What to consider not skimping on?

[weltek]

Sometimes life hands you lemons when you already have a crusie booked and you HAVE to skimp on EVERYTHING, but often you can choose where to splurge and where to save. And of course everyone will have different priorities, but what would you choose to splurge on if you had a few hundred more to spend? Upgraded room, specialty restaurants, excursions, soda card, more cocktails, gambling, etc?

 

For me, I once did a crusie with no excursions to save money. Everything was just wandering the ports by ourselves to shop, siting on the beach and having a few drinks. It was a Bahamas cruise, and I was ok with that because the Bahamas frankly isn't very exciting unless you crave watersports. Looking back, I regret not doing ANYTHING. I wish I would've just done a cheap catamaran or something.

 

My lesson learned was to always plan on a few excursions. I always save by booking non-ship excursions, but even still that can add up! So I know my budget and go from there.

• I research the port history and if there's great history spread out, I'll usually choose a tour (e.g. to ruins, etc.)
  
• If the port isn't that history/entertainment intensive, I'll consider the beauty factor, and see if hiking, kayaking, snorkeling excursions are the way to go to see some stunning scenery or wildlife.
  
• If the historical areas are compact and walkable, I could fill my time either on a self-tour or a cheaper city tour, but those aren't always the most satisfying for me.
  
• If neither the history or scenery is that stunning or interesting, then I'll just do a little shopping and people watching and head back to the ship, as long as I have something else planned at another port!
  

[Cuizer2]

I would not upgrade the cabin. You should book the cabin you need or want. An upgrade from that is not going to make your cruise any better.

 

A specialty restaurant or a special excursion would likely increase your enjoyment of the cruise, so that is the way I would go.

[tip]

Before we were retired, our work schedules allowed us to only have a week for the cruise. Now that we are retired, we...

 

...book cruises that are ten or eleven days (becasue we can!)

...extend our stay in Florida with a couple of days before the cruise and a couple of days after the cruise. Once again, because we can and because New Hampsha wintas are unforgiving!;)

[EGG]

I always choose where to save and where to splurge because I just don't think some things are worth it. But if I had to spend an additional $200 or lose it, I would probably spend it on an independent excursion with a driver with some of my roll call friends or a helicoptor tour for my DH in a place like Alaska or Hawaii (I would never do those and not because of price).

[debshomespun]

I book alot of insides, to save money, and be able to cruise 2 or 3 times a year. While on a cruise, I try to do at least 1 big excursion per cruise. Since we are able to go several times a year, I know I will get back to the islands, and be able to do something big eventually on each island. I will book an OV, or a balcony if the price isn't much more. We are Diamond members on RC, and do receive a balcony discount and that will help us to do balconies on our RC cruises.

[Happy ks]

We hadn't cruised in an inside cabin in several years, but this past December we booked an inside because it was so much less and it was only a 4 night cruise. We will never try to skimp on the cabin again. While we don't book suites, we do book balconies and we treasure that little piece of real estate. Our first few cruises we would only book insides, but once we started booking balconies and realized what an enhancment it was to cruising...well it's just so much nicer. We're not the type to have to be out doing stuff around the ship, we love to just sit on the balcony, read and enjoy the ocean.

 

We also don't skimp on a good bottle of wine. If we can't bring our own onboard (with a corkage fee) we will pay extra for a better bottle. Life is too short to drink bad wine.

 

We don't go shopping in port or onboard the ship, I can shop at home and there is nothing I really want. OK, perhaps a piece of local art or a Christmas ornament if we have extra time before re-boarding. I don't feel compelled to buy souvenirs for anyone other than our kids.

 

We don't gamble, we don't spend money in the spa. I'd not be surprised that our total cruise cost is the same as a couple who book an inside, lose a bunch of cash in the casino, buy drinks at the pool all day, get a massage and shop for cheesy souvenirs. And we both have the trip that is right for us, there isn't a right or wrong answer.

Edited June 16, 2011 by Happy ks
sp

[MarkusToe]

Agree 100% :D

[panoramaofthepast]

Focus on what you enjoy - for me, the only places I spend money are the spa and the casino [with a daily limit!!!!], so extra money would equal a spa treatment.

We usually do one excursion per port - hubby prefers the ship excursions, so he pays for them!

We don't drink, but soda cards are a must.

[Beyondthe7Seas]

I wouldn't suggest spending money on soda cards, specialty restaurants, etc. There is already delicious food and drink on board, so IMO save the money for special shore excursions you wouldn't otherwise be able to take :)

[jclinard]

I don't skimp on the soda card. It's one of my pleasures, and with it I don't buy alcohol. I suspect people who like specialty coffees indulge in that the same way.

