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.