Just few years ago it was easy to find 3 and 4 day cheap cruises in the range of $100 – $150 and 7 day cruises around $350. Not anymore. well, you can be lucky to find a 7 day cruise at $400, but the smaller cruises seems to be at $250 and up. What happened? Well, first of all the economy have improved. That’s what I read anyway. People have more money in their hands, so more people are able to cruise. Another reason is probably that more people are getting interested in cruises. You know that as a fact, because the cruise lines build ships faster than they retire them and keep in mind that it’s still only a small percentage of the population who actually have been on a cruise vacation. So with more people interested in cruising and with more people having extra money to spend, it’s easier for the cruise lines to fill the ships. Supply and demand as always.
Yeah, that sucks. Go back to your land vacation, or whatever guys so i can have my cheap cruises back 🙂
Another thing that comes into play is the cruise departing location. Cruises are much cheaper departing from Galveston TX, New Orleans LA, Charleston SC or California. It used to be a big advantage to live in Florida when cruising (besides saving the plane ticket), but it isn’t anymore.
So is cruising too expensive?
Well, lets take a look at the numbers and compare to a land vacation. We just spend 5 days in Vegas. Hotel came out to $370 and the flight was $470 for both of us. That was from Miami to Vegas with Frontier Airlines. (Look into them for your next flight, they are dirt cheap).
So in total that was $84 per night per person. A $250 4 cruise is about $298 including tips. That’s $74.50 per night per person. A $500 7 days cruise comes out to $584 total which is $83 per night.
So while it might not be a totally fair comparison for all because of the flight included to Vegas, it’s the fact for me. A cruise including all meals is pretty close to be the same as my land vacation including flights. So if you add the cost of flights to a cruise vacation and add the cost of meals to a land vacation, my guess is that it still will be pretty equal.
Few years ago the daily cruise cost was equal to a hotel stay per night and back then I felt I was wasting money by vacation in any other way than cruising. Today not so much. I am happy that I can get out and see all the places in the world now and not thinking how much extra i am spending compared to a cruise.