I lived in Germany for five years, many moons ago, and as a result had the opportunity to travel around Europe quite a bit, visit lots of places, learn a little of three languages and have lots of fond memories. But since those golden days of yore I have been back twice with my fiancée […]

I’ve cruised dozens of ships on various lines and in my opinion this is as good as it gets on a mega-liner of 2200+ passengers with 920 crew. Costa’s Atlantica was a floating palace of art deco furnishings, marble inlaid floors and millions of dollars invested in original works of art. It exceeded my expectations. […]

A cruise ship provides a great, one price, vacation, and one of the main attractions to booking a cruise ship is that just about everything is included in the price. When many people think about a budget vacation, they picture an intrepid traveler in a roach infested hotel room eating stale sandwiches and riding around […]

Cruise Lines generally finalize their ship itineraries from 12 to 18 months before sailing day and the earlier you book a better chance you have for the “early booking discounts”. Another way to get a reasonable discount is a “last minute booking”.  The risk here is that your choices of itineraries will be limited as […]

You want to take a cruise vacation, but how do you pick the ship?  You’re the cruise planner in the family so first, consider the type of ships.  They run the gamut from small yacht like ships to mega-liners holding over 3000 passengers.  The small ships normally do not have constant activities throughout the day […]

When considering a cruise vacation this is a very good question.  The Cruise lines pre-book massive amounts of airline space. That allows you better access to flights, and many cruise lines pass on their reasonable prices to passengers whose travel agents book through them. If you choose to make airline reservations on your own please […]