Last week we were looking at a destination that we have wanted to travel to. This is how we got the best deal for us.
First we started at the cruise line’s website to come up with the cruise information. If you are first time cruiser, I wouldn’t suggest your try this. We determined the specific cruise / itinerary we wanted. Next, we look at sailing dates – which ones worked with our schedule and had the lowest pricing. Now, we have a base price.
We checked with our airline’s cruise vacation planner. Yes, they offered the cruise. But, they had a processing fee and were a little more than booking with the cruise line directly. We had an email that was saying they were having a great sale, so we called them. There price was higher than the cruise website.
Next, we set up a post to get bids on this specific cruise – cruise line, itinerary, sailing date, cabin category and waited. Several offers came in. We contacted one. They were able to match the cruise website price to the penny and offered us an on-board credit of $250.
In our experience, pricing is very similar among many options. The perks are what is different and they can be a great reason to use one vacation planner versus another.
How do you plan your cruise vacation?
Leave a Reply