Get Into Right Position for Discount Cruises

I’ve often mentioned how “repositioning cruises” can be a great way to find high quality at bargain prices. It stems from the inexorable rhythms of the industry. As cruise lines start winding down their winter sailing seasons and gear up for summer, they’ve got to get boats from winter homes in the Caribbean and Florida to summer ports in Alaska and Europe, or to New York for the summer cruising season to Bermuda.

These repositionings can yield fabulous deals, costing 50% to 70% less than normal--and often you won’t find them in cruise catalogs. Sometimes you can get information from your favorite cruise line, but perhaps the best way is to dial up one of the reputable cruise consolidators, which will offer a raft of repositioning deals.

Consider one on Royal Caribbean’s 3-year-old megaship, Splendor of the Seas. Carrying up to 1,800 passengers, this ship on April 21 is weighing anchor on a 14-night transatlantic repositioning from Miami to Barcelona, Spain. Stops along the way include St. Thomas, Tenerife in the Canary Islands, Funchal in Portugal and Malaga on the Costa del Sol. From a well-regarded Miami consolidator, Cruise Line Inc., telephone (800) 777-0707, you can get an inside cabin for $1,002, based on double occupancy, and for $1,472 you can have an outside cabin.

With most repositioning cruises, remember that you’ll have to pay for that extra flight to get from the destination port back to the home port (or your hometown).

For something a little closer to home, Cruise Line can get you a 12-nighter on another huge boat, Celebrity’s Galaxy, which is repositioning May 9 from Los Angeles to Vancouver and taking a spin through highlights of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska en route: Grays Harbor, Wash.; Victoria in Canada; and the Alaskan ports of Juneau, Sitka, Skagway and Ketchikan. The price is $1,312 for an inside cabin, $1,442 for outside, both based on double occupancy.

Or how about an inside cabin on the April 24 sailing of the Galaxy for a 15-day trip from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Los Angeles at $1,725 per person? And that includes port charges and one-way air fare between the West Coast and San Juan.

The ship’s itinerary includes Aruba; Cartagena, Colombia; the Panama Canal; Costa Rica; Acapulco, Mexico; Cabo San Lucas, Mexico; and San Diego. Contact Spur-of-the-Moment Cruises at tel. (800) 343-1991 (the company will respond to your calls by mail) or Internet https://www.spurof.com.

Another good deal is from Costa Cruises, which was recently bought by Carnival. Costa has two 16-night transatlantic crossings in April from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Genoa, Italy.

One broker we think highly of, Illinois-based Cruises International, tel. (800) 255-7447, is selling an inside cabin for the 1,928-passenger Costa Victoria’s April 18 to May 4 itinerary for $1,603, double occupancy. In the Caribbean, the trip covers Nassau, the Dominican Republic, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and Guadeloupe. Then it jumps to Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands before Casablanca, Morocco, and Barcelona, then arrives in Genoa.