 

I don't skimp on privacy. I'm happy with inside cabins (and sometimes I've been upgraded to outside ones), but I won't tolerate a cabin mate.

 

I don't skimp on warmth. I generally prefer a room temperature higher than offered by the thermostat, and I hate being cold. If there are no spare blankets in the stateroom, I usually write a note to the steward requesting one. One ignored it for the first two days, so I simply tore apart the other bed and used that blanket. He decided he'd rather only make one bed after that and provided the extra blanket.

 

On almost everything else I look for value. I research ports in advance and decide what I really want to do. Most of the time a ship excursion would have to be really special for me to take it, as almost all ports offer the same things at lower prices.

 

It's easy for me to skip on some things I've been offered. As a single male, I've been offered by cab drivers and locals in various ports everything from hard drugs to girls for rent.

 

I've never ordered room service (from breakfast to late night snacks) on any of my cruises. Frankly, I'd rather meet people in the dining room for most of my meals.

 

 

Sometimes life hands you lemons when you already have a crusie booked and you HAVE to skimp on EVERYTHING, but often you can choose where to splurge and where to save. And of course everyone will have different priorities, but what would you choose to splurge on if you had a few hundred more to spend? Upgraded room, specialty restaurants, excursions, soda card, more cocktails, gambling, etc?

[croozymooner]

Before having a child, the one thing we did not skimp on was shore excursions. We have done some very exciting, once in a lifetime type shore excursions. I have almost never regretted spending money on a GOOD excursion. This requires a bit of research to know what a good excursion is.

 

After having a child, I will say the one thing we don't skimp on is the room. A balcony is a must have so we can sit outside and talk while the baby sleeps. I'm also willing to pay a bit more for a nicer balcony room (e.g. concierge class on celebrity or mini-suite on NCL) though I have not brought myself to upgrade to a real suite just yet.

 

Things we do skimp on?

-Never ever have been to a specialty restaurant. The MDR suits us fine.

-Alcohol. Between the two of us, we drink about one drink a day max.

-Gambling. I don't like to burn money.

-Spa treatments. These are ridiculously overprice compared to on land (which seem overpriced to begin with), and I have no desire to have someone try to sell me crappy body products.

[cb at sea]

We seldom do "excursions"....if you research your ports, there's hardly ever a need to pay someone to entertain you. We don't really care about a location's history...we like beaches and they're easy to do on your own! Many times, we'll just stay on the ship and use it's facilities on a port day...the ship is what we've PAID to use, and it almost our's alone on port days! Very nice!

We don't do the "spa" or cabanas....rarely will we do a "specialty" restaurant.

 

We do enjoy space, so we do book a larger cabin, usually a mini-suite....I want to be at LEAST as comfortable on vacation as I am at home...and I don't have a teensy bedroom!

 

I guess what you "splurge" or ''save" on depends on your lifestyle and what's important to you!

Edited June 22, 2011 by cb at sea

[Cigary]

Before we were retired, our work schedules allowed us to only have a week for the cruise. Now that we are retired, we...

 

...book cruises that are ten or eleven days (becasue we can!)

...extend our stay in Florida with a couple of days before the cruise and a couple of days after the cruise. Once again, because we can and because New Hampsha wintas are unforgiving!;)

 

Exactly...being retired gives us choices as to what we want to do and how long we can stay or cruise...pre cruise or post cruise is what we do. We stay with one Cruise Line so we can get the points where we are upgraded all the time. We book an Ocean and get upgraded to a balcony or even a mini suite. We get Free Internet...free laundry...free welcoming champagne and other things. When we arrive in ports we get have already set up rentals for a car to see the island ourselves and we can stop where we want and go when we want. Tours just take your money and you are crammed on a bus hoping the Tour Operator is fun or interesting. We've been on tours where we could barely understand the Tour Operator...what a waste. A car rental is about $40 average which is a darn site cheaper than a 3 hour tour for $200 for 2 people.

 

We even rented a Scooter in Rome when we did a pre cruise for 3 days ( I ride motorcycles so scooters are pretty easy and what a blast...we were able to get into areas of Rome that rental cars or cabs are not permitted...the same with other countries...rental cars are sometimes not allowed to go into certain areas because of parking or because of city congestion. Scooters go anywhere...we rode right up to the Vatican...Coliseum...Trevi Fountain..Seven Steps...there is tons of parking for scooters everywhere.)

