On Wednesday, January 23, Carnival is having a sale on 3-7 day cruises from the West Coast. Get a good fare and possible onboard credits as well. Book early for best selection of cabins.

A recent article article on CNN lists 13 suggestions for saving money on a cruise. These tips were offered by experienced cruisers and travel agents. Some of the tips make good sense and seem reasonable, but the validity of others needs to be questioned.

My suggestion is that some of these need to be qualified or totally ignored. You need to refer to the article to understand my comments.

#2 – In most cases this is correct and the agent rightfully states that just because you are buying air travel through the cruise line, doesn’t necessarily mean that the ship will wait for you if your plane is late. This is a common misconception that you should be aware of if you book your flights through the cruise line thinking that they will wait for you if you have a delay. If a flight is several minutes late and there are many passengers on the same flight, the ship might wait. But, what if you are delayed for 10 hours? The ship has a schedule and can’t delay departure for late arrivals. They will take care of getting you to the next port if you booked through them. On some itineraries, the next port could mean missing a few days of the cruise.

There are times when having the air travel included is a deal, such as when you book late and airfares are high anyway. The cruise line might have a better fare. Cruise fares that include free air might also work out cheaper. So don’t totally rule out buying the air travel with the cruise.
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