Here's How a $350 Cruise Turns Into $1,100!

[harryfat1]

Harry,

 

You raise a lot of interesting points about the relationship (or lack thereof!) of extra costs to the base fare. Because I usually sail solo, I generally book an inside or the lowest category of outside cabin to keep the base cost down. Thank you for your observations.

 

Are you a statistician or actuary by any chance? :D

 

Roz

 

Roz,

 

Nope, not statistician or actuary. Even worst occupation – CPA (aka bean counter). Guess even in my non working time, my accounting thought process carries over in my postings.

 

Nothing wrong with saving money with cabin selection. As a CPA, cost cutting in my blood. If you are cruise frequently, you can look into being a shareholder of the cruise companies that typically give you $50 to $100 ship board credits for the 3 to 7 night cruises.

 

The key for the cruise companies to make money is for you to be on the ship. They can’t sell the bingo and drinks and spa treatments to empty bunks. So they are willing to heavily discount the base cruise fares to attract the cruisers on board and then start to sell them the drinks/tours/whatever else to recoup the discounted fares. If you are disciplined and stick to a pre set budget, you will be fine and get a great bargain in return.

 

Without sounding too much like a finance article, if one looks at the latest 10Q that Carnival (including all the other wholly owned subsidiaries such as Princess/HAL/Cunard/Costa) just filed with the SEC on June 30, you will see that recession has had an impact on the cruise industry in that the occupancy rate is now down to 103.6% for past 6 months period for 2009 versus 104.5% the same 6 month in 2008. Occupancy of 100% is defined to be all double berths filled. So you go over 100% when you have triple and quad cabins filled.

 

On the revenue front, for 6 months period, the decrease was 11% from $6.5 billion to $5.8 billion. Most of that is attributable to recession as well as the H1N1 flu related issues. Within the revenue component, 76% comes from passenger tickets and the rest 24% are concessions and other fees.

 

Before your eyes start to roll over from boredom, the key points to note from these numbers are that:

 

1 – They need you to be on the cruise ships as often as possible to keep up the 103% occupancy rate. Just like Vegas have its mouse traps of freebie stuff at the front to attract the gamblers to go inside, cruise ships all have headline grabbing gimmicks to get you on their ships. And on the older ships, they heavily discount the ticket prices. I am sure everyone has seen super low fares advertised here on cc as well as all the internet agencies. All to bring as many warm bodies aboard as possible.

 

2 – Once you are aboard, you are only contributing to the 76% of the revenue from your passenger ticket price. The other 24% bucket is from all Bingo and drinks and whatever shipboard activities you participate in. That is why many cruisers complained about in their cruise reviews on cruise lines trying to sell them drinks/bingo/spa. The cruise lines need to pump up as much of the 24% number as possible since they had to discount the 76% portion to bring the bodies on board.

 

Now let’s bring it back to your particular list of expenses – not all of the $700 in additional expenses goes into Carnival’s coffers. Costs like airline tickets/meals while on shore don’t all go to Carnival. I took a quick glance of the $700 on what I think may be paid to Carnival and I have it around $350 (can’t tell for sure as some stuff may or may not have been bought on the ship from your brief description). So at the end of the day, you gave Carnival around $700 ($350 base ticket price + $350 in tips/tours/bingo/other stuff) relating to your cruise and the other $400 or so remainder is paid to other travel related service providers.

 

Of course everyone will have different numbers on their respective cruises depending on how far they have to fly and how much extra they spend while on board the ship. I live less than 45 minutes from San Francisco pier, so if I cruise out of SF to Alaska, I can save money by having my brother in law drop us off at the pier and save on the hotel and airfare to fly to Seattle for the cruise. My only incremental cost is to buy him a cheap $10 ugly orange t-shirt that he will never wear. But then I have other hidden cost like I would need to take extra days off from work if I sail from SF – that is lost vacation time. So even for us bean counter, trying to compute the “true cost” isn’t an easy task.

 

In theory, if you had not used the $120 coupon on Southwest and redeemed your Hilton points, your final cost will be much higher than $1,100, probably more like $1,350. So while the other costs are not actual cash outlays, they are still “cost” to you unless the SWA and Hilton points are subject to expire immediately if you don’t use them, you have consumed a savings that you otherwise could use later on.