[Lafleurfamily]

We are looking forward to our 2nd cruise in March 2012. Our first was with DCL in 2005 when our kids were aged 10 and 8. During that cruise, we really treated ourselves...

 

For our day in Cozumel, we splurged and booked a private charter to Chichen Itza to see the ruins. A taxi met us at the port, drove us to the airport where we boarded a Cessna, flew alone with the pilot to the ruins, met with a guide for a private 2-hour tour followed by an unguided walkabout and then flew back. It did not come cheap ($1200+ if memory serves me well for the four of us), but it is one of our fondest memories. I heard a while back that visitors are no longer permitted to climb the pyramid...well, we did get that chance and I have never regretted spending that chunk of change. The year prior, we took a private charter over the active volcano on Hawaii's Big Island while vacationing in Maui and that too is a great memory...the picture of my then 7-year-old sitting in the co-pilot seat is priceless! Obviously, we make sacrifices to do these occasional splurges...but if bringing my lunch to work instead of eating out allows me to walk where Mayans once did...well, bring on the tuna sandwiches.

 

I came to this realization after a missed opportunity... I went to China once for business but because it was likely I would go back a second time, I never bothered to pay out of pocket to stay an extra night and visit the Great Wall. I left the company shortly thereafter...that was 11 years ago...I will probably never get another chance to go to China.

 

My mother died in December from cancer at the age of 64 (very young). During her three months of unsuccessful chemo treatments, I never heard her once say "I wish I didn't do such and such" but I often heard her say "I'm so glad I did such and such."

 

We don't splurge on our cabin (one inside for all four of us), soda cards, shopping or specialty restaurants...the cabin stays behind, the soda is bad for us anyway, you can only have so much stuff and good food can be had in the MDR at no extra cost...but the memories of the things we do, well they're the only things we ever get to take home with us.

[MrsPete]

If I needed to cut something from the budget, it'd go in this order:

 

 

1. Food and drink "extras". I could do without specialty restaurants, cupcakes, and sodas -- that would be a tiny sacrafice for me.

 

2. Alcohol would be second. I don't drink much anyway, but I could cut back without hurting.

 

3. Lose the balcony, but I'd only cut to an oceanview -- no inside. That's my personal "line in the sand". An inside would freak me out a little.

 

4. Excursions. We don't do expensive ship's excursions in the first place, so we're already not spending heavily here. I'd still do something like grab a cab to a beach or a local attraction.

 

I could not sacrafice spa treatments, photographs, bingo, or shopping because those things have never meant anything to me, and I've never bought them. I would never cut tips because that'd be mistreating people who are taking care of me. Also, I'd never cut out the night-before hotel; that's cheap insurance. We're about 8 hours away from the port -- too long a drive to do in one day and assume that it'll all work out just fine.

[Gone_Again]

I book inside rooms to be able to have a longer cruise. I'd much rather have a 10 night cruise with an inside room, than a 7 night cruise with a balcony. We are hardly ever in our room anyway, other to sleep or get ready for the day, so this works out perfectly for us.

[paul929207]

I would not skimp by skipping the excursions, but I would try to find cheaper was to do them.

[cruisin'tex]

Sometimes life hands you lemons when you already have a crusie booked and you HAVE to skimp on EVERYTHING, but often you can choose where to splurge and where to save. And of course everyone will have different priorities, but what would you choose to splurge on if you had a few hundred more to spend? Upgraded room, specialty restaurants, excursions, soda card, more cocktails, gambling, etc?

 

For me, I once did a crusie with no excursions to save money. Everything was just wandering the ports by ourselves to shop, siting on the beach and having a few drinks. It was a Bahamas cruise, and I was ok with that because the Bahamas frankly isn't very exciting unless you crave watersports. Looking back, I regret not doing ANYTHING. I wish I would've just done a cheap catamaran or something.

 

My lesson learned was to always plan on a few excursions. I always save by booking non-ship excursions, but even still that can add up! So I know my budget and go from there.

• I research the port history and if there's great history spread out, I'll usually choose a tour (e.g. to ruins, etc.)
  
• If the port isn't that history/entertainment intensive, I'll consider the beauty factor, and see if hiking, kayaking, snorkeling excursions are the way to go to see some stunning scenery or wildlife.
  
• If the historical areas are compact and walkable, I could fill my time either on a self-tour or a cheaper city tour, but those aren't always the most satisfying for me.
  
