Thanks to a very intrepid member of cruisecritic.com (which, by the way, is a great resource for good and bad feedback about all things cruising), there is now a really awesome tool that can help you track Royal Caribbean cruises for price drops. (RCCL is one of the few cruise lines that honor price drops after final payment, unless it's for a 'new-reservation only' promotion.)
If you don't have Microsoft .net, you'll need to download it, but it's pretty blonde-proof, which I can attest to personally. :-) Then you plug in the cruise you're on (or hoping to book), and it'll do all the work for you.
I'm testing it now for our May cruise to Alaska -- as we booked it for under $1,000 for the week interior cabin, I don't think we'll get lucky again! But you can also try it out at www.cruiseshark.com.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
If it's Monday, there must be a sale somewhere . . .
Hey! Don't you hate it when life gets in the way of things like vacation planning???
So, after a month-long delay, we're back. And guess what? There are still killer deals to be had. Especially last-minute deals.
Royal Caribbean, every Tuesday, has last-minute sales for cruises within, roughly, a 60 day window (those cruises where final payments have been made -- or not, as the case may be). Go to www.royalcaribbean.com and search based on where you want to go, when, and -- if applicable -- if you're over 60 or live in a specific state. You never know what you'll find.
And while most of the deals can be found during that post-final-payment window, it never hurts to check other times, too -- that's how we landed our cruise to Alaska in early May for less than $1,000 for the week. Yes, that's for both me and LSH. It helped that there was a Virginia resident discount (don't ask me why!), that we were content with a interior cabin, and that it left from Vancouver but came back to Seattle (which is much more manageable than you might think). Add a frequent cruiser discount coupon and voila! We're off to Alaska, with extra money for fun port excursions.
It pays to surf the cruise companies websites, just for fun. Because you never know what you might stumble across.
So, after a month-long delay, we're back. And guess what? There are still killer deals to be had. Especially last-minute deals.
Royal Caribbean, every Tuesday, has last-minute sales for cruises within, roughly, a 60 day window (those cruises where final payments have been made -- or not, as the case may be). Go to www.royalcaribbean.com and search based on where you want to go, when, and -- if applicable -- if you're over 60 or live in a specific state. You never know what you'll find.
And while most of the deals can be found during that post-final-payment window, it never hurts to check other times, too -- that's how we landed our cruise to Alaska in early May for less than $1,000 for the week. Yes, that's for both me and LSH. It helped that there was a Virginia resident discount (don't ask me why!), that we were content with a interior cabin, and that it left from Vancouver but came back to Seattle (which is much more manageable than you might think). Add a frequent cruiser discount coupon and voila! We're off to Alaska, with extra money for fun port excursions.
It pays to surf the cruise companies websites, just for fun. Because you never know what you might stumble across.
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