 

In other words, in your next land based vacation, you would need to pay extra for SWA flights and Hilton hotels because you used up the credits for the cruise vacation. So you may have understated the “real” cost of the cruise and overstated the next cost of the land vacation. Perhaps you need to revise your post title to your cruise now have a “real” cost of $1,350…

[Taxguy77]

Roz,

 

Nope, not statistician or actuary. Even worst occupation – CPA (aka bean counter). Guess even in my non working time, my accounting thought process carries over in my postings.

 

Without sounding too much like a finance article, if one looks at the latest 10Q that Carnival (including all the other wholly owned subsidiaries such as Princess/HAL/Cunard/Costa) just filed with the SEC on June 30, you will see that recession has had an impact on the cruise industry in that the occupancy rate is now down to 103.6% for past 6 months period for 2009 versus 104.5% the same 6 month in 2008. Occupancy of 100% is defined to be all double berths filled. So you go over 100% when you have triple and quad cabins filled.

 

On the revenue front, for 6 months period, the decrease was 11% from $6.5 billion to $5.8 billion. Most of that is attributable to recession as well as the H1N1 flu related issues. Within the revenue component, 76% comes from passenger tickets and the rest 24% are concessions and other fees.

Thanks for the info, as a retired CPA I was wondering about the revenue mix. I had suspected a higher ship and lower other mix. Of course the other items carry a much larger profit %, hence the new mega cruisers (12 extra cost restaurants on one ship?:confused:)

Before your eyes start to roll over from boredom, the key points to note from these numbers are that:

 

1 – They need you to be on the cruise ships as often as possible to keep up the 103% occupancy rate. Just like Vegas have its mouse traps of freebie stuff at the front to attract the gamblers to go inside, cruise ships all have headline grabbing gimmicks to get you on their ships. And on the older ships, they heavily discount the ticket prices. I am sure everyone has seen super low fares advertised here on cc as well as all the internet agencies. All to bring as many warm bodies aboard as possible.

That's not much. They track your play for "comps", which is essentially a return of a % of the winnings they expect from your play. DW qualifies for free tournaments, room, meals and such, but when we asked if we could have a limo pick us up were given a "Sorry"2 – Once you are aboard, you are only contributing to the 76% of the revenue from your passenger ticket price. The other 24% bucket is from all Bingo and drinks and whatever shipboard activities you participate in. That is why many cruisers complained about in their cruise reviews on cruise lines trying to sell them drinks/bingo/spa. The cruise lines need to pump up as much of the 24% number as possible since they had to discount the 76% portion to bring the bodies on board.

My only incremental cost is to buy him a cheap $10 ugly orange t-shirt that he will never wear. But then I have other hidden cost like I would need to take extra days off from work if I sail from SF – that is lost vacation time. So even for us bean counter, trying to compute the “true cost” isn’t an easy task.[/color][/font]

Not lost vacation time, sea days are the best!:D Half our cruises have been TA's

[harryfat1]

Roz,

 

Nope, not statistician or actuary. Even worst occupation – CPA (aka bean counter). Guess even in my non working time, my accounting thought process carries over in my postings.

 

Without sounding too much like a finance article, if one looks at the latest 10Q that Carnival (including all the other wholly owned subsidiaries such as Princess/HAL/Cunard/Costa) just filed with the SEC on June 30, you will see that recession has had an impact on the cruise industry in that the occupancy rate is now down to 103.6% for past 6 months period for 2009 versus 104.5% the same 6 month in 2008. Occupancy of 100% is defined to be all double berths filled. So you go over 100% when you have triple and quad cabins filled.

 

On the revenue front, for 6 months period, the decrease was 11% from $6.5 billion to $5.8 billion. Most of that is attributable to recession as well as the H1N1 flu related issues. Within the revenue component, 76% comes from passenger tickets and the rest 24% are concessions and other fees.

