How do you afford to cruise so much??

Hopefully living on Guam is wonderful. We will be moving there in a couple of months. What branch of service are you in?

Everyone has their own story or their tips on how to cruise more often, but it comes down to(more or less) one thing: Disposable Income.

 

"How can you cruise so often" can easily be replaced by:

 

"How do you afford to drive that type of car"

"How do you afford to live in that house"

etc

etc

etc

 

If you're trying to figure out how to cruise 4 times per year, and you live in Idaho, and have $30k annual income- good luck.

 

If you're trying to figure how how to cruise 4 times per year and you are retired with an annual income of $120k, living in Florida - easy.

Disposable income and how you spend it!

For example we usually buy cars at around 3 years old-never new and we buy them outright so we do not have a car payment. I am STILL driving a 2005 Camry! Hubby suggested we buy me a newer car for me but I said WHY? this car is great on gas, still looks good and nothing is wrong with it. My thinking is we buy another car when it starts having a lot of expensive repairs.

I do not eat out often, because of health issues and the restaurant food not being very healthy for me. I eat out twice in a month very rarely. Hubby and or daughter will eat out once a week and he will occasionally grab a burger while running errands but not very often.

Long story short, that gives us disposable income for vacations.

It is easy.... We are retired and saved a lot (20% of gross income) all through our working life. Now that we earn more from investment income than we earned while working, we can afford the good life.... The moral here is to save while you are young so you can have an easy and enjoyable retirement.

Within reason I agree with you. I have seen too many of my friends die from cancer in their 40's and 50's and even younger to be to be too frugal now. I do try to enjoy life NOW, but we also save because you do have to plan for your retirement. I will be 60 this summer, so retirement is not far in the offing, but with my heath issues I doubt I will see 80, if I make 75 I will be doing good. My health is going down so fast now, that I feel before long traveling will not be that easy for me, physically or financially.

I know that a lot of people travel even with poor health, but I guess it depends upon what your issues are. Already, I spend a lot of time in the hotel room/stateroom resting up because of my low energy. I am sure it will come to a point when I will say why bother? As I see very little outside my room anyway.

It is easy.... We are retired and saved a lot (20% of gross income) all through our working life. Now that we earn more from investment income than we earned while working, we can afford the good life.... The moral here is to save while you are young so you can have an easy and enjoyable retirement.

Well, I am def. not retired. I live a quiet life to ensure I can afford my son's private school, new car, home and I work hard! I take 4, 5-7night cruises a year and 1 week stay-cation to do my house work. My motto is - work hard, enjoy life now and when I am old and wrinkles set in....relax! Because you only have today and you do not know what tomorrow will bring. Don't get me wrong, I save money everywhere possible for my future and to enjoy my time off.

For us its not that we cant afford to cruise more than once or twice a year, the problem is that we have to fly to get to where we need to be. Its the flight costs that make it so we cant cruise more often... or we would ;)

For us its not that we cant afford to cruise more than once or twice a year, the problem is that we have to fly to get to where we need to be. Its the flight costs that make it so we cant cruise more often... or we would ;)

So true! I live in FL. and can just drive to the Port and usually book cruise and stay packages at hotels. Not to mention, booking a year in advance helps. :0)

The first decision anyone needs to make is how much do you want to travel. Once you look at how much vacation you have and how much money you have to spend you then can see that cruising is a very cost effective way to travel.

My wife and I can generally cruise for less than $300 a day (not including airfare and drinks) and find that most land based travel easily costs this much or more unless you choose to stay in cheap hotels and eat at burger joints.

It's all about choice. I am willing to wait for deals and have no problem sailing in an inside cabin if that's what it takes to fit within my budget.

As far as travel itself my wife and I decided long ago that life is too short to not see the world and what better way to see it than on a cruise ship. We've done a number of Caribbean cruises as well as Alaska, Baltic, Med, Greek Isles, Norwegian Fjords, UK and have Australia/Asia in our sights.

Hope you get on a cruise soon and see what you are missing.

For us its not that we cant afford to cruise more than once or twice a year, the problem is that we have to fly to get to where we need to be. Its the flight costs that make it so we cant cruise more often... or we would ;)

So true! I live in FL. and can just drive to the Port and usually book cruise and stay packages at hotels. Not to mention, booking a year in advance helps. :0)

We are in our mid-seventies, youngest child finished college in 1996, both had reasonably good careers, mortgage is paid off, we are very fortunate to have the free time to do things and the disposable income to pay for them. We only got here by working hard, not frittering income on big cars, cooking good meals at home except for the occasional night out. The old saying: "You get what you pay for" only tells half the story - you also only get what you save for.

