Cruise Vacations can differ from one cruise line to another. Knowing what your personal criteria is before booking a cruise is important.

Are you looking for a party atmosphere or something more serene? Are you looking of the deal of the century or a luxury vacation that you will remember for the rest of your life? Are you bringing children or traveling on a more adult vacation?

Knowing the answer to these questions will help you decide which cruise line, activities and excursions you should choose.

Here is a description of a few cruise lines:

The Disney cruise line is just the thing for anyone traveling with children. The only drawback that some find is that there is no gambling and there are, naturally, a lot of children on these ships.. There are so many activities for kids that your children will be begging you to go away so that they can play longer. So thankfully, there is also an adult area where you can simply relax and unwinde. Disney of course has shows, numerous dining options, on shore excursions and much more. This is a terrific vacation choice if you want your children to have tons to do while you have some time to pamper yourself in a spa or just hang out by the pool, drinking a glass of wine or margherita. (more…)

Is cruising for free a myth? No, but you will not get your free cabin by harassing the cruise line staff. All you will do if you pester them is annoy them and waste your time. We cruised once with a woman who made it a habit of booking lower priced rooms and trying to complain her way into better cabins. It never worked. Especially now with so many cruise deals and cruises are filling up there is less need to be accommodating. Yes, cruise lines want you to have fun but they are tightening their belts when it comes to the freebies. Play by their rules, though, and they are more than happy to reward you with a free cabin.

Now on to the top three ways to get a free cabin:

Now on to how to actually get a cabin for free. The best way is to put together a group of 15 passengers or more and the ship will gladly give you your cabin for free. Where will you find these other people? Try organizing a family reunion, call up your friends or organize your high school reunion shipside. Some lines will even give you this free room with a group containing as few as six people. The larger the group, the more perks you get. For a very large group they may even throw you your own cocktail party. You will probably still have to pay the taxes and maybe a small fee but the rest of the room price will be comped.

Another way to cruise for free is as a lecturer. You lecture on your subject a few times a day and the rest of the time you are free to enjoy the cruise experience. You get to talk about something you love and get rewarded for it on top of it. (more…)

Cruise vacations are a lot of fun, when everything goes right. What happens though when things go wrong? In most cases you can still have an amazing time, if you are familiar with all of the things that there are to do on board.

When you cruise to the Bahamas, for example, there are certain things that you can expect – sandy beaches, tropical drinks and plenty of time to relax. And you will undoubtedly get all of that if you go during the right time of the year. You just have to be wary of the hurricane season or your tropical getaway could end up as three to seven days aboard a rocking ship. Hurricane season is during the summer months. Most of the time it is not a factor, as the ship captains are trained to go around bad weather. So you may have clear and smooth sailing but not be able to go on any excursions. So your tan will have to come from pool side relaxation. Not bad. You still get the tan and the tropical drinks just not the sandy beaches.

Now if you are worried about motion sickness, simply by Dramamine before getting on board. It works quickly to settle your stomach and keep it settled. So while others may have a bit of sea sickness, you will probably still be headed to the buffet and enjoying all of the fabulous food. (more…)

So you want to plan your first cruise, well you’ve come to the right place. Cruises today can range from just a couple hundred dollars to well over $10,000 and beyond so it can be the trip of a lifetime. While there are many who are able to take numerous cruises, most of us will experience the dream of a cruise ONLY once and you certainly want to ensure it is memorable (and for the RIGHT reasons).

The further into the future your are able to plan for your trip the better off you will be as you will have a better selection of room choices and date options. 1 year (if possible) is a good starting point. If you are a flexible, a last minute type of person, & able to reach a port city with short notice, you can often find GREAT pricing on last minute cruises, although the room selection is extremely limited the price trade off may be worth it.

