A couple weeks ago my family returned for a week long Caribbean cruise together on Royal Caribbean. We had such a great time coming together from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Nebraska to spend a whole week of vacation time together! Though not everyone else in the family is as big into travel hacking as I am, there are a few tips and tricks we used along the way.
1. Cyber Monday last year had a great deal for $100 off a hotel booking of $100 or more through Orbitz. This was limited to the first 10,000 people who took advantage of it so first thing that morning I started scanning through. I knew we would need one night in Fort Lauderdale before leaving on the cruise so my goal was to find something as close to $100 as I could so that it would be practically free. I ended up finding a suite at the Universal Palms Hotel with a king bed and pull out couch for $112.00. This was perfect since my sister was heading there with us as well. I booked it in time to only spend $12.00 total on it and my mom did the same for my parents and other sister. The hotel itself was nothing special and not in the best location logistically. But it was about 15 minutes from the airport and 15 minutes from the cruise port so it would do.
2. My plan was to use Uber to get around since I had some credits for free rides, but my grandfather ended up being able to provide transportation in his car so we didn’t have to worry about that. Side note: Waffle House is the only restaurant close by to this hotel. I believe there was a restaurant in the hotel as well but never checked it out for sure.
3. U.S. Airways Companion Pass: We used this for us all to get from Omaha to Fort Lauderdale. You can read more details about this companion pass here. But since we all jumped on the awesome U.S. Airways credit card deal earlier in the year we had the companion pass to use. Basically full price was paid for my flight and then my husband and sister both also got on the same flight for only $100 each. 4. We booked excursions along the way for the different ports we visited and didn’t use any miles or points for these Mainly this was because the rest of my family don’t have the points to use and we were all going together on the activities. However, my tip would be to do your research for an excursion before jumping to book through the ship. Often times the ship is more expensive than local excursion options and we actually didn’t book any of ours through the ship in the end. We had no problem with any scams on the islands, everything ran very smoothly so I definitely recommend it.
5. Finally, this was my 4th cruise I’ve been on and I was a bit disappointed with Royal Caribbean. While they have a reputation for being one of the best I was disappointed with a few features on it. No need to trash them on the internet and sound like a snob for complaining about being a cruise in the first place! But if anyone is considering a cruise I’d be happy to chat through some options with you!
Also, I have not done this personally but it is possible to use miles or points from some cards (like Chase cards) to book a cruise! These are not listed on the Chase Ultimate Rewards site but there is a phone number given in case you’d like to call and get some quotes on how many points would be needed. If you can find one you like it would be possible to have the entire cruise paid for through points! (Other than the daily service charge per person).
Fire Round the World 