We are in our mid-seventies, youngest child finished college in 1996, both had reasonably good careers, mortgage is paid off, we are very fortunate to have the free time to do things and the disposable income to pay for them. We only got here by working hard, not frittering income on big cars, cooking good meals at home except for the occasional night out. The old saying: "You get what you pay for" only tells half the story - you also only get what you save for.

That is awesome! I can't wait for my home to be paid off! If you do things right with a plan and enjoy it, good things will follow. :0)

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I envy all of you! We can only afford to cruise once every 4 or 5 years. I would be happy if we could do it every other year.

I envy all of you! We can only afford to cruise once every 4 or 5 years. I would be happy if we could do it every other year.

I can say I am very blessed! But if I couldn't do it anymore, I would still be content with just living in Fl. And hitting the beach or nature trails/camping etc. Life is good and I enjoy it as much as possible.

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So how do many afford to cruise and travel? Well, start with getting a very good education, then work your way into a decent job, then learn to save and invest money, etc etc. And perhaps not have too many children :).

Hank

For us its not that we cant afford to cruise more than once or twice a year, the problem is that we have to fly to get to where we need to be. Its the flight costs that make it so we cant cruise more often... or we would ;)

Yeah same situation here too. In my case, we saved up during the year and usually travel at year end. I live in Asia and the price of a cruise compared to the Caribbean/ Europe is about the same price.

But the problem on getting to another country like the USA from Asia is that we have to spent a bucket load of money on Airfares to get there, along with hotel fares.. it tends to get expensive.

Maybe next time, i will just move to Florida so we need not worry about airfares anymore :P

First, and foremost, we are retired and extremely lucky to be two of the dying breed that have defined benefit pensions, in that we were both in the school/university system our entire careers. Not a lot of money, but we don't need to worry about it running out. If this were not the case, we would probably cruise only rarely.

 

As it is, we cruise 3-5 times a year, almost always on RC or X.

I try to use every strategy to minimize our per-day shipboard costs:

 

Some of these:

 

Buy RC stock (its been a good investment) - if nothing else you can get shareholder's credit

Book onboard or with a Nextcruise

Limit onboard alcohol to the free drinks in the loyalty lounges - my late-night drink is a tonic

Be willing to book any class of cabin, wherever the bargain is

Book balconies only if slightly higher than cheaper cabins, ex. this seldom is the case on Vision class

Use loyalty balcony discount

Little or no dining at pay venues - I've already bought my meals in my cruise fare

Unless bringing kids on your cruise, don't cruise when kids are out of school - fares high

Consider transatlantics and repos. These can be great bargains with great ports

Book as soon as the cruise is listed - if prices decrease, you can adjust or cancel

Watch for bargains after final payment.

Watch for coupons

Pay attention to superbargains that you can't use - the same cruise will probably be a superbargain next year.

If you have some date flexibility, use the "show all dates" feature on the RC website - you may find the same itinerary much lower a few weeks later

Th

The key is to be sure you've gotten every price break possible, and that you're not buying anything you don't really need!

Our story is very similar to this. ...since retiring 6years ago we have cruised at least 3 x a year. We have cruised all lines but mostly princess and NCL. So we have some loyalty. With princess we have shareholder and military credit. We mostly book inside cabins unless the difference for an outside is close. We live an hour from Boston and 4 hrs.from N.Y.so they are driveable. We Don't have a fancy lifestyle like many of the others and cruising is what we do for enjoyment. We have taken two t.a.s and 5 repos. Our next cruise ( Panama CanaL) is coming up in April.

So how do many afford to cruise and travel? Well, start with getting a very good education, then work your way into a decent job, then learn to save and invest money, etc etc. And perhaps not have too many children :).

 

Hank

Yeah, that would be us. This year is only our second cruise, but nearly every year we've been together we've gone to Europe at least once. Now that we've given up on trying to fly to Europe in Coach, it's ONLY once a year. We live in a LCOL area, and we place a low priority on cars and eating out. We don't redecorate the house- we maintain it and we've made some improvements, but why buy new furniture or curtains when the current ones are just fine? We don't have a landscaper or a cleaning lady. For the last 10 years we've owned only one car because DH is retired. We've decided we really need a second one now (I take the car to work and my current job is pretty demanding so it's a hassle for DH to have the car for the day). It's gonna kill me to spend the money.

Most of our trips get paid for in stages. I've got the $$$ for the balance on our cruise we need to pay the travel agency in May sitting in my checking account and we've already bought and paid for our tickets on Alaska Airlines.

Finally, I'm really good with leveraging loyalty programs. Our trip to Paris last year, 2 people flying Business Class plus 8 hotel nights, cost us about $1,000 out of pocket. This year's cruise is mostly cash but we redeemed miles to fly to Seattle and have deeply discounted nights at the Seattle Airport Marriott ($60/night) in both directions from another loyalty program.

We book inside cabins during off peek time. I need vacation in order to survive mentally. If I couldn't cruise I would still take a week off and do something just to get away from work.

