CalGal2

Don’t understand why anyone would think they need to pay someone to arrange cruises or trips for them. Legit travel agents earn their commissions from the travel providers themselves. Those costs are included in the pricing of those trips ( as commissionable amounts). The idea of paying a travel club thousands $ up front and then monthly fees is ridiculous. But they only need to hook one person to sign up to make that presentation worthwhile. Even the free trip stuff for attending makes them money for anyone sending in those $99 deposits and additional $99 per person reservation fees for a “possible” future date trip. Notice that they make you pay ONLY by check or money order. This is because if you charge it to your credit card and don’t receive what you purchased in a timely manner, you can get the CC company to reverse the charges. Anyone could probably book these offered 3-5 day cruises for a few hundred dollars per person directly from the cruise line or even a legit travel agent, depending on the destination, time of year and type of accommodation. Don’t waste your time on these. Go directly to a legit travel agent if you don’t feel you can do it yourself. I just did a quick search on Caribbean 3-5 night cruises and found prices as low as $149pp ( which is the kind of cruises they would be offering you for “free”.).

Will restaurants, museums, stores be open on that holy day?

Yes, post 320 was the list I was working off of for my research, since my offer only included 1 8 day and all other 3-7 day Caribbean. I did get a very nice BCC rep and he explained that the 10 day cruises were not available for my offer and tier, but he did offer me a BCC discount with an AI pkg, which they won’t allow on a free cruise offer. Still the complexities of air travel so close to Thanksgiving/Christmas for us from the West coast made me decide against it. But it was interesting that the net cost was similar to the “free cruise” with a forced (but very cheap internet and bev pkg add on). Honestly, I think they wing these offers. Some reps say yes, some say no, you can’t pick something else, you can’t change from the Carrib to Mex, etc. And this BCC is all new to me. I will be happy with my Mex Riv sailing coming up, that is bringing me back the the world of cruising after almost 3 years! Glad you were able to take advantage of the second offer.

That’s what I did for the last 2 days. But, between the holidays and the air fare, pre-cruise hotel, airport pkng, it just didn’t make sense to try to force this “free” cruise into our schedule. I did call BCC today and asked about the 10 day sailings and he checked my BCC tier , which is Pearl aka “zilch”, he couldn’t offer any “free” 10 day. It breaks my frugal heart to pass on this as well. We did snap up a Mex Riv on a prev BCC email, so we’ll see if others come our way either on the ship or afterwards. I’m going to try to play a min amt each day, to get some free drinks and to see if that helps our cause. Good luck with your search.

I looked at that one too, but the return flight for us in the West Coast runs into the start of Thanksgiving travel and didn’t want to risk that. It would still run $2.5 thousand just with tips, flights, hotel pre cruise, airport pkg, and without drinks. So as much as I hate to give up “free” cruise, it’s not worth it for us on West Coast. I was able to book a Mex Riv cruise on an earlier BCC, but we can drive to the port for that. Nice itinerary, just bad timing for us. hopefully another offer will come around for 2023.