Attention all money-saving cruisers

Are you a cruiser who has saved money on your trip?

Do you have any savvy money-saving tips?

If so, we'd love to hear from you. Please reply to this thread and we'll be in touch with further information.

We were offered a choice of OBC, free car parking or free coach travel for one long cruise. We worked out the prices and saw that the OBC was more than double than the coach travel... we paid for that ourselves (didn't want to leave the car for 28 days) and had a good spend on board! :)

When cruise lines offer a choice of perks, we pick the ones that are worth most to us, not necessarily what is worth the most to the cruise line. We will also book a specialty restaurant for embarkation night as they often have 50% off.

There are lots of ways to save a little money.

Like the free drinks at "art" auctions and meet-and-mingles, multi-buy drinks packages (wine packages, all-you-can-drink packages, bucket-of-beer etc), premium-pay restaurant promos, shared taxi transfers rather than ships' shuttlebuses, and such.

More savings by DIY excursions in the ports rather than ship's excursions. Broadly, negotiating with taxis & minibuses in places like the Caribbean or SE Asia and trains, buses & ferries in places like Europe.

Or, for those who prefer an organised tour, an independently-booked tour booked with a local provider & shared with fellow-cruisers via the cruise's RollCall on Cruise Critic

But the sums are tiny compared to the savings with late, late cruise bookings.

Best value is around six weeks out, savings of literally thousands of pounds on cruise fares.

Cons

Taking a big risk of unavailability of an ideal cruise (or even any cruise) on specific dates, so really only likely to suit retireds & others who can be flexible on dates.

Risking a preferred cruise booking-out while you wait for prices to drop - not a risk to take with a specific cruise that you've set your heart on..

Zero or limited choice on cabins, dining options, etc.

And the big negative - as the date draws near, the cruise fare drops like a stone but air fares soar. So suitable only for departures from the UK, and mebbe from European ports. And for fly-cruise packages which use chartered rather than scheduled aircraft, such as P&O or Thomson - though the risk here that for instance you live in Edinburgh but the only aircraft seats still available are from Gatwick. .

Pros

Just the money. But a helluvalot of money.

BTW, I could never understand the value-for-money of P&O's "select" fares compared to "early-saver", and especially compared to late late deals.

It's easy to work out the value of the "select" freebies, and there's still a huge premium after deducting the value of those freebies. For the comparatively-trivial advantages of cabin & dining selection. :confused:

JB :)

Thank you to you all for sharing your fantastic money-saving tips! These are great, very interesting, and much appreciated.

I... don't book cruise line excursions.

I... book flights separately (most of the time)

I... book an inside cabin.

I... travel off season

My favourite way to be a tightwad is to.. BOOK CRUISES ON CRUISES! I know it sounds mad, it also makes the post cruise blues a little more bearable.

Its best when cruise lines have another 3rd party based onboard as they often have cheaper prices than the cruise line, combining this with onboard 'deposit' bonuses can save you a ton of money! I would 100% recommend.

It is a little bit more work than booking on land, I on my last cruise had to buy a cruise next certificate from NCL and take that to the third party. (little more about what I did here incase you are interested: http://cruisingisntjustforoldpeople....w-i-saved-618/ )

I'm only 23 so like to think I am a master of the cheapskate cruise. [emoji23][emoji23]

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If you do not book a cruise at least buy a future cruise credit or two.