all about cruising

Let’s talk all about cruising. I have been on numerous cruises, 11 to be exact and all of those have been on Carnival cruise lines. Clearly I enjoy going on cruises. 

There are a lot of perks to cruising but the big one is that when you go on a cruise, all of your food, coffee and water is included in the price. As a budget traveler, I very much appreciate knowing what my price is upfront.

When I first started cruising, I didn’t have very much money and really had to keep the budget as low as possible and Carnival happened to be the best choice for that at the time. I’ve cruised from several locations; flown to Florida and left from there, I’ve gone out of Baltimore when we lived in Pennsylvania and we have cruised numerous times from the port of Galveston, here in Texas. One of the biggest perks and budget saving tricks for us here in Texas is that we don’t have to pay for airfare because we just drive to Galveston and the ship leaves from there. 

I know cruising is not for everyone, I know several people that actually don’t like to cruise at all so it’s definitely not everybody’s cup of tea but for myself and my daughter it’s been a great budget friendly family vacation for us many times.

How to start booking your cruise: 

So let’s start with the basics. Where do you even go to book a cruise? Every cruise I’ve ever booked has been directly through the Carnival website. I suggest you go onto the website, give your email address so they will send you specials, discounts and sales. 

There are different levels of price when it comes to cruising. You can go very budget friendly with an interior room or you can go very high end and have a suite. I have done interior rooms many times and I’ve also done balcony rooms many times. I’ve never stayed in a suite, however, my daughter went on a  cruise with her dad and they had a suite and really enjoyed it. 

There are certain times when I have booked a balcony room and felt that the upgrade was worth the extra price and then other times I’ve just gone with the basic interior room because it doesn’t really matter if you have the balcony or not. 

The few times that I felt that a balcony room was worth the extra money: 

definitely on the Alaskan cruise. There was no substitute for being able to sit on your own balcony and just look out at the waters and watch for wildlife. 

The other times that I upgraded to balcony rooms was when my daughter was younger. I am a single mom, so when my daughter and I travel, it’s just the two of us. Before she was old enough to wander around the ship by herself I would get a balcony room because my daughter likes to sleep in late and I am an early riser. In the mornings I would run and  grab a cup of coffee upstairs and come back to the room while she was still asleep and enjoy my coffee out on the balcony. (Same goes for wine at night)

We have cruised many times now that she’s older with just a basic interior room and have very much enjoyed it. Now that she’s old enough to come and go, it's not really worth the extra money for the balcony.

     While we’re talking about money, let’s talk about how cruises are actually charged. You pay for the room on cruises. The first two people split the cost of the room and then any additional people come at a significantly lower cost. So if you’re gonna have three or four people in your room, it’s gonna be significantly cheaper to add the third and fourth person on. Just remember that cruise rooms are small, I’ve stayed in a cruise room with four people and it’s very tight. My daughter and I have just enough room for the two of us,  so if you’re gonna put four people in one room know that space is gonna be very limited. That being said, this is a budget travel website, so if you don’t plan on spending very much time in your room, it really should not be an issue because the ships are massive and have lots of room to spread out. 

     Once you decide that you want to go on a cruise, the next step is deciding how long you would like to go. We are experienced cruisers, so we always go for at least  a seven day cruise. If you’re new to cruising, you could try a four or five day cruise to see if you even like the experience. My first two cruises were five days each, just long enough to see if I liked it but not too long if I hated it. 

My best advice is to go on the website of the cruise lines and just look around. Look at the dates that you’re thinking about going. Look at the prices and just see what fits into your budget and go from there. Once you decide on the cruise that you’d like to go on, take a look at additional dates and off-season because those are cheaper than high demand weeks of the year. 

Summer is prime cruising time and the most expensive. Other very busy times are the holidays: the week of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and spring break week. Those are very expensive and if you look at the website, you can see the difference in pricing during those prime weeks. Try and look for off season weeks to save the most money. I’ve been on several cruises in the off-season and the biggest tip that I have for you is to be mindful of hurricane season. I live in Texas, so we’re very familiar with hurricane season here. It runs from June all the way through November. I’ve been on numerous cruises during that time and most of the time it is OK, however, if there is a big storm, it can get very unpleasant. ( I went on one cruise in October that was terrible because of a bad storm.)