Thanks for the info, as a retired CPA I was wondering about the revenue mix. I had suspected a higher ship and lower other mix. Of course the other items carry a much larger profit %, hence the new mega cruisers (12 extra cost restaurants on one ship?:confused:)

Before your eyes start to roll over from boredom, the key points to note from these numbers are that:

 

1 – They need you to be on the cruise ships as often as possible to keep up the 103% occupancy rate. Just like Vegas have its mouse traps of freebie stuff at the front to attract the gamblers to go inside, cruise ships all have headline grabbing gimmicks to get you on their ships. And on the older ships, they heavily discount the ticket prices. I am sure everyone has seen super low fares advertised here on cc as well as all the internet agencies. All to bring as many warm bodies aboard as possible.

That's not much. They track your play for "comps", which is essentially a return of a % of the winnings they expect from your play. DW qualifies for free tournaments, room, meals and such, but when we asked if we could have a limo pick us up were given a "Sorry"2 – Once you are aboard, you are only contributing to the 76% of the revenue from your passenger ticket price. The other 24% bucket is from all Bingo and drinks and whatever shipboard activities you participate in. That is why many cruisers complained about in their cruise reviews on cruise lines trying to sell them drinks/bingo/spa. The cruise lines need to pump up as much of the 24% number as possible since they had to discount the 76% portion to bring the bodies on board.

My only incremental cost is to buy him a cheap $10 ugly orange t-shirt that he will never wear. But then I have other hidden cost like I would need to take extra days off from work if I sail from SF – that is lost vacation time. So even for us bean counter, trying to compute the “true cost” isn’t an easy task.[/color][/font]

Not lost vacation time, sea days are the best!:D Half our cruises have been TA's

 

1 - Yeah, if you look at the Carnival’s FY08 annual report, you see that starting back from FY06 to FY08, the % of passenger revenue to total revenue for past 3 years has been very consistent at 75 to 76% mix. So the cruise lines have been very good at pricing the cruise tickets to be at the level they wanted to bring people in.

 

It would be interesting to talk to someone working on the cost side of the cruise lines to see what the profit margins of various sections are. As far as gross margin is concerned, what about stuff like bingo? Other than the one prize to be given away, say $500, there are no other COGS. For bingo, all you need is to have one person call out the number and few others to collect the money for the cards. There are no additional costs whether you have 100 players or 400 players. It’s all pure profit after the break even point.

 

Unlike the restaurants side of the house, where you have to buy food and effort to prepare it, such that if you have 4X as many people come in, your COGS also need to increase correspondingly. So while the restaurant side may have a more constant profit margin (e.g. $15 profit for every steak ordered), bingo has potential for very high profit if there are more people playing.

 

2 - Sure, if you play often enough at the casinos, getting comps is the way to go. But less than 50% of the people out there play with any consistency to get comped, other than a free drink here and there. My point is that Vegas strip casinos draws the casual crowd with volcanoes/water fountains/gondolas or whatever special attractions to get people to come inside to gamble. The trick is to get the people in. While some people like you are able to take advantage of the system and get comped, most are not and hence they contribute to the profit margin. As accountants, we all know “somebody” has to pay for the cost of the lights and gimmicks and it’s not the casinos.

 

3 – Lost Vacation time. Agreed those sea days are great. What I was trying to say there was that if I cruise out of SF, it’s a 10 or 11 day cruise instead of 7 day cruise, which means I need to take more vacation days that I don’t have in my vacation bank at work. So I would need to take unpaid days off from work to be on this longer cruise. That unpaid days are costs that is not factored into the “cash outlay cost”. So I was trying to say other than the straight cash outlay, there are other costs out there to be considered.

[mpicard]

The true cost of the cruise, however, is taking what you spent and divide it by the number of nights. With an average hotel stay alone at $100-$150 a night, I still think cruising, even with all the extras added in, is a good deal.

Yes, but if most of us walked into any hotel room and it was as tiny as a cruise ship room, and had a rediculously small bathroom like a cruise ship room, we'd find another hotel or demand our money back. We put up with cruise ship rooms becaue it's the norm, but they can't compare with hotel rooms. I don't think cruising is a bad deal, and I love the ease of booking a cruise, but I think land and cruise vacations are closer than most of us realize. I find some of my 7-day beach stays in Florida cost less than a 7-day cruise and I get a lot more of beach time---but no towel animals :(

[Ninjachyck]

Thanks to the OP for all the info. We already know that a $600US cruise costs us at least double, as we pay more for airfare in Canada. My upcoming cruise on the Miracle, inside cabin 4F is already up to $1234 CAD/person and we haven't even set foot on the ship yet!! We know that cruises aren't necessarily a better deal than the all-inclusives we can get, we just like to cruise! :)

 

We also know from our past cruises that incl. some excursions, our on-board account and then some things at port, we budget another $1000 for the 8 day cruise (we usually come in under this).

