Key Takeaways

  • First, ships reel you in with a “cheap” room and an onboard credit but then smack you around with high-priced drinks, non-included restaurants, and do
  • A couple of years ago, I went on the Oasis of the Seas (one of the largest boats in the world) on a seven-day cruise around the Caribbean. The listed
  • That’s expensive for a week of cruising. You could go to Southeast Asia for a month on that kind of money.
cruise ships docked in the Bahamas

Updated: 12/8/2018 | December 8th, 2018

Cruises can be expensive affairs.

First, ships reel you in with a “cheap” room and an onboard credit but then smack you around with high-priced drinks, non-included restaurants, and dollar-a-minute Internet.

A couple of years ago, I went on the Oasis of the Seas (one of the largest boats in the world) on a seven-day cruise around the Caribbean. The listed price of this cruise?

That’s expensive for a week of cruising. You could go to Southeast Asia for a month on that kind of money.

Luckily, there are, in fact, ways to take a cheap cruise for as little as $30 per day. It just takes a bit of skill, a lot of discipline, and a bit of sneakiness.

How to Book a Cheap Cruise

Booking a cheap cruise is actually quite easy and requires only one thing: flexibility. See, cruise pricing is similar to tour pricing. The closer you get to the departure date, the cheaper the cruise becomes.

Because cruise ships don’t want to depart with half-empty boats, so they drop prices steadily until that boat is leaving port, since for them empty cabins mean less money.

Cruises make the majority of their money from what people purchase on board, so they want bodies on those ships. (Plus, most of the crew earns their money from tips, so they need to keep the crew happy — and besides, who is going to think highly of a cruise that is only half full?)

You can also book early, but I find last-minute bookings to be the best. And since you are booking close to departure, you need to be flexible with where you are willing to go or OK with not booking the actual cruise even if you booked your flights.

Another tip comes Doug Parker of Cruise Radio, “When the kids are in school, the rates are the best.” This holds true in all travel but especially cruising, because it is such a family activity. Don’t travel when everyone else is traveling! If you do that or travel during the shoulder season, you can find the best rates. Chris from Chris Cruises also reiterates my recommendation: “Book far in advance or last minute for the best fares.”

How To Get Last Minute Cheap Cruise Deals

Doug advises that you start with a travel agent, as they have relationships with the cruise companies and can often get better rates and last-minute deals. And my experience has me agreeing. While there are many “do it yourself” options, travel agents often can find much lower prices and can act as liaison to cruise companies when something goes wrong.

If you want to go with the “do it yourself” angle, you only need to go to these three best websites for finding a cheap cruise:

These websites do a detailed job of scouring the web for cheap cruise deals. Vacations to Go is more of a travel agent/operator and thus often has better deals since they can negotiate with the cruise lines directly, but keep in mind that they add a lot of fees. Cruise Sheet is simply a website aggregator that crawls the web and then displays cheap last-minute fares. This is my favorite cruise site, as it seems to find all the deals and makes finding a cheap cruise easy.

In terms of timing, don’t book early. As Doug states, “the only benefit to booking early is to secure the room you want.” If you want a specific cabin, book early. Otherwise, wait until the last minute. As I said in the beginning, cruise companies don’t want to sail empty ships and so do heavy last-minute discounting — be sure to sign up for cruise company newsletters to stay informed!

Finally, if you book a cruise and the price drops, contact the cruise or your travel agent. They will often give you the difference as an onboard credit.

As Chris from Chris Cruises states, “There are so many ships now, prices are at an all-time low.” Now is a great time to go on a cruise.

Three Things to Remember When Booking A Cheap Cruise

1. Smaller is cheaper – Smaller boats tend to be less expensive since they offer fewer amenities and attractions.

2. Cruise in the off season – Traveling off season (Caribbean during the hurricane season, Alaska in September) will get you markedly cheaper fares.

3. Take a repositioning cruise — Repositioning cruises are when cruise lines move ships from one part of the world to the next in anticipation of the upcoming season. These “cruises” are a great way to cross an ocean or sail down a continent’s coast on the cheap and can be found on any cruise booking website.

What about your flight? Don’t book your flight with the cruise — book it separately. Check out this guide to finding a cheap flight to lower that cost.