Discounts

Discounts
You can often enjoy exactly the same cruise as the family in the cabin next door for a fraction of the cost, whether your vacation is worth $1,000 or $10,000. You just need to learn a few tricks.

Cruise-ship cabins are sort of like airplane seats when it comes to pricing. The lowest, greatest, most super-duper- saver fare is advertised to get you to pick up the phone and ask about booking a trip, but usually only a limited number of cabins are available at that special rate. After those are gone, you’re going to be lumped in with everybody else trying to get aboard unless you book extremely early or take advantage of some special pricing promotions that some of the cruise lines offer. Here’s a look at a few of your best options if you want to save money on your cruise.

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Shopping Cruise Insurance

Cruise Insurance
Most of the cruise companies offer them with varying degrees of protection and for various prices. Should you buy a travel insurance plan? The truth is, it usually doesn’t hurt to get one. Especially aboard the value-oriented cruise ships that cater to kids, prices for the travel insurance plans are kept low enough to be affordable for most families. Medical cancellations are almost always covered, and with children, it’s a safe bet that somebody just may get sick as your sailing date approaches.

Also consider buying travel insurance through your travel agent if you live in a northern latitude and are planning to cruise during the snowy winter season-but be sure that weather delays are included as a covered cancellation reason. If your cruise company’s policy does not cover blizzards that might close your local airport until well after your ship sets sail down south, consider booking a separate insurance policy through your travel agent that will give you peace of mind should flurries start to fall.

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Excursions Ashore

Excursions Ashore
Like airfare and land extensions, another large secondary expense you may incur is excursions during your cruise. Of course, you never- have to leave your ship if you simply prefer to stay aboard and enjoy the amenities there, but if you want to explore some of the ports where your ship will call, the odds are good that it is going to cost you extra.

It’s hard to generalize about how much each excursion will cost, as they range from less than $50 on some cruise lines to several hundred dollars apiece for higher-end opportunities aboard other cruise lines. Your best bet is to ask your cruise ship staff for literature and pricing on the excursions available during your cruise, or go to your cruise line’s Web site for a detailed list based on your sailing dates.

Some cruise lines, such as Swan Hellenic, include a good number of excursions in the price of your vacation, but for the most part you should expect to pay extra to do anything and everything you would like to on land. Even when some excursions are included in your overall rate, others will be offered to you that might be too hard to resist.
Some cruise lines, such as Holland America and Crystal Cruises, will even let you customize your excursions instead of always staying with groups from your ship. Crystal has a Land Programs Department that will do everything from extending the excursions already available (such as adding a private helicopter ride to a group hike) to creating a private excursion just for you (such as a one-on-one, behind-the-scenes tour of the Vatican).

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Swan Hellenic Pre- and Post-Cruise Tours

Swan Hellenic Pre- and Post-Cruise Tours
Swan Hellenic’s land-extension programs range from five to seven days and include itineraries much like the ones aboard your cruise ship. Prices vary according to the length of your program and the port where you extend your trip-with options literally all over the world. You can often choose whether to do the land or sea

portion of your vacation first, and sometimes one option is less expensive than the other.
Examples include a five-day stay at the Amazon Eco Park Lodge in South America, with a rustic wooden bungalow, a guided forest walk, and a small boat trip through creeks and inlets. Prices are inclusive, just as with Swan Hellenic’s cruises; this particular land extension will cost you at least $2,400 for a twin-bed room.
Another example is a six-day land extension in the Middle East, including visits in Damascus, Syria, to one of the few remaining Aramaic-speaking villages, to the Valley of the Tombs museum, and to Umayyad Mosque, one of the greatest ever designed. Your inclusive rate for this land extension will be at least $1,768.

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Silversea Silver Sights Program

Silversea Silver Sights Program
Silversea calls its land extensions the Silver Sights Program. It offers two dozen options in the Mediterranean alone that range in length from three to eight days, though you usually cannot choose whether to do the land or sea portion of your vacation first. Other Silver Sights Program options exist in Northern Europe, the Far East, the South Pacific, South America, the Amazon, Canada and New England, Africa and the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, Mexico, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest. Prices vary according to the number of days you choose on land and your destination.