 

So, our $670US cruise (just cruise) will turn out to be around $1750 CAD each when it's all said and done...

[lindsers83]

It seems to me the answer here lies in the ability one has to say "no" to something...or someone. I have no qualms about saying no to someone trying to get me to buy something, especially if they badger me about it. I like to know what things are going to cost up front so that I can plan accordingly. This has been great for that (FYI, getting ready for my first cruise here...). I already have my money figured for tips (onboard and for porters), calculated gas and parking already (driving with friends from NC to FL - huge savings for not flying), have my excursion in check, and as for drinks and anything else on board... Well, I would LOVE to have a massage, but do I HAVE to have one at sea...no. Might I have a drink or 2, sure, but that's $15 bucks or so I am already planning on. One photo perhaps, no more than one. A souvenir, sure, but nothing ridiculous and I've already put a spending cap on that for myself.

 

What can I say? I like my money budgeted and to know where it's headed so I can feel more freedom to truly RELAX. Don't have to spend the dough to have a heck of a good time!!

[sandravb79]

I haven't made the final sum of my two previous cruises and don't think I want to :eek:

However, we are pretty frugal cruisers.

 

No casino, no Bingo, no spa, no auctions, no specialty restaurants.

Almost no bar tab. I drink way more than enough at home, that I don't feel the need to pay the high prices for drinks on vacation. It's a good detox "cure", lol.

We did a bit of shopping, however, the items we bought will be "reimbursed" by family members. They all told us "buy your Christmas/ birthday/ whatever gift yourself if you see something you like, we never know what to buy you".

Out of 2 cruises, we only booked one excursion, through the ship, the Tulum ruins when the ship was in Cozumel. The fact there was a ferry to the main land to be taken was way out of my comfort level of doing it on my own, I was too scared to see the ship sail away. With me still being on land.

The upcoming cruise, I don't think we'll take excursions, we'll DIY.

 

And I can assure you, we have enjoyed the cruise a lot both times!

[hazeleyez3]

haleleyez3 said:

 

'We did an Alaskan cruise on Princess a few years ago and it totaled around $6000.

 

Base cruisefare: $2900 (balcony)

Airfare (Baltimore to Anchorage): $700/person

Airfare (Vancouver to Baltimore): $400/person

Pre-cruise hotel: $80

Train from Anchorage to Whittier: $100/person (I think) (glass all around and wonderful views)

Excursions: $350

No onboard costs'

 

how could that be? there are at least the auto tips:confused:

 

 

We always pre-pay our tips. Sorry about not including that.

[downsized]

This is a great thread, and an eye opener, for many, I assume.

 

My bride and I are about to go on our first cruise (and our first trip to Hawaii!).

Historically, we have spent our vacations in Las Vegas, where airfare and hotels typically cost us about $2000. We budget $100 per day (pp) for gambling and drinks (neither of us is much for gambling!)...and $100 (pp) per day for food and "spending".

I did the math before booking our cruise, and we both know how much the cruise is, and how much the airfare is.

 

Yes, the cruise will cost more, but we know that up front. (We've prepaid slightly over $1200 just for excursions!)

 

No one should jump into an expensive endeavor without figuring the costs beforehand.

 

Can we really afford it? Well...not weekly, but once in 40 years? Uh...yeah....

 

Still...this is a great post! ....and we both thank you for it!

 

(no bingo for me, and no pedicures for the cat!)

[hazeleyez3]

This is a great thread, and an eye opener, for many, I assume.

 

My bride and I are about to go on our first cruise (and our first trip to Hawaii!).

Historically, we have spent our vacations in Las Vegas, where airfare and hotels typically cost us about $2000. We budget $100 per day (pp) for gambling and drinks (neither of us is much for gambling!)...and $100 (pp) per day for food and "spending".

I did the math before booking our cruise, and we both know how much the cruise is, and how much the airfare is.