Step #1: SET A BUDGET: Just like in real life, even on vacation we need to have a REALISTIC budget in place for our vacation. The price of the cruise IS NOT the only money you will spend. There are the costs of getting to & from the cruise, excursions, FUN money, tips, and possible unforeseen costs. (more…)

Are you tired of your boring routine and would like to try something new and refreshing for a change? Well, look no further because Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) offers one of the world’s most famous weekend cruises. When you are of sick of the job blues and the boring routine back at home, all you have to do is book yourself a seat in NCL. From that point on, NCL will make sure that your weekend is spent in complete leisure and entertainment. The NCL is famous for creating luxurious trips for each and every passenger on-board. Weekend packages are exclusively offered on discounts because we know how precious your money is. We certainly do not wish to waste it. Discount packages are offered on Saturdays and Sundays. Book yourself a seat on Friday and hop on Saturday. We’ll leave you home on Sunday with a completely unforgettable cruise experience.

The first step to take when it comes to booking yourself a seat in NCL is to choose the destination you wish to go. Would you like to chill off the heat by heading off to Alaska where the sun doesn’t really shine but the snow-flakes will absolutely win your heart? Or maybe you would fancy a warm sea breeze and the glowing sunshine over at the Bahamas and Florida. If not that, then NCL offers cruises to the Bermuda. That certainly sounds intriguing if you are an avid fan of mysterious theories. We’re not leaving you in the Bermuda Triangle but we certainly provide information trips about it. Maybe you could even head off to Canada and enjoy the chilly weather over there. And if you’re in the mood for some royal English fun or Cockney accents then let us take you to England. The Caribbean is another destination offered by NCL. (more…)

When you really know what you’re doing, taking a cruise can be one of the most economical vacations available. Your price typically includes cabin, all meals, entertainment, kids’ programs, gym/sauna, jogging track, and other amenities. However, there are some very important pointers you must follow to prevent your cruise vacation from becoming a yawning money pit you will greatly regret.

1) Do your homework or get your travel agent to do his/her homework in comparing cruise lines and cruise packages. There is a vast array of them. Make darn sure the quote includes port fees and taxes. Many a traveler has had their bubble burst when they realized the price they were quoted was the basic cost before fees.

2) Don’t forget to figure in airfare. You’re way ahead of the game if you don’t live too far from cruising ports. But, if not, try to schedule far enough in advance to get the most discounted airfare possible.

3) If you book months ahead, sometimes you can get in on good cruise discounts. However, if your schedule is flexible, then try to book during the last few weeks before a cruise. They’re trying to fill their ship then and you can get hefty discounts. Also, if you don’t mind a windowless cabin, book an inside cabin at a cheaper rate.

4) Look for cruises where kids go free. As I wrote this article, I noticed several kids-go-free offers. Majestic American, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Costa offered a cruise free for kids under 12 and Disney offered a free cruise for kids under age 17. You can’t beat offers like this. (more…)

Although for many people the enjoyment of a cruise is dependent on being able to look from their window and see the sights, there is no small number of travellers who will be more than happy to take an inside cabin over any room with a port hole or window, for any number of reasons. Inside cabins tend to cost less than those with a window – just as you would expect to have to pay extra for a hotel room with a view – and this in itself is enough for some people to decide that an inside cabin will do just fine. But there are other, equally valid reasons to choose an inside cabin.

For many people, a problem with seasickness is not a bar to actually going on a cruise. As with any form of sickness, there are differing levels of seasickness. For some people it will be triggered by any kind of bumpy trip – and although cruise ships take a specific line to avoid this, it still happens – whereas for others it will be a matter of not looking at the sea or the outside scenery while the ship is moving. Taking an inside cabin will be an excellent way of avoiding this trouble. Without a window, there will be a greater chance of being able to sit in your room and feel almost as though you were on dry land. This is ideal for anyone who is worried about getting motion sickness.

