Having said that . . .

For those of you who actually have disposable income at this point in the year, given the tanking economy and everything else that's wrong with the world at the moment:

If you can afford to get away ANYTIME in December of this year, there are some absolutely criminal deals to be had. In fact, there are some cruises around the holidays that are (even post-tax and post-fuel surcharges) listing at an average of $100 per day per person or less.

Think about it. Tropical locations with a bed to sleep in and food to eat for $200 per couple a day? Try that on dry land. (Well, now that I think about it, you probably could find that on dry land these days. But let's leave that to another blogger, shall we?)

LongSufferingPartner (hereinafter referred to LSP) and I are currently booked on a mid-December (pre-holidays) Holland America to the Western Caribbean. We thought we'd done well for $1150 for both of us for seven days. HA!

Just poking around today, I found, at about the same time we're sailing:

--> $632 for two people for an inside gurantee cabin for five days on Carnival out of Jacksonville (which, if you live in the mid-Atlantic states, is practically drivable);

--> $670 for two Virginia residents for an outside cabin for five days out of Miami on Celebrity (yes, Celebrity!), and

--> $1,044 for two Virginia residents for an inside guarantee cabin on Royal Carribean's Freedom of the Seas (yeah, the big boat with the FlowRider thingamabob and all that) for a week. That's about $150 per couple per day. For food and a room and all the bells and whistles a 3,600 passenger boat gets you.

What's more, you can actually get affordable non-stops out of major hubs to Miami about that time, too.

Good googa-mooga!

In the immortal words of RCCL's now-dead branding campaign -- get out there!