 

Yes, the cruise will cost more, but we know that up front. (We've prepaid slightly over $1200 just for excursions!)

 

No one should jump into an expensive endeavor without figuring the costs beforehand.

 

Can we really afford it? Well...not weekly, but once in 40 years? Uh...yeah....

 

Still...this is a great post! ....and we both thank you for it!

 

(no bingo for me, and no pedicures for the cat!)

 

I wish I had found you sooner. We did NCL's Hawaii cruise for our honeymoon as well. What we did was rent cars in the ports and do some of the excursions ourselves (saved us some money, and we could leave when we wanted). I know you are only a week away but maybe, at least in the 2 overnight ports you might want to look into that (Maybe see some things you didn't think you had anymore time/money for). Also, I don't know if you have them, but there is a series of books called Hawaii Revealed - one for each island. They are written by 2 natives and give you a lot of ideas on things to do. As being a former bride not so long ago, I know that this might be the most frustrating and time-consuming days, but if you have a second you might want to check them out.

[chasm4u]

Does anyone ever win bingo?

[Murrumbeena]

Wow:eek::eek:

[Cruise Envy]

Great post! I learned a long time ago to read the fine print. The cruise we are pricing is $459 pp for 1/2, and $349 for 3/4, but after I add prepaid gratuities and vacation insurance (required for my sanity), we are at $2453.80. On the bright side, I've paid $1800 for a 3 br condo for a week before. We won't be big drinkers, or big shore excursion folks. I'm telling the family the SHIP is the destination!

 

I am really excited to know I don't have to sweat the price of meals each day, or basic entertainment. I obviously need to work on my parking costs at the port ($15/day, are you KIDDING ME?), but hopefully this thread will remind me of things I have forgotten, and tihs will be an unshocking cost vacation. :)

[klfrodo]

Roz,

 

Nope, not statistician or actuary. Even worst occupation – CPA (aka bean counter). Guess even in my non working time, my accounting thought process carries over in my postings.

 

Nothing wrong with saving money with cabin selection. As a CPA, cost cutting in my blood. If you are cruise frequently, you can look into being a shareholder of the cruise companies that typically give you $50 to $100 ship board credits for the 3 to 7 night cruises.

 

The key for the cruise companies to make money is for you to be on the ship. They can’t sell the bingo and drinks and spa treatments to empty bunks. So they are willing to heavily discount the base cruise fares to attract the cruisers on board and then start to sell them the drinks/tours/whatever else to recoup the discounted fares. If you are disciplined and stick to a pre set budget, you will be fine and get a great bargain in return.

 

Without sounding too much like a finance article, if one looks at the latest 10Q that Carnival (including all the other wholly owned subsidiaries such as Princess/HAL/Cunard/Costa) just filed with the SEC on June 30, you will see that recession has had an impact on the cruise industry in that the occupancy rate is now down to 103.6% for past 6 months period for 2009 versus 104.5% the same 6 month in 2008. Occupancy of 100% is defined to be all double berths filled. So you go over 100% when you have triple and quad cabins filled.

 

On the revenue front, for 6 months period, the decrease was 11% from $6.5 billion to $5.8 billion. Most of that is attributable to recession as well as the H1N1 flu related issues. Within the revenue component, 76% comes from passenger tickets and the rest 24% are concessions and other fees.

 

Before your eyes start to roll over from boredom, the key points to note from these numbers are that:

 

1 – They need you to be on the cruise ships as often as possible to keep up the 103% occupancy rate. Just like Vegas have its mouse traps of freebie stuff at the front to attract the gamblers to go inside, cruise ships all have headline grabbing gimmicks to get you on their ships. And on the older ships, they heavily discount the ticket prices. I am sure everyone has seen super low fares advertised here on cc as well as all the internet agencies. All to bring as many warm bodies aboard as possible.

 

2 – Once you are aboard, you are only contributing to the 76% of the revenue from your passenger ticket price. The other 24% bucket is from all Bingo and drinks and whatever shipboard activities you participate in. That is why many cruisers complained about in their cruise reviews on cruise lines trying to sell them drinks/bingo/spa. The cruise lines need to pump up as much of the 24% number as possible since they had to discount the 76% portion to bring the bodies on board.