Also, keep in mind that the Caribbean gets very hot during the summer months. 

If I had my choice I would probably go in April or May, but I understand,  I have a child in school  and not everyone can get away at those times so you gotta go when you can.

What about the costs?

OK now you know what cruise you wanna go on, and what days you wanna go…. Now what? What do you do about booking? I always price watch for a little while. 

See if they’re having a sale, check the price without a sale and just kind of compare. Look on other websites as well, meaning, different cruise lines. The top companies are Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Princess, and Norwegian.  They all often have great sales. I highly recommend booking directly with the cruise companies themselves, whichever line that you decide to go with. There's not really a lot of benefit to third-party sites for cruises, I find you get the best deals directly with the cruise line. Plus if you have any questions it is very easy to call the customer service lines and deal directly with the company themselves. I’ve had to inquire numerous times throughout the years, and I’ve never had any problems and they’re always very helpful. 

     Most of the time you will be able to book your cruise with a small down payment. Most often $99 per person if there is a special going on. Then you can just make monthly payments or pay it off later before your cruise time. I always prepay my gratuities and pick my room at the time of booking. I like to have everything financially set so that way there are no surprises.

Make sure you use my AARP gift card trick to save 10% off the price of your cruise!!! Simply join AARP for $12/year and then go to the reward section of the website, purchase $500 gift cards for $450. Next go to the carnival website and use the gift cards to pay for your cruise!!!! Easy 10% savings!!! www.aarp.org/?intcmp=GLBNAV-PL-HOME-HOME 


Speaking of booking rooms, where do you want to stay on the ship? I prefer to stay in the middle of the ship up and down as well as the middle front to back. Those areas have the least amount of movement and the least opportunity for any kind of motion sickness. I do tend to get motion sickness in cars, but have very rarely had issues on a cruise ship. In fact, the only time I’ve ever been seasick is when we were caught in a hurricane when I was pregnant. Other than that, I’ve never had any issues. So, if being sick is a high concern, try sticking with the very middle of the ship.

What's the ship experience like?

Now, let’s talk about the fun part, the food. Cruises are notorious for having lots of food on board and it’s all true. There are multiple dining options every day. There’s always the buffet that is set up multiple times a day for each meal. There are also the more formal sit down dining rooms if buffet dining is not your style. We like to bring dress clothes and dress nice for dinner several nights out of our cruise. Most cruises will have at least two elegant nights on a seven day cruise where you can get really fancy if you like. 

There are usually one or two specialty restaurants that can be booked for an additional charge. Usually a steakhouse or upscale Italian.

There is always pizza and ice cream and most ships have a deli for sandwiches as well.

There’s so many choices that you could always find something to eat.

     They also have photographers taking professional photos that are available for purchase if you want photographs of yourself all dressed up.

     Now let’s talk about excursions. That’s a big part of the fun, getting to explore new countries and having new adventures. If you are new to cruising, I highly recommend booking your excursions through whatever cruise line you are going on. They will guarantee that they won’t leave you if you book your excursion through them, even if something happens on your excursion and you are late getting back to the ship.  If there’s an excursion that you really want to do I highly suggest booking it early. Especially popular excursions, they tend to book up very quickly. We’ve done some very adventurous things on excursions from swimming with dolphins to zip lining all over Mexico, snorkeling everywhere that we go and most recently taking a helicopter to a glacier to wander around.

I like to pick something different to try each time.  

One of our favorite things to do on excursion days is get back to the ship early, especially from Cozumel Mexico, head up to the top deck and watch all the people try to hurry up and run to make it to the boat in time before it leaves. It’s great people watching. 

     There may be times when you don’t want to get off the boat for an excursion and just enjoy the fairly empty ship to yourselves, we have done that numerous times and it’s a great time to just relax. After all, it’s your vacation, so make it as adventurous or as relaxing as you like.

Here are some random cruising tips!

Next, I’m going to list some random tips for cruising. They don’t really fit into any certain category, but things I’ve learned over the years with all the cruises we’ve taken.