Help me with getting a Cruise value...like many say it is..

[butterfly55]

WOW, we also live in Western NY and my husband would never drive that far to go on a cruise. You are lucky. We are going on one out of Miami in Dec. We are flying to Tampa for $261 each (one was free with cc points), staying with family then driving to Miami with the family to on the cruise and driving back to Tampa. We almost drove there instead but it was actually cheaper to fly considering we'd have to overnight one night in a hotel and buy at least one meal. So this time since DH didn't want to stay longer (we have driven there twice to stay longer and cruised both times) we decided to fly.

 

Have a great time on your cruise.

[ibcnusoon]

That's one of the advantages of having so many major airports in Florida, check the flights to any of them and rent a car and drive to your port. No drop off fee at most major car rental

 

We are doing that upon our return, the flights back from FLL were twice the price than from Tampa. We planned to do an overnight before we fly back after our cruise so we're renting a car and driving to Tampa when we leave the ship.

[serene56]

Was that 1477 total for all three of you together or each? Did you drive or fly to Baltimore? We live in upstate NY and I have to plan a girl's cruise for 2012. I have been looking in to leaving from a different port than Florida ones but I have noticed the prices of the cruise is usually more from other ports. There will be quite a few of us that have to fly so we are weighing if is cheaper to fly to Florida and cruise from there or go from a port closer to us. What do you think? Thanks for your info.

 

that 1477 was total for all three-- including the Amtrak to get us there roundtrip.

 

 

Look into a cruise out of Baltimore and avoid the high peak times

[usahawk]

you can get some good deals on carnival if you sail from the port of baltimore which would only be a few hours drive from jersey. you might want to check them out

[genegri]

The key to the value of cruising is not to over spend once on board.

[blondietink]

Our upcoming Legend, including tips, figures out to right around $75.00 pp per day. If I add in our gas costs to drive there, it comes to $93.00 pp per day. Yes, we would love to fly out of Buffalo, but when you multiply that $261 RT flight times 4 people, you are talking over $1000 for transportation to/from instead of $500.00 for gas. We drove to NOLA in February because the RT airfare was over $1600 and the cruise only cost us $1200. If we had more money, we would fly for sure.

 

Cruising with more than 2 people in a cabin is very cost effective. Good thing we get along so well. I've been looking at some porthole cabins for next October, and I could actually get 2 porthole cabins (we could have extra room) and it would be the same as the 4 of us in an oceanview.

[CapsR1]

The key to the value of cruising is not to over spend once on board.

 

This is SO true! By budgeting daily or weekly for a cruise; you have control over how much you can spend.

 

Don't forget to put a little "cushion" in your budget to account for incidentals you may not have thought of.

 

We find that putting aside money for our onboard account months before we cruise always helps to offset our final bill.

 

That being said, the more we cruise, the less photos we purchase. We are down to about three to five "good" photos (if available) at this point and not the slew we once bought when we first began cruising.