Cruising, if you have not noticed, is exploding. Folks who have never ever been on a cruise ship are booking and even some who have said they would not cruise are trying it for the first time and loving it!
But a cruise vacation is not cheap when you add up all the costs because more than “just” the cruise ticket are involved. So how do you reduce the costs? The key is planning ahead. Let me explain.
Cruise vacations open up YEARS in advance (unlike airlines that only let you book around 11 months out). So it is possible to put down a deposit and have a long time until you actually take that dream cruise. This opens up the possibility to plan ahead to make your trip cost less. Yes, but how?
The first thing is finding out how you are going to get to your departure port (unless you live nearby and can drive or UBER, that is). Most who are reading this will have to fly. So take the time now to decide how you are going to fly. Are you going to buy tickets or the smarter way are you going to start looking at airline credit card new card bonus offers for the airlines that fly out of you home town. If you are booking your cruise years out you have time to meet the minimum spend on the card or cards without impacting your budget by paying for every day things (or even prepaying say your gas and electric bills for many months ahead) and score the points so that when the airlines open up dates for your flights you can jump on them (#ProTip – many times the cheapest award flights are found when awards 1st open up 11 months out).
The next step in reducing cost is paying for your hotel stay the night before your cruise. Why? You never EVER want to arrive the same day your cruise ship departs because the ship will leave without you if your flights are delayed. If you look around the port city and find a hotel you like then you can go for that “brand” of partner credit card years out and again score the new card bonus points to pay for the hotel with the points you got free from the new card bonus.
Depending on the hotel you pick it may or may not have an airport shuttle. If it does then that part of your transport is basically free (other than a small tip for the driver) but then you still have to get to the ship. There are many many ways to do this like UBER (if available in that city) or pre-booking a transfer. If you want to UBER there are sometimes ways to buy UBER gift cards at a discount (like when Costco has gift cards on sale or other locations) or even convert some card points to UBER gift card (when that is a good value). Even if you go the route of pre-booking with some service you can pay for this well in advance to lower the impact to your budget the week of the cruise.
Many cruise lines, again when you book way out, let you make a small deposit at the time of booking. NCL, as an example, will during some sale events give you $250 free “Cruise First” cash when you book and let you use that cash as the deposit to reserve the cruise! Then, if you are diligent, you can make monthly payments in almost any amount month by month until the cruise is paid in full (before the final due date). Yet another way to not have a huge impact on the budget when the final payment comes due. Let’s look at another financially wise thing to do.
Another thing you can do, and I love folks who do this, is have a small auto deduct to a savings account or similar investment account for the cruise. Take Valley Direct Bank as a great example. You can set up a recurring deposit each month, on the date you choose and the amount you choose, and currently they are paying nearly 5% interest on those cash deposits (#ProTip – get $80 bonus cash via Swagbucks from this link for new accounts and $1000 deposit).
Buy onboard credits for many months before your cruise. This one you want to be a bit careful with. Some cruise lines, think NCL, offers you the chance to buy up to $1,000 fully refundable onboard credits that if you don’t spend them they give you cash in hand before you leave the ship. However other lines when you buy credits you have to spend them or they’re gone at the end of the cruise (#ProTip: sometimes you can transfer credit to the casino department and cash out that way). Either way if you are planning on booking or spending on drinks or specialty restaurants you can lessen the impact if you each month add some cash to your onboard account before your cruise.
Book excursions one by one over time before your cruise. You may not realize this but the most popular shore excursions, hosted by the cruise line, can and often do 100% sell out well before the cruise so waiting to book until you are onboard can mean you don’t get to play. One of the solutions is booking in advance and if you carefully book them, and pay for them, a little at a time then it can be less of an impact on your monthly budget.
Be careful to stick to a budget once you begin your adventure. If you have been considering all of the above then you are unlikely to be needing to worry about this last one but the advice is still sound. If you order too many expensive onboard beverages or book too many expensive excursions or you name it you may end up with a huge bill when you depart the ship leaving a less than favorable reminder of your amazing cruise vacation.
Bottom line a cruise vacation is different than most land side vacations and there are so many things you can do to spread out the financial impact on your budget and to not end up with a huge bill to pay off when you arrive back home! – René
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The article is not true to its title – you don’t offer any ways to REDUCE the cost but merely to spread full cost over time (before even start cruising). That’s called “budgeting”. And paying for hotel night before the cruise actually increases the cost.
Yes, cruising is booming now, mainly due to doubled rates in most hotels and increased airfare, plus overcrowding at most touristy places around the world. With Chinese economy turned sour, the wave of their tourist hopefully will be reduced for next couple years to bring lower prices and crowd levels for tourist industry.
@Aleks – Please take the time to re-read the post. If you get travel cards to pay for air and hotel that does REDUCE the cost. If you get the right points, think UR points, you can fully pay for your cruise – including onboard tips package – with points. If you say redeem certain points for UBER gift cards even transfers to-from ship can be free. It just takes work and time to make all this happy thus planning ahead matters.
BTW I am about to book a cruise with all of the things I just mentioned plus Cruise Next coupons I purchased at 50% off onboard! #WINNING
Booking cruises through a travel agent can add value in the form of better group or block rates and OBC as well. In addition, if the price goes down which you should track through 3rd party sites like cruiseline or cruisewatch then your agent is the one on the phone spending time to get the price difference adjusted to an upgrade, OBC, etc. saving you time.
Flying in the day before is good advice but flying out late on the return can also save you a lot of money over those mid-day high demand flight times, especially in places like Miami.
Booking excursions through third-party sites is another way to save money. Day passes at local hotels at port locations can also be a good (or bad) value depending on the port.
Booking “cruise only” instead of “free at sea” type rates can save additional money.