• If neither the history or scenery is that stunning or interesting, then I'll just do a little shopping and people watching and head back to the ship, as long as I have something else planned at another port!
  

 

We never skimp on excursions in places that we really want to see.

[Wayfairers]

We are both social people and enjoy meeting new people so we spend very little time in our room - thus that is the main place we save. We plan on having a drink or two a day and booking the excursions we want (either thru the ship or privately) and if we can't afford to do that we don't take the cruise. We don't use the spa or casino and only window shop on the ship unless something is a good deal or it is something we have to have - like the sweatshirts on the HAL cruise out of San Diego to Hawaii/South Pacific when we had cold weather and storms the first couple days at sea!! Who would have thought we needed cold weather clothes on that trip??!!

[Steviewonder1]

We don't skimp on excursions or the specialty restaurant. We research all of our ports of call both from the Ship and here on the Boards. There is a ton of information out there to confuse some folks. We keep it simple and usually will do one excursion per port. This time we will have lots of time in all of the ports, some of which we have visited before. Those get different excursions. We will be adding walking excursions now that we have iPhones and there are a ton of apps for walking tours in almost every port. We're going a day early to Quebec City for an extra day of touring that wonderful city with a walking tour app in the phone.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Having fun

[weltek]

The cool part about this thread is that it dispells some myths about what people are posting in this forum. It's not just people looking for a zero dollar balance at the end of a cruise. It's people that will spend money, they are just selective about where it's spent. We all don't have unlimited vacation budgets, so many of us are just looking to spending selectively.

[collegecruiser346]

I've always booked inside cabins because I prefer to be up on deck anyway. I'm considering a balcony cabin on my next cruise. I limit myself to 3-4 drinks a day. I'd rather not be hung over and stuck in bed the whole next day anyway. I usually pick 1 or 2 specialty restaurants that interest me and eat in them. If I want to go into the casino a bit, I will, but I live near casinos so I can go whenever I want if I choose to. I often see people at the pursers desk the last morning screaming about their bill and I have to laugh. Did they think the 10 drinks they had by the pool each afternoon were free?

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

Most ports you can do it on your own ,with some home work

[milton333]

For us, just cruising is the splurge. Most people I know simply do not vacation. Everyone who talks about making memories is right. Yes, I could have sunk this money into the house or other obligations, but I prioritize having at least a nice vacation every other year. There's an unending list of things I could be spending money on, but I make it a point to include some "want tos" with our "must dos."

 

I do tend to splurge with the itinerary, too, I prefer Eastern or Southern Caribbean over Western. While I'd love to do Alaska or a more exotic route (Mediterranean), for now that's a "someday" plan.

 

We vacation with a toddler, so the balcony cabin is less an indulgence than a matter of logistics to my mind. We need somewhere to be while he is sleeping, which he does 2-3 times every 24-hour period.

 

We do generally tend to splurge on things for our son. I grew up poor, and while we're not wealthy now by any means, we are relatively secure in our jobs and stable. It makes me happy to be able to give my son toys and games and things that make his eyes light up. Not everything, obviously, but some things. So, we'll probably end up with an over-priced "build-a-bear" toy and some toy ships on this cruise, and will happily pay for them.

 

We will, generally, splurge on small extras, things like a cupcake from the $ cupcake cupboard on RCCL ships, a meal in the $ Johnny Rockets diner, ice cream from Ben & Jerry's, a fancy coffee a couple of times over the course of the cruise. Things for my son, and also for my ice cream-loving husband. Not enough to add up to serious $, but enough that we don't feel deprived of experiences. We don't do fine dining.

 

Beyond that, I shop ruthlessly for rental car discounts, hotel discounts, and cheap airfare.

 

I like to cruise during peak hurricane season (September) to save money. The cruise fare is cheaper, and summer clothes are on clearance by the time I do some stock-up shopping in August for the trip. Swimwear and gear is also on sale.

 

I tend to collect mileage reimbursement for travel for my job and squirrel that away for spending money.

 

I like to buy myself onboard credit in small amounts ($50) with each payday, to build up a credit onboard and to avoid some of the sticker shock of onboard expenditures.

 

I research ports and plan activities that we can do cheaply or for free. I really enjoyed taking the free tram to El Morro on San Juan, for example, just learning that I could wait at the bus stop outside the cruise pier and get a look at historic Old San Juan while en route. Our interests are generally beaches, though, and it's easy enough to cab to them, for the most part. We rarely do ship's excursions.

Edited August 9, 2011 by milton333