WHAT IF I TOLD YOU THAT CRUISES CAN BE PRETTY CHEAP?
Earlier this year, Michelle and I were planning on going to Europe for a few months, so we (mostly Michelle) began looking at airline tickets…and boy were we surprised! Since we’re retired we do our best to travel as economically as we can, and the airline ticket prices were making it almost impossible to keep anywhere near our budget. That’s when Michelle found what are known as “Repositioning Cruises”. When she showed me what she’d found, I was instantly amazed! Why? Well, first let me explain what “Repositioning Cruises” are.
Repositioning Cruises are what Cruise Lines call it when they move a ship from one port to another without scheduling a return trip. The reason that they do this is so they can move their ships to where they are needed most, and this is mostly dependent on the weather seasons throughout the year. For example, most people don’t want to cruise around Europe in the winter time, so what do Cruise Lines do to still make money? They sail many of their ships that had been stationed in Europe during the warmer months to places further south like Florida or the Caribbean! Likewise, during the late Spring, Summer and Fall seasons when most people want to cruise further north, the Cruise Lines accommodate this by moving their ships north in early Spring to those locations where they will spend the warm seasons before returning again south in late Fall.
So why was I so amazed when Michelle showed me what she’d found regarding these Repositioning Cruises? It’s because many of them are CHEAP!
For example, Michelle had found a Royal Carribean 16 day transatlantic cruise that left from New York City on April 30th and arrived in Rome, Italy on May 15th, making stops in Portugal, Spain, France and Florence, Italy along the way. The best part about this transatlantic journey? The PRICE! For 16 days (15 nights), the cost for both of us would be right at $1600.00! This may sound like a lot for 16 days, but once one considers that this price included the room and food for both of us (including all the entertainment found aboard any cruise ship) this was a really great deal! Prior to finding this cruise, we were looking at paying about $1000.00 each just for our airline tickets which would have meant that we would still need to pay for 15 nights of lodging, and food on top of that. So $1600.00 for everything was, in my estimation, amazing! So we booked it immediately!
Most Cruise Lines offer these good deals on their Repositioning Cruises. To sail a cruise ship across the ocean costs them a lot of money, so they want to make sure that they can get as many passengers onboard as they can to offset that cost. Since it’s only a one-way way voyage, it’s not as easy for them to fill the ship if they don’t offer a deep discount to their customers. But just because the cruise is discounted doesn’t mean that any of the amenities, food, or entertainment are degraded in any way. Everything is open and available just as it would be on a regular cruise. Also, the ship still stops at different places along the way to provide shore excursions, just like any other cruise one might take. We were delighted with the service that we had on our cruise, and enjoyed the “sea days” when no land was in sight. When we left NYC, it was 8 days before we saw land again at Madeira, Portugal!
How was Michelle able to find this cruise? And more importantly, how can you find a Repositioning Cruise that fits both your budget and your wanderlust? The easiest way to find one of these cruises is to go to any one of the Cruise Line websites and do a search for their cruises that last longer than 12 nights (most of their websites allow you to filter cruises by the “number of nights”).
I just did a search - here are just some of the results
- 14 night cruise – 4/21/2024 – 5/5/2024 – Miami to Barcelona, Spain – $893.00 per person
- Stops in Seville, Spain – Malaga, Spain – Alicante, Spain – Valencia, Spain
- 13 night cruise – 11/24/2024 – 12/7/2024 – Barcelona, Spain – Orlando (Port Canaveral), Florida – $664.00 per person
- Stops in Valencia, Spain – Malaga, Spain – Seville, Spain – Madeira, Portugal
- 15 night cruise – 5/1/2024 – 5/16/2024 – Galveston, Tx to Barcelona, Spain – $664.00 per person
- Stops in Nassau, Bahamas – Ponta Delgada, Azores – Malaga, Spain – Valencia, Spain
- And many more!
- 12 night cruise – 4/15/2024 – 4/27/2024 – Baltimore to Barcelona, Spain – $709.00 per person
- Stops in Ponta Delgada, Azores – Malaga, Spain – Alicante, Spain
- 14 night cruise – 7/21/2024 – 8/5/2024 – Sydney, Australia to Singapore – $713.00 per person
- Stops in Brisbane, Arlie Beach (Whitsunday Islands) – Cairns – Lombok Island, Indonesia – Bali, Indonesia
- 15 night cruise – 4/24/2024 – 5/10/2024 – New Orleans to Barcelona, Spain – $779.00 per person
- Stops in Nassau, Bahamas – Ponta Delgada, Azores – Funchal/Madeira, Portugal, Alicante, Spain
- And many more!
- 12 night cruise – 11/16/2023 – 11/28/2023 – Hong Kong to Singapore – $699.00 per person
- Stops in Hanoi, Vietnam – Hue, Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam – Bangkok, Thailand – Ko Samui, Thailand
- 16 night cruise – 12/7/2023 – 12/23/2023 – Los Angeles to Chile – $658.00 per person
- Stops in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico – Huatulco, Mexico – Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala – Manta, Ecuador – Lima, Peru – Pisco, Peru
- 13 night cruise – 5/2/2024 – 5/15/2024 – Fort Lauderdale to Southhampton, England – $966.00 per person
- Stops in Ponta Delgada, Azores – Cork, Ireland – Portland / Dorset, UK – Bruges, Belgium
- And many more!
A few things to note on these cruises. The prices listed are for an inside room (meaning you don’t have a window or outside view). When Michelle and I booked ours, we were a little worried that we may not like the inside room, but we wanted to save money and so we took our chances. It turns out we actually loved it! Inside rooms are generally more quiet. They also are great for sleeping because when the lights are turned out, it’s completely dark in your room. We found it to be really cozy! It also gave us more reasons to get out of room during the daytime, to explore everything that the ship had to offer (rather than just spending the whole cruise inside our room). Now, having said that, we allowed the cruise line to pick our room for us and our room ended up being way up front at the bow of the ship. This was not so good on our first full day at sea because the ocean was really rough and we definitely got bounced up and down in our room. We highly recommend that you select a room more in the middle of the ship because it will be a lot smoother if you encounter rough seas.
The cruise we took was really an enjoyable experience! We thought we might get bored on such a long cruise, but we didn’t. It was relaxing and fun and we enjoyed being able to tick several European countries off our list during our shore excursions. In the end, we got to where we were going well fed and rested, and spent less than we would have if we’d flown there! We highly recommend these cruises if you get a chance to do it! And now I’ll leave you with some pictures of stuff we saw along the way…
Have a great day everyone!