 

Now let’s bring it back to your particular list of expenses – not all of the $700 in additional expenses goes into Carnival’s coffers. Costs like airline tickets/meals while on shore don’t all go to Carnival. I took a quick glance of the $700 on what I think may be paid to Carnival and I have it around $350 (can’t tell for sure as some stuff may or may not have been bought on the ship from your brief description). So at the end of the day, you gave Carnival around $700 ($350 base ticket price + $350 in tips/tours/bingo/other stuff) relating to your cruise and the other $400 or so remainder is paid to other travel related service providers.

 

Of course everyone will have different numbers on their respective cruises depending on how far they have to fly and how much extra they spend while on board the ship. I live less than 45 minutes from San Francisco pier, so if I cruise out of SF to Alaska, I can save money by having my brother in law drop us off at the pier and save on the hotel and airfare to fly to Seattle for the cruise. My only incremental cost is to buy him a cheap $10 ugly orange t-shirt that he will never wear. But then I have other hidden cost like I would need to take extra days off from work if I sail from SF – that is lost vacation time. So even for us bean counter, trying to compute the “true cost” isn’t an easy task.

 

In theory, if you had not used the $120 coupon on Southwest and redeemed your Hilton points, your final cost will be much higher than $1,100, probably more like $1,350. So while the other costs are not actual cash outlays, they are still “cost” to you unless the SWA and Hilton points are subject to expire immediately if you don’t use them, you have consumed a savings that you otherwise could use later on.

 

In other words, in your next land based vacation, you would need to pay extra for SWA flights and Hilton hotels because you used up the credits for the cruise vacation. So you may have understated the “real” cost of the cruise and overstated the next cost of the land vacation. Perhaps you need to revise your post title to your cruise now have a “real” cost of $1,350…

 

Harry, Thanks for the well written breakdown of some financial things that go on in the background.

 

One of my pet peeves are people who justify driving 18 hours one way rather than flying. The justification is "I only spend $250 on gas".

I "think" that if the drive is part of the family bonding and gathering process and they enjoy this and it's part of the vacation, then, OK. But if the whole intent by driving is to "save money", then they're not seeing the whole picture as apposed to flying in a day early.

My thinking is that EVERYONE's time has a $$ value. From CEO, to laborer, to housewife, etc,etc. Everyones time has value and that time has to be calculated into the cost/benefit ratio.

 

What are your thoughts as a CPA?

[DSJ28]

This is a great reminder that I have to start figuring out a real budget for my 7 night W Caribbean cruise in Sept. I kinda of have an idea floating around in my mind about how much this should cost me - but I've already gone over by $150 on the cost of the cruise itself. Thanks for the wakeup call.

 

...it looks like manicuring your cat during bingo cost almost as much as the cruise!

 

This cracked me up! :D

[Adri204]

Its all in priorities to me imo. I mean Im sailing single/solo on my first cruise October 31st 2010. I am taking a 7 nite rivera cruise and its going to cost me 980.00 for me including tax. I then have to add on tips and am debating on the soda card. I dont drink alcohol at all so for me that wont be an issue. However I like the fru fru drinks thier just wont be any alcohol in them but I wont order a lot.

 

My biggest expense will be shore excursions as I plan to splurge. I also know I will do some bingo and a wee bit of gambling. However my idea of big gambling is to do quarter slots and dollar slots like once instead of penny and nickle slots woohoo.

 

I tend to backpack and stay in hostels so this is a bit of a splurge for me my first time. I do love the idea of a floating hotel and not having to pack and repack all the time so im excited.

 

The biggest thing for me is the flying in and then picking a hotel to stay at. Im used to paying 20-35.00 a nite at a hostel so to pay for a hotel is a bit differnt to me.

 

However I dont want to risk it so im flying in a day early also that way I wont be tired the night before.

 

The point is its all about priorities and interests and what we want to spend our money on.

 

Thanks for the great thread and Im very excited about cruising,

 

Adri :)

[laurenpie]

For myself and my husband it's going to be $1,500 each to fly from Australia to Los Angeles

$200-ish to fly from LA to Miami

$200 for 2 nights accomodation in Miami

$700 each for 7night Carnival Valour cruise (Western Caribbean with all prepaid tips & port taxes included)

 

Then while we are in America, we are stopping off in Vegas and LA (on the way home) which adds to the $$$.

