How to buy a cruise online on the Internet

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Until December 4, you have a chance to book New Year's cruises from St. Petersburg at a discount:

NEW YEAR'S CRUISE 12/30/2018: PROMOTION SUPER 2 DISCOUNT 20% *
The promotion applies to cabins: A2, A4, B2, B4,B2V

CHRISTMAS CRUISE 04.01.2019: PROMOTION SUPER 2 DISCOUNT 20% *
The promotion applies to cabins: A2, A4, B2, B4

How to book a discount cruise?

Just choose the right deal when booking!

Detailed information, description of cabins, cruise program and prices in the sectionNew Year and Christmas: Cruises from St. Petersburg

Our online reservation does not require registration, password and instant payment.
After making a reservation, you will receive a confirmation invoice to the specified email with the reservation conditions and payment deadlines.

Short course "How to become an independent traveler"

1. Organization of independent travel
2. Going on a trip: to-do list
3.100 secrets of a successful trip
4. How to buy cheap flights
5. How to choose and rent a house on a trip
6. How to apply for a visa
7. Insurance abroad
8. How to rent a car?
9. Railways and trains
10. Bus companies in Europe
11. How to buy a cruise online on the Internet
12. Mobile travel apps
13. Features of booking on booking.com
14. How to book accommodation on Airbnb
15. All the tricks and ways to save on rental housing through Airbnb
16. How to find cheap flights through search engines
17. 40 tips on how to travel cheap
18. 10 mistakes solo travelers
19. What to do if you are left without money and documents in a foreign country
20. List of optional but important things to do before traveling
21. How to start traveling
22. First aid kit on a trip

Author Polinka

It’s like someone, but it’s more interesting for me in the second way and I don’t need to go anywhere :-). I’ll tell you about my personal experience buying a cruise on the Internet.

The idea to cruise arose after a trip to the USA was planned for three weeks. One week was planned to devote to the sea-sun-palm trees and other pleasures. And it was decided to get these pleasures with the help of a cruise.

The search for information began by studying the official sites of the most popular cruise lines and reading reviews about them.

Links to official sites

A very informative resource about cruises and everything related to them (though only in English) http://www.cruisecritic.com.

Official sites of cruise companies prefer to send to intermediaries - travel agencies in Russia.
Therefore, cruise search and reservation systems went into business. You can search for routes that are interesting in price and quality in all of them. It depends on someone where it’s more convenient, it’s purely individual. Prices sometimes differ, many still have different bonuses.

But the booking process itself, the holder of a Russian passport and a Russian bank card can not be implemented everywhere.

Below are the main cruise booking systems

They do not work directly with Russia:
http://www.expedia.com
http://cruises.orbitz.com
http://www.americandiscountcruises.com - prices match CruiseQuick.com and CruiseDirect.com. Only bonuses are different.

Having digested all the information received, my brain produced the result: the most optimal solution, taking into account personal interests, route, cost, time, cruise company and liner, would be a 7-day cruise to the southern Caribbean islands from San Juan (Puerto Rico) with a company Royal Caribbean, Serenade of the Seas.

I bought on the website http://www.seascanner.com about 40 days before the departure date. The choice is due to the fact that they had the most favorable prices at that time for the cruise I liked. Agency German, prices in euros. The site interface is quite friendly, there is no Russian language.

The booking procedure is convenient, no difficulties were found.

You receive an invoice. It states that they took 10% of the cost of the cruise off the card, also indicates the date and amount of the final payment (usually it occurs a month before departure). Your reservation code also comes. On the cruise company’s website (in my case, this is Royal Caribbean) using this code, you can go to your personal account and double-check the data.

A couple of days before the final payment date, you will receive a reminder to your email that they will withdraw money soon: so that you take care of the sufficiency of funds in the account, and also contact the bank, if necessary. Everything went smoothly with the sber card, the call center operator said that since the first transaction was authorized, there would be no problems with the second transaction, although it would pass without my participation. And so it happened.

After the cruise is finally paid, Seascanner sends a confirmation. And after a while, again, a cruise ticket comes to my email (I had 10 pages in pdf format), which lists all the organizational nuances.

At Royal Caribbean, no later than three days before the start, it is recommended that you register electronically and print the Sail Pass on the website in order to make your life easier and not fill out the paperwork in the cruise terminal when boarding the ship. Other cruise lines most likely have a similar procedure.

So simple. We already went on a cruise and are very, very happy! We want more! :-)

When is the best time to buy a cruise?

