avoiding airfare for cruise?

I've posted several questions on here, since it looks like I'll be
going on my first cruise in early October.

Several of you kind folks suggested that I might drive to a cruise
port, instead of paying airfare. That is actually a possibility.

Airfare for the cruise I was thinking of, out of Tampa, would cost
about $470, and also entail quite a number of hours of waiting around,
both in airports and also in town before boarding the cruise ship.

However, there seem to be a couple of decent cruises that go out of
Baltimore, MD, which would be about 7 hours of driving for me. (from the
Dayton, Ohio area)

That would let us avoid probably 8 hours of waiting around, hassles
with airline security, and $470 in airfare costs.

On the other hand, it would add in 14 hours of total driving time, &
about $130 in gas. Hotel would be free, since we have probably 3 or 4
free nights coming from Wyndham Rewards.

Questions: where, exactly, is the cruise ship port in Baltimore?

Are there hotels nearby, and will they let you park a car
for a week or so if you are a customer? (room for at least
1 night) Do the hotels have shuttle service to the port, or
only to airport?

Thanks!

On Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:29:37 -0400, Ohioguy wrote:

Questions: where, exactly, is the cruise ship port in Baltimore?

Probably near the Atlantic Ocean.
--
Ari's Fun Times!
http://tr.im/hrFG
Motto: Run, rabbit, Run!

I'm sorry if I appear rude, as I don't mean to be, but i have been lurking
on this newsgroup for many weeks as I am going on MY first cruise but I
haven't felt the need to inundate the group with questions which with a
little search I could find out for myself!
I thought that the message from George Leppla was sound.
You got super advice from everyone---especially Diane Ball [what a mine of
information she is. I have learnt so much from her posts] so I would
suggest you do a little work yourself.
As I said, I don't wish to be rude but your endless questions which aren't
really cruise related are tiresome. eg. to find out about hotels, google
is your friend.




On Jun 8 2010 5:29 PM, Ohioguy wrote:

I've posted several questions on here, since it looks like I'll be
going on my first cruise in early October.

Several of you kind folks suggested that I might drive to a cruise
port, instead of paying airfare. That is actually a possibility.

Airfare for the cruise I was thinking of, out of Tampa, would cost
about $470, and also entail quite a number of hours of waiting around,
both in airports and also in town before boarding the cruise ship.

However, there seem to be a couple of decent cruises that go out of
Baltimore, MD, which would be about 7 hours of driving for me. (from the
Dayton, Ohio area)

That would let us avoid probably 8 hours of waiting around, hassles
with airline security, and $470 in airfare costs.

On the other hand, it would add in 14 hours of total driving time, &
about $130 in gas. Hotel would be free, since we have probably 3 or 4
free nights coming from Wyndham Rewards.

Questions: where, exactly, is the cruise ship port in Baltimore?

Are there hotels nearby, and will they let you park a car
for a week or so if you are a customer? (room for at least
1 night) Do the hotels have shuttle service to the port, or
only to airport?

Thanks!

-------*
: the next generation of web-newsreaders : http://www.recgroups.com

On Jun 8, 11:12*am, "margaret" wrote:
I'm sorry if I appear rude, as I don't mean to be, but i have been lurking
on this newsgroup for many weeks as I am going on MY first cruise

Congrats on yoru first cruise. On which ship & itinerary are you
traveling, Margaret?

Mark

haven't felt the need to inundate the group with questions which with a
little search I could find out for myself!

I'm on dialup, and have a limited amount of time online each day. If
I use it up early, I can't get online at all until the beginning of the
next month. Some of the websites I try to visit load so slowly that
they are completely unusable for me. (especially those that think it is
a grand idea to put a bunch of animated 'crap' on their main page) What
might seem like a "little" 1 minute search for you might take me 15 minutes.

Sorry that you feel I've been off topic. I believe most of the
questions I've asked are related to the cruise, though I suppose some of
them have related to the "getting there" question. Since I've never
cruised before, I tend to find myself thinking of the vacation as a
whole, linked set of steps, and I'm not used to cordoning off only the
portion of the trip involving a boat for discussions.