We are Dinks and we (now) FL. We worked hard to pay off debts (loans, cars) and now just havea. Mortgage. We skim 10% of our pay checks into a vacation account... As well as half of our bonuses and tax refunds. I watch prices like a hawk and try hard to keep cruises at $2k or less when possible (May adjust dates or cabin type to fit). We aren't exclusive to a line, which helps.

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It is easy.... We are retired and saved a lot (20% of gross income) all through our working life. Now that we earn more from investment income than we earned while working, we can afford the good life.... The moral here is to save while you are young so you can have an easy and enjoyable retirement.

We did exactly that. I think this is the most important and best advice for anyone reading these posts. People never think about retirement, including myself. If DH didn't have the max taken out of his check for his 401K, our life would be totally different. It is REALLY fun to have money to spend during retirement, and looking forward to those minimum withdrawels at 70 1/2. We cruised and traveled while working, but we also lived beneath our means, as well. We didn't take more than one cruise a year, and our verandahs were few and far between. We stayed in insides a lot!

Hopefully living on Guam is wonderful. We will be moving there in a couple of months. What branch of service are you in?

Guam is nice, very tropical. You'll like it if you're a water fan. I'm in the Air Force btw

Glad to hear that you enjoy living in Guam. I am a cruise fan but for the next 3 years I will be a water fan! I am hoping to take cruises out of Asia if the airfares are not too high! :)

I haven't read all the replies, but this is key for us

"The point of all of that is - before you spend a dollar - think, "would I rather have this, or a cruise?" If your answer is "this" than buy it, if your answer is the cruise....put your dollar away and say no."

It's about priorities.

We love to travel. We want to add cruising to that travel. We have a time share that we use very carefully by traveling on Sunday through Friday (fewer points used) and we are hoping to add cruising on to the beginning or end of our family vacations when we are already near the ports. With a family of five it's much cheaper to drive than fly. If it takes two days, then it takes two days.

DH is a prof and doesn't work summers, plus he gets all school holidays. Time off is not an issue, but we are stuck with higher rates during school vacations.

I homeschool so the kids get off when dad gets off.

We tend to go on vacation in Mid to late May after the colleges close but before most grade schools are out for summer.

I have an online business. All my online business money is our extra money. Any thing like going out to eat, travel, theme park tickets and soon cruising and excursions are dependent on my business. If my business is doing well, we have more fun!

When I think "I'm to tired to cook tonight...." rather than hit Olive Garden, we pick up a chicken from the deli at the grocery store. It's all about choices.

I'd rather have a cruise!

Edie

Cruising can be an inexpensive weekend getaway. It's usually much cheaper than going to Disney or the Keys for the weekend. Rates are frequently around $129 pp (sometimes, even lower) for 3 nights, which is not really too much of a budget breaker even if you do a few per year. You can save in lots of ways. Book guarantee when available, etc.

Cruising can be an inexpensive weekend getaway. It's usually much cheaper than going to Disney or the Keys for the weekend. Rates are frequently around $129 pp (sometimes, even lower) for 3 nights, which is not really too much of a budget breaker even if you do a few per year. You can save in lots of ways. Book guarantee when available, etc.

True and I have done a couple of short weekend cruises. It seemed a great deal combining a few days in Florida with it. I realized though because of the low cost you get a lot of party hardy fools as fellow passengers and I do not like that atmosphere. (even had that atmosphere on Celebrity Constellation last year and we spent about $700 per person. before that I thought if I avoided Carnival and RCI Majesty of the Seas I had no worries) I do not care how great a "deal" it is, I will not do it again. I would rather run down to Tybee Island for a few days of go t o a B & B for a couple of nights within a 100 miles of home if I want a quick getaway without spending a ton of money. I enjoy that more than those so called bargain cruises.

I really do not think that is what the OP had in mind when they ask how so many can afford it.

For me, much of it comes from casino benefits. Some casinos like to use cruises as benefits to their big players (and I happen to be a big player). Twice/year one of my local casinos sends their biggest players on a cruise, all expenses paid. We've also gotten a few partial cruise benefits from other casinos, where they pay for just the basic cruise but we have to pay the taxes/port fees plus our own airfare/transfers/etc. Works out to maybe a 30-40% discount off of the entire vacation, which is still worthwhile.

We've only fully paid for 2 cruises - our Alaska cruisetour, and our upcoming Asia cruise (Celebrity Millennium) in April. Used Costco Travel for both. Not a big savings (about 8%) but every little bit helps.

We're hardly rich but I won't lie - it does take money to do these things. But there are ways to save. We're starting to book private tours ahead of time now rather than using the ship excursions. They're generally 30-50% cheaper, but they take planning. That's where CC really comes in handy, for researching ports, tours, tips, etc.