Since I am stuck in the house, due to the storm...

[Bookish Angel]

Cuba? There are 2019 cruises to Cuba from Florida that seem quite reasonable. Since your hubby loves wildlife, Cuba has beautiful snails, some of which are found only in Cuba.

 

Good luck and I understand the need to broaden one's horizons apart from the Caribbean. Been there, done that, bought the ill-fitting t-shirt.:)

[champagne123]

Cuba? There are 2019 cruises to Cuba from Florida that seem quite reasonable. Since your hubby loves wildlife, Cuba has beautiful snails, some of which are found only in Cuba.

 

Good luck and I understand the need to broaden one's horizons apart from the Caribbean. Been there, done that, bought the ill-fitting t-shirt.:)

Hahahahaha....stopped buying the tee shirts years ago (and all the other garbage). I actually have thought about Cuba....

[maryann2]

Thanks for the tip for Cruise Air.....just a quick question though....don't they fly you in on the day of your cruise? That would make me so nervous. We always fly the day before a cruise.

 

With Air2sea you can fly in up to a couple of weeks beforehand. Not sure of the exact time allowed but my son did this a couple of months ago flying 10 days earlier. You also do not even have to book to the city the ship is leaving from. For instance you can fly to London or Paris, stay a few days and then purchase a cheap flight from there to Barcelona or Rome.

 

Air2Sea is really good for one way Transatlantics but not so good for North America.

[shipgeeks]

Yes, completely forgot. We did do the New England/Canada cruise. (probably our least favorite). Sorry to anyone that loves this cruise. Thanks for the tip for Cruise Air.....just a quick question though....don't they fly you in on the day of your cruise? That would make me so nervous. We always fly the day before a cruise.

I'm sure you can choose to fly in the day before, using the cruise air. We have used Celebrity's Choiceair three times. We could choose the time and the airline we wanted, and the fare was about 10% to 25% of full fare. Absolutely worth it.

[champagne123]

With Air2sea you can fly in up to a couple of weeks beforehand. Not sure of the exact time allowed but my son did this a couple of months ago flying 10 days earlier. You also do not even have to book to the city the ship is leaving from. For instance you can fly to London or Paris, stay a few days and then purchase a cheap flight from there to Barcelona or Rome.

 

Air2Sea is really good for one way Transatlantics but not so good for North America.

 

I'm sure you can choose to fly in the day before, using the cruise air. We have used Celebrity's Choiceair three times. We could choose the time and the airline we wanted, and the fare was about 10% to 25% of full fare. Absolutely worth it.

Thank you!!!! :):):) I have a lot of research to do!!!!!

Edited January 4, 2018 by champagne123
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[MiniChunks]

When we wanted to qualify for the 2k promo for the first 3 months spending, we bought gift cards with the new credit card for 1k for our grocery store that also sells gas. We will surely spend that money eventually. I was able to pay Comcast, ATT, car and homeowners insurance and that about ate up the whole 2k.

 

We paid that bill in full at the end of the billing period...having to pay interest to get a few airline points would just be stupid.

 

While charging gift cards is a good idea, please read the terms and conditions of the offer you look at. My particular situation specifically prohibits this. And yes, paying it off immediately is always a good idea.

[LeeW]

Thank you for the advice. This however would never work for me. There is no way I would be able to charge $3000 worth of merchandise and then pay it back. I do thank you though.

 

Lots of us like Minichunks get one of these cards and then charge the cruise to it. Pretty easy to run up $3000 worth of charges doing that. Or they get an airline card and buy the cruise through that company (United or Delta, for example) and get double points for the purchase. The problem with these cards is they have a high interest rate, so you want to pay the card off from other sources before interest kicks in.

[Tillie43]

We took a two week repo from San Juan to San Francisco thru the Panama Canal that was great. My DH retirement trip. We used Air2Sea and we couldn’t match the cost of the tickets ourselves considering it was a multiple flight booking. Very fair pricing.

[Misplaced Texan]

I thought I would do some research for our 2019 cruise. I have been on the computer since 7am looking at cruises...all ships and itineraries. NOTHING appeals to me. I know we need to fan out with our itineraries, but my greatest fear is "airfare". We have been to just about every Caribbean Island, Bermuda and Hawaii.....so time to move on.

 

That leaves Alaska, which we do not want to do until we retire. (two or three years). That leaves a possible transatlantic, which we are highly interested in...BUT.....I am afraid of the cost of airfare going or coming back. Can't even check prices, because it would be for next year. Is there a "secret" that I don't know about for this? Any advice?

 

Transatlantic is going to be the worst for airfare. You'll be stuck using the cruise line's air because most international ticketing still uses the old rules where you basically pay the full changeable/refundable fare for one-ways with discounted fares requiring round trip (note, this may be changing with more carriers like Icelandair, Norwegian, etc. entering the market).

 

I don't know that I would be afraid of airfares to Europe. If you shop around, you can now find economy fares round-trip US to Europe for $500 or less per person fairly regularly and as low as $300 and change round trip between specific cities when there's a sale.

 

I'm not sure the propriety of recommending certain sites, but if you google "airfare tracker" or something similar a number of sites will pop up that allow you to enter an origin and destination and will send you an e-mail when fares are cheap.

[wendychloecruiser]

With Choiceair now Air2sea, YOU choose your flight times and dates. The one way fares can only be recently challenged by Norwegian Air which are downright cheap.

 

Current one way flights on Norwegian from Heathrow to Vegas for £180, New York £140, LAX £170, Seattle £150, Austin £165, San Francisco £160, Fort Lauderdale £160, Singapore £160.

[mom4mom]

We are doing a transatlantic on MSC for the first time in March 2019 which is going from Miami to Genoa Italy. I've heard lots of good things about MSC and they do status match, too, which gave us an additional 5% off the fare. Genoa is close to Milan and airfare to the NY/NJ area is very reasonable. What interested me in this cruise was the 4 overnight ports - one of them being Manhattan. Maybe you can negotiate with them to board there to save airfare into Miami.

[lenquixote66]

I thought I would do some research for our 2019 cruise. I have been on the computer since 7am looking at cruises...all ships and itineraries. NOTHING appeals to me. I know we need to fan out with our itineraries, but my greatest fear is "airfare". We have been to just about every Caribbean Island, Bermuda and Hawaii.....so time to move on.

 

That leaves Alaska, which we do not want to do until we retire. (two or three years). That leaves a possible transatlantic, which we are highly interested in...BUT.....I am afraid of the cost of airfare going or coming back. Can't even check prices, because it would be for next year. Is there a "secret" that I don't know about for this? Any advice?

 

You can also cruise ,spend a week or two in Europe then cruise back .Just a thought.