What Trip Is Right for You In this Rapidly Changing Seascape?

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Most years, we approach summer with visions of fall through spring cruise and tour deals lingering on through peak summer vacation months.

We store those great winter deals in our brains like a carton of eggs to be broken later to make that perfect omelet.

If that poor analogy brings to mind the old commercial about "this is your brain on drugs" as it did for me, sorry about that.

Long story short, those metaphorical eggs have gone way up in price, just as real eggs have at the grocery store recently.  If you only eat eggs at restaurants or have gone vegan like a surprisingly large percentage of the population, then let's make those travel deals more akin to seeing gas at $2 a gallon a couple of years back, expecting to find them when you drive the Big Sur Coastline en route to catching a cruise from Seattle in the Summer of '22.

Coming out of artificially depressed demand and lingering doubts that resulted in great deals as cruise lines and tour companies were slowly re-booting, the impact may feel more pronounced when you start looking into booking your dream trip.

Keep in mind that there is pretty rampant inflation unrelated to that dynamic of pent-up travel demand pushing up the costs for travel vendors.

If it costs twice as much to fill your car's tank with gas, figure the same is true for an airline and a cruise ship.  Corporations don't tend to eat price or tax increases so much as pass those hikes onto consumers.  After all, they're in business to make money, and travel vendors have been forced to flush a lot of money down the drain over the last couple of years that stretched considerably beyond "two weeks to flatten the curve."

As always, some fortunate folks have plenty of money to travel and price increases are more inconvenient than stopping them getting that balcony or suite.  If that's you, read no further.  Just pick a cruise from one of the videos linked here!

One way to save money is to forego air by starting your cruise closer to home.  If you're doing that, you might also gamble on finding a last-minute deal, which often are for staterooms without advance assignment and do not include "free" amenities.  Otherwise, I'm afraid higher air prices because of higher fuel prices might take away potential savings.

You can also choose a cruise that won't require shore excursions to have fun in the sun, such as tropical vacations that we usually visualize when we think of cruising.  This is what Julie and I did on our Mexican Riviera and Bahamas cruises taken under those bargain winter rates advertised to entice travelers back to leisure travel, and we enjoyed fantastic trips.

If you have a tight budget for your family with school-aged children whose schedules require traveling in peak times, a rude awakening may come when you try to get a triple or quad room on family lines like Royal Caribbean, Disney, or Carnival, because of targeted marketing and past experience.  Some of those third and fourth rates have really jumped, especially if your children are older than 12, and rooms that hold three or four guests also may have higher first and second guest prices.

Solutions?

You can book early, but let's face it, it's too late to do that for this summer.  

Norwegian Cruise Lines frequently has reduced rates for third and fourth guests, though "free" on "select cruises" excludes most of this summer.

Consider other cruise lines that you may associate with sophisticated adults like Celebrity, Princess or Holland America.  They have wonderful kids' clubs too, and I've seen considerably lower pricing on some of their triple and quad staterooms, especially if you forego the "always included" type of amenities which for summer have been removed to offer a considerably lower tier or pricing available.

These "all in" pricing programs are great, but if you really are more of a tea-total type who rarely has more than a single glass of wine a day, then ask about a la carte cruise only prices.

Rather than being enticed by ads that promise 30% off or free kids or BOGO or free beverages accompanied by images that look a lot like your family, look at the bottom line.  Remember, ads are simply intended to get you to act, not necessarily choose wisely.  They know how to push your buttons to get phones to ring.  Instead of zeroing in on one specific fish to catch, cast a wide net and make an informed choice.

Bottom line, if you want to go on vacation, choose the one you can actually afford rather than letting another summer of your life be slip by.  And book that dream cruise for 2023, while selection is excellent.

Wes