By I’m blessed to have a career that will always be in demand and it has afforded me to live a fairly decent adult life. However, I’m always excited about budgeting and saving for my next cruise. I have learned that if I cruise during certain times of the year, I can save money big-time. One thing I’ve mastered as I began to go on more cruises is that, cruising during the winter season is one of the best ways to save money while vacationing. There are a couple of reasons for cruising in the winter, the ships won’t be crowded on the main decks where most people relax and interact with one another. The second reason is there aren’t many young children on the ship due to most kids being in school during the winter months. If you dislike large numbers of children, avoid sailing late June through August or during school break. Those sailing times are late December, early January, March through mid-April.
Another term for off season for cruisers is shoulder season. Shoulder season varies by destination and typically means the period of time between a region’s peak season and off season. The time span can last for months, or just weeks. For example; if a region’s peak season is summer, then its off season is winter, then the shoulder season would be spring and fall. The best time of the year to book a cruise is January through March. This cycle is known as the wave season-industry wide- sales occur and the price of that cruise you’ve been considering to go on may decrease significantly. The cheapest time to cruise the Caribbean is between May and November, which overlaps with hurricane season for two to three weeks. There are less people visiting the islands when it’s rainy, leading to significantly lower prices for Caribbean cruises, hotels, and tours.
Best Life Cruises went on a seven-day cruise on February 15th, 2015. Carnival Conquest was the ship that we sailed on. The Conquest ship sailed from Orlando Florida Port Canaveral. The cruise itinerary was Ocho Rios Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and Cozumel. It was four of us cruising; my sister, her husband, my friend and I. We all booked interior cabins and, since we were cruising off season each person paid $641 per person taxes included. My sister, her husband and I decided to drive to Orlando Florida to Port Canaveral. We parked our car at the port which averaged to $70 for the whole week. We were also able to see our family friend that works for Carnival Cruise line and this time he suggested different beaches and islands to explore. The first port was Ocho Rios Jamaica we decided to explore Turtle Beach it extends out for about 500m along the east side of Ocho Rios Bay. We paid a small fee to inter the beach and rented an umbrella for the day. The beach had a café with amazing Jamaican cuisine and exotic cocktails.
The second stop was my favorite Cayman Islands. The previous cruise that Best Life Cruise had the same stops as this cruise but each experience is never the same. My motto is when it comes to vacationing is it’s the people you holiday with that definitely contributes to positive or negative experiences. We wanted to explore Governor’s Beach which is literally neighbor to Seven-mile Beach. We were hungry after swimming and racing along the beach and walked right over to Seven-mile Beach for lunch. The third stop was Cozumel and this time we agreed to go on a Mayan Ruins excursion with the local tour guide which cost $25 per person. The tour guide drove us to Zona Arqueológica San Gervasio and we hiked through the ruins for two hours. I was brave enough to hold an iguana due to them populating the ruins. Our tour guide dropped up back off near the cruise port and we decided to walk to No Name Bar to eat, drink, and be merry.
What do you think?