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Newspaper Clipping - "How to make your cruise an affordable vacation"
Here is an article from the local paper. Most of it is common sense, but in
the excitement of booking a cruise, something may be overlooked... How to make your cruise an affordable vacation By Teresa McUsic Special to the Star-Telegram Last week, my husband and I took to the Seven Seas -- well, the Gulf of Mexico -- for an anniversary cruise that was wonderful and surprisingly affordable. Five years ago, we did the same thing, but we had to fly to Miami to catch a ship (airfa $600). We also went a couple of days early to avoid the rush of going from plane to ship (hotel, food, cabs: $250). This time, our only expense to get to the ship was a tank of gas ($35) and parking at EZ Cruise Parking in Galveston ($50 for the week). Galveston is now the sixth-largest cruise port in the United States. Galveston and the Houston port combined to account for 518,000 of the 9 million North American cruise passengers in 2004, according to the Cruise Lines International Association. If you like the idea of staying in the equivalent of a three- or four-star resort hotel, with plenty of staff members around to help; eating five-course dinners with all the lobster, shrimp or steak you can handle; and either lazing around the hot tubs or pools or taking up one of countless free activities on the ship or shore -- you can do it for less than $200 per couple per day. Despite the all-inclusive nature of a cruise, however, there are many ways to spend extra money. Here are the Savvy Consumer's 10 tips on avoiding those extra costs: 1. Shop around. We wanted a big ship -- the larger vessels roll better on the sea -- so we went on the Grand Princess, a mammoth 17-story, 109,000-ton "floating hotel" that holds 2,600 passengers and 1,100 employees. Seven-day cruises can be a better bargain, if you have the time. We shopped online, at Sam's Club, with a local travel agent and directly with the Princess line. Our best price: an online travel agent in Arizona who got us the tickets for $1,200 for an inside cabin. 2. Watch for add-on fees. Many of the offers we found looked lower until we looked deep into the material and found a $200-plus addition per person called "taxes and port fees." 3. Check for automatic tips. Princess and some other cruise lines have taken some of the hassle out of tipping every waiter or housekeeper you come across each day by adding $10 per person per day to your bill, a charge that is not included in your upfront payment. What's good about it: It takes away the hassle of having a tip in your swimsuit or of not knowing how much to give and to whom. What's bad about it: For a seven-day trip for two, it's a $140 charge. 4. Take your own wine/liquor if allowed. Alcoholic drinks are not included in your fare, and on our ship, a piña colada cost $7, including a 15 percent tip. We brought an extra suitcase of wine and a couple of glasses from the dollar store. Two wine tips: Wrap the bottles with beach towels or bubble wrap to avoid breakage, and check to make sure your cabin will have a small fridge. Also: Soft drinks generally cost extra, and the free coffee on most ships is notoriously bad. 5. Be aware of excursion costs. If you want to visit ancient ruins or go scuba diving, it will cost $25 to $130 per person. For some, this makes the vacation memorable. For us, taking in a white sand beach and a crystal-clear ocean was more than enough onshore entertainment. 6. Know that onboard luxuries have a price. Most ships offer massages, spa treatments and some dining at extra cost. But there's plenty of free entertainment, which on our trip included a nightclub for dancing, hot tubs/pools/saunas, comedy acts, musical revues and movies on a giant screen over one of the pools at night (with blankets and free popcorn). Our ship also offered free cooking and ballroom dance classes and cheap yoga ($10) and computer ($25) classes. Watching a sunset didn't cost anything. 7. Check the itinerary for docking vs. tenders. Hurricanes in the gulf last year knocked out several docking facilities, which meant that much smaller tenders had to be used to get passengers to and from shore, which can take a lot of time. Either go in knowing you'll have to be patient or find another cruise where docks are available at all ports. 8. Use online cruise reviews. Several great sites will give you up-to-date honest reviews of your ship and your destination from both professionals and travelers. Try www.cruisereviews.com, www.cruisemates.com, www.cruisecritic.com or www.cruisereport.com. 9. Talk to people onboard. Some of the best ideas for activities onshore came from fellow travelers or crew members. As we were walking into Playa del Carmen, one passenger told us to go to Fifth Avenue for a lovely outdoor pedestrian street of shops. A staffer warned us that there were no beaches at Belize and that the vendors were very aggressive, so we avoided the port completely and hung out on a near-empty ship. 10. Consider trip insurance. That issue came up when I cracked my ankle a month before the cruise. Because we had not purchased insurance, we could have stayed home and gotten a 25 percent refund on our tickets -- in essence paying 75 percent of the cruise cost for nothing. The cruise line also would have let us transfer one ticket to another name, but not both. Since I wasn't interested in my husband taking someone else on our anniversary cruise, I went with a walking cast. It was still a great trip, but it would have been better a month later. Our insurance would have run around $200, though, so consider that in your risk calculation. --- avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean. Virus Database (VPS): 0609-3, 03/03/2006 Tested on: 3/4/2006 6:39:20 AM avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2006 ALWIL Software. http://www.avast.com |
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