Costco except for Royal Caribbean. They told me Royal Caribbean does not allow them to discount the cruises but they do offer free travel insurance and an amenity basket in your room, so its something.
Good luck!
January 5th, 2010 @ 9:11 pm
You can find an inexpensive cruise online if you just take the time to look, and know where to look. I always suggest looking on the cruise line web sites rather than cruise wholesalers and travel agent sites. The cruise lines' web sites have all of the information you will want or need and you can reserve and make payments directly to them online. That's how I have booked my last few cruises.
Many cruise lines offer the same cruise and sometimes a cruise line will have a different price for each time that cruise departs. So the first thing you should do when shopping and planning is be very flexible on your dates. You will get a good deal if you go when the "deal" is available, which may not necessarily be on the date you have in mind. Second, book early. Forget all of what you heard about waiting until the last minute to get one of the cabins that has not been sold. There may not be any last minute bargains and what do you do if your dates come and there's no cruise space available. What you get at the last minute is the leavings; those cabins no one wants.
So shop around. Here's an example of how the same cruise can be a different price on different dates:
http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruis...
Scroll down the page. Look at the prices for Sept 07 and then look at how much lower they are for Sept 08.
http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruis...
Note the different prices for the same cruise and how some dates are called "Hot ", meaning the prices are the cheapest on those dates.
Some people will tell you to go on Carnival because it is the budget cruise line. I suggest you look at all of the other lines and get a better cruise on RC, NCL, Princess or Celebrity. It may cost just a few dollars more, but you will enjoy it more.
January 6th, 2010 @ 9:53 am
Check out http://cruisecritic.com/
January 6th, 2010 @ 9:24 pm
It is true that a Last Minute Travel deal for a cruise is the absolute best–seldom can you beat the price otherwise. However, the catch is: you must travel when they want you to travel and often it is exactly that…last minute (can you be prepared to leave for a cruise THIS weekend if you were to find one?)
One of the best cruise deals I have seen recently is an exclusive being offered online. The catch is: the promotion ends on December 31 but once you buy it yo can sail later in 2009.
Check it the Carnival Cruise line special out at http://www.2TravelMonkeys.com under the CRUISES tab. Then take this price and compare to others you might find on other online booking engines as well. Simply select the best price for you.
Merry Christmas!