Tourists know that the sooner you start booking your vacation, the cheaper it will cost. So, it doesn’t work with cruises. The best time to buy a sea cruise is 2 months before departure and less. Why is that?

When you book a cruise in advance, you are not required to pay the full amount immediately. Typically, a cruise company only deducts a deposit, and sometimes it is fully refundable. And if the cruise suddenly fell in price, and fell significantly - no one bothers you just to rebook the cruise at new prices. In the worst case, you lose the deposit, and in the best - nothing at all.

For this reason, cruise companies try to keep prices virtually unchanged. Somewhere 2-3 months before departure (depending on the cruise company), you can no longer refuse a cruise without serious fines. That's when the most interesting prices begin to appear. After all, those who booked in advance will not refuse and unsold cabins can be sold at a great discount. And the closer the departure date, the greater the discounts.

Of course, there are exceptions too. If it is known in advance that the demand for the cruise will be low, the company understands that it is very difficult to fill the liner and can offer excellent prices a year and a half before the start. This applies to off-season cruises and off-season cruises (November-December for the Mediterranean). So it was, for example, with the transatlantic to Brazil on Costa Fascinosa, the best prices for which were a year and a half before the start (286 euros for 16 nights) or a cruise from Dubai to Venice on Costa neoRomantica (389 euros for 24 nights).

And vice versa - do not expect good prices for early booking of summer cruises in the Mediterranean Sea or the Norwegian fjords. Now it's April (at the time of writing), and summer prices are just starting to decline. If you want to buy a summer cruise inexpensively - wait for the burning options.

Which cruise companies to choose?

First of all, pay attention to the Italian mass market of the company MSC, Costa and the Spanish Pullmantur. The vast majority of cruises in our collections with Costa or MSC.

German AIDA and American Royal Caribbean in the price category higher. Norwegian was in the same category, but now they are actively introducing the concept of "Premium All Inclusive", their prices have increased significantly.

The premium segment is even more expensive: HAL, Princess, Celebrity. But even these companies have cheap options.

What directions to look?

Let's agree that a cheap cruise is a cruise costing less than 50 euros per person per night (excluding service charges). Buying cruises no more than 50 euros per night, theoretically you can go on cruises anywhere in the world.

It will not be possible for this price to get to only the most remote corners: the islands of Polynesia, Antarctica and the Galapagos. Everything else is available with our budget. In the table below we provide links to specific offers in the past that we managed to find by region. In fact, of course, there are many more.

Region	Recommendations
Europe and the Mediterranean Sea	In the low season (November-December) 40-50 euros per night for budget companies is more of a regular rather than a low price. In the summer - it is also possible, and even with a premium company, but already more difficult. Focus on burning options.
Norwegian Fjords	Such prices do exist, but they are usually last minute and you need to sail in May-early June, when it is still cool in Norway.
Repositional cruises and transatlantic	Generally no problem. 30-50 euros is the norm for the transatlantic. If you're lucky, you can get on a good liner
The Caribbean	In this region, most of the world's cruise ships are concentrated in season, the competition is fierce, so there are enough cheap offers. Catch the offers of the same MSC and Costa from Cuba, Dominican Republic, Martinique. Lacking Offers From Sailing From USA
South America	Rarely, there are good prices. Such a cruise is just a dream.
Southeast Asia	It is worth monitoring the offers of AIDA and Royal Caribbean. Sometimes Celebrity and Princess spoil good offers.
Near East	There is no shortage of cheap Gulf cruises. This winter, cruises of 40-45 euros per night were offered by MSC, Costa, AIDA, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity. From this winter they are also visa-free
Indian Ocean	Costa pleases with prices for cruises with calls to Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar. And next winter AIDA will join her.

Buy now or wait for the decline?

"I see a good price for the cruise, but I'm not sure whether to buy right now or wait, what if the price drops?" This is the most difficult moment and you should rely only on your intuition. Well, in fact, how do you know how many cabins have already been sold on this particular ship and how much is left? Only a cruise company knows this.

Even we, having two years of experience in monitoring prices, are not likely to predict whether there will be a further decline. Just because the price for 2 completely similar cruises to neighboring dates can be doubled. Yes, one of them predictably fell in price before sailing, but the second did not, and you need the second.

Our recommendation - if you see the price that ALREADY SETS YOU - buy. There is a risk to stay without this price. And if the cruise nevertheless gets cheaper - take it philosophically. You bought it at the price that suits you. Yes, someone bought cheaper, but he will also have financial expenses. The lowest prices are usually right before the departure, when it is no longer possible to get cheap air tickets, all the hotels in the city have been sold out and so on and so forth.

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