The extra money for an outside cabin is often predicated on the fact that people will pay more for a view. So if you take an inside cabin there is every chance that the level of comfort and the accoutrements will be almost, if not exactly, the same as those given by an outside cabin. Big screen TVs are a common feature for an inside room, and will generally carry a wide range of channels, featuring sport, news and entertainment, as well as the usual in-house (or on-ship) channel that gives information on upcoming attractions and broadcasts the increasingly popular lectures given on many cruise ships. DVD players are also often provided, and these can be used to view a film from the library (another innovation that has started to spring up on cruise ships, making it more and more as though the ship is a self-contained town or city all by itself. (more…)

One of the major attractions for anyone going on a cruise ship holiday is the wide range of excursions that take place while the ship is docked. On a typical cruise, with as many as ten to fifteen ports of call, there will be as many, if not more, excursions for you and your fellow travellers to enjoy. Depending on how large an area of the planet your cruise takes in, this could mean you have the opportunity to see greatly varying attractions in different countries – something that any traveller would be extremely keen to experience.

The thing to remember, though, is that these excursions are added on to the cost of your cruise, and unless bought as part of an all-inclusive package may well have to be paid for either at the time or at the end of the cruise. It is therefore worth picking and choosing which excursions you plan to go on.

If you look at the brochure, or the online rundown of what your holiday entails, you will be able to check the planned excursion for each port of call. It may well be that some of these excursions, while likely very interesting, are not something you would choose to pay for under everyday circumstances. Part of the reason people go on holiday is to kick back and relax, and this is not something that can readily be done on a day trip. (more…)

In order to experience the cruise lifestyle, even if just once in their life, a holiday maker will look for the least expensive way to go on a cruise. There are ways and means of doing this. It will be cheaper if, for example, you go on a cruise covering a small area – a specific coastal region, perhaps, or a set of islands. This is often allied to the fact that a cheaper price can be found by taking a cruise that is shorter in duration. While the longest cruises can go on for months, and many regular cruises still take about a fortnight, it is possible to book either a day cruise or a short four- or five-day hop. Equally there can be savings available by taking a trip on one of the less vaunted bargain cruise lines. This can knock quite a bit off the price you expected to pay.

One way to ease the strain on your wallet without doing the above (or along with doing the above) is to take one of the cheaper accommodations on the ship. This is achievable by booking yourself in to one of the more cheaply-situated cabins, among which some of the cheaper ones will be on the lower decks. Lower deck cabins are often of the same size and layout as those higher up on the ship, but will often save you a few hundred dollars on what you might pay for the higher-up ones. There is of course a reason for this, and in the end your readiness to plump for a cheaper cabin will depend on how you deal with, or how you feel about, these reasons. (more…)

Having paid good money to take a cruise, it is important to remember that your fellow passengers have also paid no small amount, and to treat them with the same courtesy and respect that you would hope to receive from them. The importance of cruise ship passenger etiquette goes beyond knowing your port from your starboard, and really it is all about good manners. But remember too that on a cruise ship you are sharing limited space. That you and the other people in the cruse are in no position to decide that you have had enough of people’s discourtesy and up sticks to another hotel. The ship IS the hotel, and you have to share it. So if you and others follow the basic rules of acceptable behavior, a better time will be had by all.

One fact that seems to escape some of the more boisterous revelers is the fact that some people like to go to sleep at a reasonable hour even on holiday. Walking drunkenly back to one’s cabin, it may seem like a hilarious idea to sing a few bars of your favorite Sinatra classic. But people are trying to sleep, and disturbing their rest does not make you funny. It makes you a moron.

A cruise should be fun for all the family, and this includes the children. But as we all know, what constitutes fun for children is often a good deal less amusing for the grown-ups, including often a number of elderly passengers. One of the most commonly reported problems for passengers aboard a cruise ship is the antagonistic behaviour of children. They may be a little bit high-spirited, and they may have a touch of cabin fever. But when it infringes upon another passenger’s holiday, it isn’t OK to let them go and smile ruefully. Make sure they are under control. (more…)