Non round-trip cruises and airfare....

In looking at some Alaska cruises, I notice that they have different origin and destination ports. Does the cruiseline offer any deals on airfare or is it pretty much buying two one-way tickets?

When booking through the cruise line they will take care of that detail for you. If you are interested in looking at airfares on your own, you need to use the "multi-city" listing on the site you use for to search for airline tickets. Almost all ticketing sites and almost all airlines have a feature for "multi-city" listing. It used to be a much bigger hassle than it is these days. These are known as open jaw fares. The "multi-city" function gets you a much better rate than two one-way fares.

Sailing from Galveston aboard the Grand in

Cruise/Tour around Cape Horn in

Also try the method much hated by airlines: two round trips. So book a round trip from home to the embarkation port, and take the first leg only. Then book a round trip from disembarkation point to home, again taking only the first leg. Simply never use the remaining legs. Sometimes you can exchange un-used portions for credit/new tickets.

Just be sure you plan it so you take the first leg of both. you can not take the second leg or return portion, if you have not taken the first leg, as the airline will cancel the ticket as a 'no show".

...left until Navigator of the Seas 11/13/04

We have done three of these cruises and have found that the cruiseline air fare for these kind of trips was the best deal.

Our TA always books our cruise with air - we have until final payment to cancel the air. Then she looks around for a better price. If she finds one, she cancels the air from the cruiseline. If not, we have the air. If the cruiseline lowers the price of the air, she gets us the lower price. That happened on our last Transatlantic. The airfare was $700 per person, Celebrity ran a $200 air special for a short while. Our TA was able to get our air lowered to the new price.

Zenith-Western Caribbean-6/92

Zenith-Eastern Caribbean-6/93

Century-Maiden Voyage-12/95

Galaxy-Southern Caribbean-11/99

Mercury-Northbound Alaska-6/00

Millennium-Westbound Transatlantic-9/01

Horizon-Western Caribbean - Adults only cruise-11/02

Millennium-Westbound Transatlantic 10/26/03

Century - Western Caribbean 1/31/04

If you have enough time you might consider cruising back with the ship to original departure point then you could use roundtrip air.Compare the price sometimes it's not that much more than one cruise and two sets of one way tickets. Of course you get twice the vacation too. Just a thought.

Melissa

We returned two days ago from the Carnival Spirit Hawaii cruise. We flew to Honolulu, sailed seven days around the islands, then five days across the Pacific. We flew home from Vancouver.

To book our airfare through Carnival was originally $819. I kept checking (weekly for months) through Travelocity and ultimately found a perfect itinerary (with American Airlines) for only $493. By booking it myself, I had control over my flight times and got my frequent flyer miles.

Carnival recently offered a promotion on our sailing for a bargain basement fare, including air. I was annoyed that last minute cruisers got their package for about $100 less than the total we paid.

BUT most of them were stuck on a red-eye going home. AND we were upgraded to a Category 9A. I would definitely do it again just the same way.

The moral to this lesson: Shop Carefully.

Different embarcation/debarcation cities is the ONE reasn I would use cruiseline air. It is the ONLY instance of usually being cheaper than I have ever seen. Most ofter, without a surchare, cruiseline air is expensive, has rotten travel times and worse connections. They are perfectly willing to book flights with multiple connections (even out of majors like LGA, SFO, ORD), redeye flights, a connection w/ under 30 minutes between flights in airports well known for poor on time performance on airlines with no later flights going to your destination.

Then again, I am also a control freak.

Holly

M/S Boheme 11/69

Rhapsody 2/77?

Azure Sea 3/89

Panama Canal 11/90

Mexican Riviera 3/98

Carnival Triumph 12/99

Carnival Spirit 12/01

NCL Dream 11/17/02

Celebrity Mercury 6/1/03

carnival Victory 3/28/04