Examples include a three-night stay at the Fairmount Royal Pavilion on the Caribbean island of Barbados with a tour of Bridgetown and the Sunbury Plantation House. In Africa, you can choose a four-night program that includes a stay at the Londolozi Game Private Reserve and drives with an experienced tracker to see lions, elephants, rhinoceroses, leopards, and buffalo.

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Royal Caribbean Cruise tours

Royal Caribbean Cruise tours
Royal Caribbean’s Cruisetours come with tour guides you can follow if you choose to stay with your group, but you also have the option of exploring on your own. In some cases, you can choose whether to do your land extension before or after the sea portion of your vacation, but sometimes you are only offered one option.
Royal Caribbean offers nineteen Cruisetours in Alaska, four in the Canadian Rockies, and four in Europe. Prices vary according to your destination and your trip’s length. In Europe, examples include a three-night package in the Spanish cities of Madrid and Barcelona, which you will travel between by high-speed train. You’ll see the Royal Palace, the 1992 Olympic Ring and Stadium, and artist Antoni

Gaudi’s La Sagrada Famila. Cruisetours in Canada include trips to the resort town of Whistler, a mecca for skiers.

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Radisson Seven Seas Land Programs

Radisson Seven Seas Land Programs
Radisson offers both pre- and post-cruise hotel stays without any attached scheduling, as well as land-extension programs with itineraries similar to what you will find aboard its cruise ships. In Europe alone, you can choose among more than a dozen land-extension programs that run from two to five nights, with prices that vary accordingly.
Some examples include a two-night stay at Italy’s Lake Como, including a private, guided boat tour, and a four-night extension in Moscow, Russia, that includes a city tour and lunch at Cafe Pushkin, a tour of the Kremlin and Red Square, and an evening performance of the Moscow Circus.

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Princess CruiseTours

Princess CruiseTours
Princess CruiseTours come in myriad lengths, destinations, and prices. They are arranged as one organized itinerary whether you choose to do the land or the sea portion of your trip first, and the price of your entire vacation is rolled into one fee.

In Alaska alone, Princess offers sixteen different CruiseTours that include Denali National Park and Mount McKinley, plus another four options if you would rather spend your time on the Copper River
(where the king salmon are delicious), the Kenai Peninsula, or caribou country near the Arctic Circle.
The minimum trip length is ten nights, seven of them at sea, with a minimum price for your land and cruise combined of $1,399. The longest Alaska CruiseTour is fifteen nights, including seven nights at sea, with a base rate of $2,649 per person. CruiseTours are also available before or after your cruise in Asia, Canada, New England, South America, Europe, Australia, and the South Pacific.

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Norwegian Cruise Line Pre- and Post-Cruise Packages

Norwegian Cruise Line Pre- and Post-Cruise Packages
NCL offers hotel packages that include hotel taxes, bellman gratuities, and a one-way transfer from your ship’s pier to the hotel in a variety of cities worldwide.

Some more extended packages are available depending on your ship and your cruising itinerary. For example, if you cruise aboard the Norwegian Sun to Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, you can book a three-night land extension that includes a trip to the world-famous Butchart Gardens as well as a trip to Chinatown. If you are cruising in South America, you can choose an extended stay in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that includes a tango show, a walking tour at Iguazu Falls, and a tour of the capital city itself.

Rates are sometimes as low as a few hundred dollars for the extended land packages, depending on your port of call.

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MSC Cruises’ Hotel Packages

MSC Cruises’ Hotel Packages
MSC Cruises offers hotel packages for one or two nights before or after your cruise, with hotels available in dozens of gateway cities. Packages include hotel taxes, and rates start at $90 per person, per night. The company does not suggest specific itineraries in your city of choice.

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