Magic - 10 night Eastern Caribbean

[LAS2AMS]

We started out doing the resort and short cruise vacations. I don't think I would fly to Florida for a four day cruise. Even a 7 day I would add on a couple of nights at a resort. I guess it really depends on where you are coming from. I'm selective too. I look for the deals.

I have found cruising out of Texas there's are a lot of Texans and California a lot of Californians, New York ditto. Florida the same, but I do find more people come from all over for the PC cruises.

We cruise and travel often. We're fortunate to have the income but the true enabler is that we also look for deals that stretch our dollars. But that's what separates people like you and me from the masses. Good example - we traveled to WDW with my brother's family several years ago. My brother spent $300 more per airline ticket than us because he wanted earlier flights -- less than 2 hours and $1500 total for his family. We can afford that $1500, he cannot, but he told me 'you don't look at price - you buy what you want, pay the bill when it comes and forget about it.' I mention this only because it's the same mentality many other people have.

We book Holiday cruises well in advance - if you want the lowest price, you have to. Otherwise we book to take advantage of last minute discounts. This also allows us to control our total spending by getting a fair gauge of what airfare is. But most other people book what they want to book, regardless of price.

 

[Cfabar1]

But most other people book what they want to book, regardless of price.

Not us.... our options are extremely limited... in our household the easiest thing to do would be to book that cruise that takes off after Christmas and concludes around new years.... That's the best time for us to get away....

Sadly, we just can't justify the prices.... so we make other choices....and we would truly love to do a NYE cruise, but the prices are just jaw dropping, and we are unwilling to spend that amount.

That said, in our particular lives with work and family commitments, at least for now, we will never be able to take advantage of the lowest cruise prices of the season, save for maybe the occasional 3 night September cruise. That's truly about it sadly. So the choice for us becomes - do we want to save the money and not go at all, or do we go and understand that, at least in our line of work, buying cruises at the more expensive times is "the cost of doing business".

 

[LAS2AMS]

Not us.... our options are extremely limited... in our household the easiest thing to do would be to book that cruise that takes off after Christmas and concludes around new years.... That's the best time for us to get away....

Sadly, we just can't justify the prices.... so we make other choices....and we would truly love to do a NYE cruise, but the prices are just jaw dropping, and we are unwilling to spend that amount.

That said, in our particular lives with work and family commitments, at least for now, we will never be able to take advantage of the lowest cruise prices of the season, save for maybe the occasional 3 night September cruise. That's truly about it sadly. So the choice for us becomes - do we want to save the money and not go at all, or do we go and understand that, at least in our line of work, buying cruises at the more expensive times is "the cost of doing business".

My line of work prevents me from cruising about half the year... and it's the half when prices are typically at the lowest . But if you're aggressive, and not limiting to DCL, you can find deals. For example, last August we purchased our Christmas/ New Years (2024->2025) cruise. It's 16-nights to Hawaii from Los Angeles and priced at just over $3,000 for four people. There was a promotional $200 OBC offered, $50 for booking through a travel agency, $150 for future cruise deposit program and $250 Military. So, $3000 interior room w/$650 OBC and $185 Costco cash card. We've successfully upgraded to a balcony for $1000 the last two years, hopefully we'll make it three in a row.

A Disney cruise would be nice but they don't do non-positioning 16-day voyages and even if they did, I could probably buy a new Toyota Camry for less.

 

[Cfabar1]

My line of work prevents me from cruising about half the year... and it's the half when prices are typically at the lowest . But if you're aggressive, and not limiting to DCL, you can find deals. For example, last August we purchased our Christmas/ New Years (2024->2025) cruise. It's 16-nights to Hawaii from Los Angeles and priced at just over $3,000 for four people. There was a promotional $200 OBC offered, $50 for booking through a travel agency, $150 for future cruise deposit program and $250 Military. So, $3000 interior room w/$650 OBC and $185 Costco cash card. We've successfully upgraded to a balcony for $1000 the last two years, hopefully we'll make it three in a row.

A Disney cruise would be nice but they don't do non-positioning 16-day voyages and even if they did, I could probably buy a new Toyota Camry for less.

Good tip! Was looking up celebrity and RCL cruises for 2025/2026... totally right, best to book early!

 

[DCLMP]

My line of work prevents me from cruising about half the year... and it's the half when prices are typically at the lowest . But if you're aggressive, and not limiting to DCL, you can find deals. For example, last August we purchased our Christmas/ New Years (2024->2025) cruise. It's 16-nights to Hawaii from Los Angeles and priced at just over $3,000 for four people. There was a promotional $200 OBC offered, $50 for booking through a travel agency, $150 for future cruise deposit program and $250 Military. So, $3000 interior room w/$650 OBC and $185 Costco cash card. We've successfully upgraded to a balcony for $1000 the last two years, hopefully we'll make it three in a row.

A Disney cruise would be nice but they don't do non-positioning 16-day voyages and even if they did, I could probably buy a new Toyota Camry for less.

The longest I've done on Disney was 12 day to Iceland. We paid 6k for four in an ocean view. This was 8 years ago though.

 

[MonaMN]

The other factor for us is that doing a short trip to WDW plus something else (whether that's DCL, Universal, etc) feels significantly more expensive than picking one or the other because you lose out on the best ticket deals and still have a fairly high priced cruise.

So while our first cruise was a land/sea combo, we probably won't do that again. And we have to fly (or drive multiple days) to get to a port, so if we did a short cruise, we'd need to do something else to make the trip worth it.