 

Makes me wish that I lived in America - you guys get such cheap cruises, and cost us a fortune to get there! :)

[CruiseyWoman]

This was a thoughtful post. Thank you. I coordinated a family cruise (19 of us)

Serenade!!!!.

 

Half of the group will be first-time cruisers. This helps bring financial reality to the trip for first-timers. :)

 

 

 

RCI Serenade of the Seas - Sept.2010

RCI Freedom of the Seas - Sept. 2008

Carnival Fascination - July 1995

[Roz]

Glad you found this thread helpful. Have fun on your family cruise!

 

Roz

[Raindrops27]

JLC@SD, I've also been a victim of "free tickets" to TN Titan and Nashville Predator games.

 

Rav4lady, didn't mean to depress you. :D

 

Glad everyone found this thread helpful. Believe me, it's going to help me budget for my next cruise.

 

Roz

 

WoW~ Maybe, I will downgrade back to an inside. So, I can have money for extra.. This is very sobering.. Thank you Roz!!

[gkbiiii]

I really believe in pre-booking while on a ship to get the ship onboard credit. My $200 onboard credit on the Adventure (13 night Transatlantic) really came in handy for a emergency trip to the ship doctor, at a cost of $200. Now I did have two medical travel policies, which I hope to be paid back for. Still onboard credit do cover hard cost items, like gratuities and other fun but needed things, like Barcelona city tours/airport transfers!

[gkbiiii]

That's annoying, they've save a lot of money in their ticket but spend too much in a bar. Drinking alcoholics will really increase your bill.

 

 

If you really are a bar person, book Celebrity where you can have an all inclusive option for $50.00 per day. While I did not drink enough to come out ahead, there were several couples I met and sugested it to; that saved big bucks$$$$.

[Bahama Gal85]

I'm going on my first cruise this Sunday :D Carnival Valor W. Caribbean(we live in the Bahamas if that makes a diff) OV cabin

 

Cruise: $950 pp

Plane Ticket: $240 to Mia

Flying morning of so no hotel room

Pre-Cruise shopping (clothes & sub block): $200

Spending money: $700 ($100 per day)

That has to cover EVERYTHING because that's all I have cash!!!!

I'll report the specifics when I get back!! :D

[aml3679]

My husband and I have been married 25 years this year. We had many more lean years over or marriage than not. Both our girls are married and we have better paying jobs now. We are new to cruising so I am sure I have made some decisions that I could have made different choices. This will also be our 1st vacation EVER not visiting family. So, I went - go big or stay home (I know it is go home ... but).

 

• Accommodations for our baby (cat) at the Cat's Cradle Featherbed Inn for Cat's $240 for 2 weeks.
  
• Limousines to and from the airport to our home and to our hotel in Vancouver - $300 with tolls and tip (about the same price as transportation to airport or parking our vehicle somewhere else)
  
• Round-Trip Flights to Vancouver and Home from San Diego - $800
  
• 5 Star Hotel in Vancouver for 2 Nights - $500 (might use Hotwire next time)
  
• Touring, entertainment, etc. in Vancouver - $300
  
• C3 cabin for 2 - $2400 (we booked early)
  
• Pre-Paid Gratuities - $200
  
• Love Knot Renewal Package - $650 - we are celebrating 25 years and the birth of our first grandchild.
  
• Wedding Attire (I never had a wedding dress and he has never worn a tux) - $500
  
• Riedel Tasting Classes - $174
  
• Speciality Restaurant for 2 nights - $140
  
• Celebrity Shore Excursion - $300
  
• Other Shore Excursions arranged via Cruise Critic - $500
  
• Miscellaneous Expenses while in port and on the ship - $1000
  
• 4 Star Hotel in San Diego $150
  
• Memembership to the San Diego Zoo - $100 (we planned on going any way and the money goes for a good cause)
  
• BUT - planning our first cruise, having our first grandchild, renewing our vows to each other, and, celebrating where our life is now compared to when we first met each other - PRICELESS! Otherwise about $8,250 if we add everything up.
  

You only live once.

[anewmac]

im lol that your Cat Sitter was more expensive then your Bar tab LOL.

 

But nice going! love seeing everyones savings!