Booking flights for a Christmas cruise

the family and I have booked a 12/22 sailing on Symphony. We are so excited but I about had a stroke when I checked the price for 4 round trip flights:eek:. We have always pulled our kids out of school for the week for vacation but as they get older and school work gets harder it’s not easy so we are left with traveling during peak months.

 

The bargain airlines haven’t opened up their rates yet that far in advance so I’m still holding out that they will come down in price. We usually fly Spirit Airlines out of Atlantic City to go to FL but they only have rates published up until 11/2.

 

What are the benefits (if any) of booking flights through RCCL? We are Diamond members but that doesn’t seem to mean much anymore.

That is peak travel time. The cheapest airfares came out about 3 months ago. When Southwest releases, they will likely be a little less than what the bigger airlines are charging at the time you see the Southwest fares, but those could easily be higher than they are today. This is a game Southwest plays, that is discussed here frequently.

 

Have you been watching the fares for any period of time? My guess is they are starting to creep up. It is a risk you take.

We cancelled our Christmas cruise out of Miami due to the ridiculous prices for flights. It was almost more per person to fly than to cruise. I don’t see prices coming down for holiday flights. If anything, they’re going to keep going up.

 

 

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Have you considered driving?

Have you considered driving?

 

 

 

Driving from the Northeast to Florida (1200-1500 miles one way) in December on a limited schedule is not a great idea. Snow, sleet, freezing rain, any of these could be a major issue.

 

 

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There is an interesting dynamic at work here. Oft times, folks will find a cruise that is highly discounted and they think that they are getting a bargain. Then, when looking at flight costs, they see that they are sky high. Elation turns to despair.

 

Guess why those cruises might be going for "cheap"?? Could it be that demand is low because other costs in the overall travel budget are high (holiday flights, eh?) and thus deterring folks from buying at regular pricing. So the pricing drops in response to overall weak demand?

 

Hmm.

There is an interesting dynamic at work here. Oft times, folks will find a cruise that is highly discounted and they think that they are getting a bargain. Then, when looking at flight costs, they see that they are sky high. Elation turns to despair.

 

 

 

Guess why those cruises might be going for "cheap"?? Could it be that demand is low because other costs in the overall travel budget are high (holiday flights, eh?) and thus deterring folks from buying at regular pricing. So the pricing drops in response to overall weak demand?

 

 

 

Hmm.

 

 

 

There was nothing cheap about our cruise fare. $4200 for 3 passengers in a balcony stateroom for 6 nights. No gratuities, no OBC, no beverage packages, At $233/pp/night that would be the most expensive cruise we’ve ever done. I have never seen “cheap” holiday cruises, be it Easter or Christmas.

 

 

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It was almost more per person to fly than to cruise.

 

Easily solved by getting a more expensive cruise.

Easily solved by getting a more expensive cruise.

 

 

 

[emoji23] You sound like my kids!

 

 

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There was nothing cheap about our cruise fare. $4200 for 3 passengers in a balcony stateroom for 6 nights. No gratuities, no OBC, no beverage packages, At $233/pp/night that would be the most expensive cruise we’ve ever done. I have never seen “cheap” holiday cruises, be it Easter or Christmas.

 

And for many, that would be one of the cheaper cruises they've taken. Since you provide no other details, I'll leave it with your own evaluation of "nothing cheap".

There is an interesting dynamic at work here. Oft times, folks will find a cruise that is highly discounted and they think that they are getting a bargain. Then, when looking at flight costs, they see that they are sky high. Elation turns to despair.

 

 

And now it is slipping into the fallacy that somehow cruise prices are related to air fares. The "buy a more expensive cruise" proves this in the sense that if you booked a suite, and the lowest possible airfare, your cruise fare might always be more expensive than your airfares. Or a longer cruise. But if you got a super last minute deal on the lowest cost cabin on the ship, then your cruise will be cheaper than your airfare. This is far from an apples to oranges comparison, it is more like apples to buffaloes.

We cancelled our Christmas cruise out of Miami due to the ridiculous prices for flights. It was almost more per person to fly than to cruise.

There was nothing cheap about our cruise fare. $4200 for 3 passengers in a balcony stateroom for 6 nights.

Although (as others have said) comparing the cost of the cruise to the cost of the air ticket is meaningless, I can see why you might think that $1,400 per person for an air ticket to reach the cruise is - in absolute terms - a large number. On a good day, I could buy a round-trip trans-Atlantic business class air ticket for about that much.

 

However, the OP isn't facing that kind of dilemma. On a quick search, air tickets from viable airports for the correct dates could be had for prices starting from something like $500 per person. It's not the cheapest time of the year to fly, but it wouldn't be irrational to pay that sort of money for a thousand miles of flying each way.

 

And it's not entirely true that "the bargain airlines haven’t opened up their rates". jetBlue has already opened booking into early January, and it's usually counted within that number. However, that does rather demonstrate what CruiserBruce has said: Don't expect that any low-fare airlines will open booking by virtually giving away seats, when they can see what the other airlines are charging; they will probably undercut the prices being asked for by other airlines at that time (not the prices you see now) by a little bit.