Summer cruise season offers top values
If you’re reading this and you haven’t already booked your summer cruise vacation, fear not: there are still plenty of excellent options that you can book last-minute without breaking the bank.
The Caribbean offers great value in the summer, when most of the tourists are gone and prices are far below what they are during the high-season winter months. This is particularly true this year, with the opening of cruises to Cuba on U.S.based cruise lines. Carnival Cruise Line recently inaugurated short sailings from Tampa, Fla. to Key West and Havana aboard Carnival Paradise; while Norwegian Cruise Line has its 1999-built Norwegian Sky operating quick jaunts to Havana from Miami.
Don’t overlook the Mexican Riviera, either. Carnival has based its 2,124-guest Carnival Miracle yearround in the region, primarily sailing weeklong round trips to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlán and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico from Long Beach, Calif. Other cruise lines also operate similar runs during the winter months, but Carnival is the only cruise line to offer summer Mexican Riviera cruises. I took one of these a few years ago, and greatly enjoyed being there without the crush of tourists that typically descend on these Pacific ports during the winter months.
If you can swing the airfare (which, let’s be honest, is sometimes a deal-breaker), prices in the Mediterranean this summer are very good, especially if you’re looking for a big, fun, mainstream cruise ship. In cruise speak, demand for the Mediterranean is “soft” this year, which means that supply is exceeding demand — and that drives prices down.
Also worth watching for as we head out of summer are the transatlantic repositioning cruises that many lines will operate as they start to bring their ships over from Europe to North America for the winter season. A typical Northern European crossing will feature calls on ports in Ireland or Scotland, Iceland, and maybe even Greenland before your ship reaches Canada and the U.S.
The one thing that can’t be booked last-minute, as usual, are European river cruises. Demand is still strong for sailings right into 2018, particularly for themed cruises like those that take place in December and visit Europe’s famous Christmas Markets; or the popular Tulip Time river cruises through Belgium and the Netherlands. If you want to book a river cruise, it still pays to do so at least six months ahead of time.
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