On Jun 8, 2:15*pm, "margaret" wrote:
I have also read and learnt from your posts Mark. *
I haven't booked my cruise yet. *I'm still researching but I want to go to
the Caribbean round about New Year. *I have organised my flight [from the
UK] and know which hotels I want in either Fort Lauderde or Miami. *I'm
leaning towards Celebrity as I enjoyed readng two posts about that line.
Margaret

Margaret, thanks for your sweet comment--as you observed, Mark and
many others here have a lot of cruise experience, and if you catch any
of us on a good day, we might come up with a useful tip or two!

Congrats on your first cruise plans! I don't know how long you've been
lurking, but you may have read me talking about our holiday cruises.
We first got into cruising on a Christmas cruise back in 1999 and have
almost annually ever since taken a cruise over Christmas/Hanukkah week
or New Year's week (funny thing, this past holiday, we were in London
for New Year's!). If you can book the week after New Year's, as you
have seen, the prices are much more favorable! But being aboard ship
during those festive times is awfully nice, and it is fun to see how
the holidays are celebrated in the different Caribbean islands. If you
have any holiday-specific questions, feel free to ask.

We have always met a lot of folks from the UK on our cruises, and this
past Celebrity Solstice cruise (in March) was full of many repeat
Brits. They obviously liked the product, and I agree with that
feeling! You may have seen me rave about that cruise. I still haven't
put together a trip report...which is an indicator I might never
complete it, as my memory is already full of gaps!...but I was so
pleased with Celebrity on that cruise.

Welcome to RTC. Cheers on your planning!

Diana

Ohioguy wrote:
haven't felt the need to inundate the group with questions which with a
little search I could find out for myself!

I'm on dialup, and have a limited amount of time online each day. If
I use it up early, I can't get online at all until the beginning of the
next month. Some of the websites I try to visit load so slowly that
they are completely unusable for me. (especially those that think it is
a grand idea to put a bunch of animated 'crap' on their main page) What
might seem like a "little" 1 minute search for you might take me 15
minutes.

Sorry that you feel I've been off topic. I believe most of the
questions I've asked are related to the cruise, though I suppose some of
them have related to the "getting there" question. Since I've never
cruised before, I tend to find myself thinking of the vacation as a
whole, linked set of steps, and I'm not used to cordoning off only the
portion of the trip involving a boat for discussions.


Dude, that sucks. Not the dial-up part. Lots of folks are dropping cable
and dsl for dialup if they don't have to work from home with the
recession and all. Web designers are just going to have to write cleaner
code and give earlier options to skip JAVA and the like, but not having
unlimited internet access just sucks.

I'm very depressed right now. Need a vacation to cheer me up, any ideas?

Also, if you promise to be good (do no evil on the internet) and tell me
your area code, I might me able to hook you up with a temporary (1 week)
free unlimited, dial-up accesses, if you're in an area I have a homey
working at an ISP in. Don't worry, no one is going to try and sale ya
something.

Its a small world and I have buds everywhere.

-Linnie

On Jun 8, 2:05*pm, Ohioguy wrote:
haven't felt the need to inundate the group with questions which with a
little search I could find out for myself!

* *I'm on dialup, and have a limited amount of time online each day. *If
I use it up early, I can't get online at all until the beginning of the
next month. *Some of the websites I try to visit load so slowly that
they are completely unusable for me. (especially those that think it is
a grand idea to put a bunch of animated 'crap' on their main page) *What
might seem like a "little" 1 minute search for you might take me 15 minutes.

* *Sorry that you feel I've been off topic. *I believe most of the
questions I've asked are related to the cruise, though I suppose some of
them have related to the "getting there" question. *Since I've never
cruised before, I tend to find myself thinking of the vacation as a
whole, linked set of steps, and I'm not used to cordoning off only the
portion of the trip involving a boat for discussions.

Ohioguy, considering you are on dialup, then a good idea at this
juncture...with a great base of information and identified issues
under your belt...would be for you to grab the kids and make a trip to
your local library. There will be a ton of cruise guides and Caribbean
guides in the travel section.

Then, I really do think you will benefit from securing a travel
agent's assistance. The cruise travel books will point you in the
right direction as to credentials you should look for in order to get
the help of an agent who specializes in cruising, e.g., someone with
CLIA certifications and more. Find a couple of those kinds of folks
locally and stop by an office or two, grab some current Carnival and
other brochures. Just remember, brochure price is not current--just
their highest ask as of time that brochure went to print.

The comment a couple of posts up about last-minute pricing going up
was, as you noted, NOT a general rule. It can also go down. It all
depends on how the ship is selling. We frequently cruise at the last
minute and have seen both scenarios. The more significant issue with
last-minute cruising is finding a decent air fare if you can't drive
to the port and don't have/can't get FF miles.

As you are going for the savvy frugal guy booking, I will throw out
one more idea: historically, the week or two after Thanksgiving and
before Christmas/Hanuakkah have offered the lowest-priced Carib
cruises of the entire year's sailing calendar. During that time frame,
most folks are too busy back home with holiday preparations, or year-
end work and school obligations, to vacation. So cruise bargains
abound. If your wife can get away from work at that time and you can
get babysitting coverage, you might get a real deal.

Diana

On 6/8/10 3:38 PM, D Ball wrote:
On Jun 8, 2:05 pm, wrote:
haven't felt the need to inundate the group with questions which with a
little search I could find out for myself!

I'm on dialup, and have a limited amount of time online each day. If
I use it up early, I can't get online at all until the beginning of the
next month. Some of the websites I try to visit load so slowly that
they are completely unusable for me. (especially those that think it is
a grand idea to put a bunch of animated 'crap' on their main page) What
might seem like a "little" 1 minute search for you might take me 15 minutes.

Sorry that you feel I've been off topic. I believe most of the
questions I've asked are related to the cruise, though I suppose some of
them have related to the "getting there" question. Since I've never
cruised before, I tend to find myself thinking of the vacation as a
whole, linked set of steps, and I'm not used to cordoning off only the
portion of the trip involving a boat for discussions.

Ohioguy, considering you are on dialup, then a good idea at this
juncture...with a great base of information and identified issues
under your belt...would be for you to grab the kids and make a trip to
your local library. There will be a ton of cruise guides and Caribbean
guides in the travel section.

Then, I really do think you will benefit from securing a travel
agent's assistance. The cruise travel books will point you in the
right direction as to credentials you should look for in order to get
the help of an agent who specializes in cruising, e.g., someone with
CLIA certifications and more. Find a couple of those kinds of folks
locally and stop by an office or two, grab some current Carnival and
other brochures. Just remember, brochure price is not current--just
their highest ask as of time that brochure went to print.

The comment a couple of posts up about last-minute pricing going up
was, as you noted, NOT a general rule. It can also go down. It all
depends on how the ship is selling. We frequently cruise at the last
minute and have seen both scenarios. The more significant issue with
last-minute cruising is finding a decent air fare if you can't drive
to the port and don't have/can't get FF miles.

As you are going for the savvy frugal guy booking, I will throw out
one more idea: historically, the week or two after Thanksgiving and
before Christmas/Hanuakkah have offered the lowest-priced Carib
cruises of the entire year's sailing calendar. During that time frame,
most folks are too busy back home with holiday preparations, or year-
end work and school obligations, to vacation. So cruise bargains
abound. If your wife can get away from work at that time and you can
get babysitting coverage, you might get a real deal.

Diana

If they could get that time frame off, Suzy has the annual viking group
sailing... they could get group rates AND have people to go with.

--Tom

On 6/8/2010 3:11 PM, Tom K wrote:

As you are going for the savvy frugal guy booking, I will throw out
one more idea: historically, the week or two after Thanksgiving and
before Christmas/Hanuakkah have offered the lowest-priced Carib
cruises of the entire year's sailing calendar. During that time frame,
most folks are too busy back home with holiday preparations, or year-
end work and school obligations, to vacation. So cruise bargains
abound. If your wife can get away from work at that time and you can
get babysitting coverage, you might get a real deal.

Diana

If they could get that time frame off, Suzy has the annual viking group
sailing... they could get group rates AND have people to go with.

--Tom


Now THAT is a good idea. Going with a group for a first cruise is
always a good idea.... plenty of people who have "been there and done
that" to help you along the way and Sue is as good a TA as any I know...
and she will also be going with the group.

Her website is at http://www.cruiseoutlets.com/ and some info about the
group cruise is at http://www.cruiseoutlets.com/2010SuesDecemberGroup.htm

Hey... the cruise goes to Belize and since the Ohio guy likes caves...
he can go cave tubing.


--

George Leppla

Countryside Travel http://www.CruiseMaster.com
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