Participating in a standby list is the best trick for packing a cruise for lower costs during the peak season, a travel expert revealed.
But the hack is not without risk because your journey is not promised.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find discounts, because cruise companies have been successful months in advance – ultimately the companies give less an incentive to offer steep deals.
In an attempt to find a hack for an affordable load – minute journey, Dawn Gilbertson, a travel solumnist for the Wall Street Journal, the art – and the ugly – of standby lists.
“I took a kite on the standby program of Holland America in an attempt to score a cheap, spontaneous deal for pleasure in the sun,” Gilbertson wrote in the article. “It tested my nerves, patience and backup plan skills, but I would do it again for the price.”
The Hack starts with Holland America, a popular Premium Cruiselijn, which publishes a list with eligible standby cruises that all leave from various American ports in the course of the following months.
The prices have been determined – $ 99 per day for an indoor or ocean view and $ 129 for a room with a balcony, which includes both port costs and taxes.
Once your date has been chosen, the next step is the Holland America reservations to have them placed on the Standby list. From that moment you already have 'skin in the game', because the cruise has to be paid in advance.
Gilbertson, who was a late comer on the list for a recent sailing on the New Statendam from Fort Lauderdale, only paid $ 693 per person on January 16 – only 10 days before the ship's departure.
Dawn Gilbertson, a travel expert and columnist for the WSJ, revealed that the last remaining way to get a cruise during the peak season is to become a member of the standby list
Gilbertson found a published list of eligible standby cruises with Holland America, but the catch is that you do not know until the last minute whether you have secured a place
The price was already a deal. A majority of the week -long cruises that at that time left the Sunshine State started at more than $ 1,000 for a trip that same week.
Although the deal is said that it works best for solo travelers to do not pay them twice because they only have one person in the room as most cruise companies require the Gilbertson her 82-year-old mother for a much needed break away from The Rigid Connecticut Cold.
Her mother had a question that we probably all ask ourselves at the moment: 'You get an advance. Note that you can go on the cruise or is it like a flight, and you have to be there? “
This is where the terrible and fear-inducing gamble comes to play.
Those on the standby list will not find out whether or not they have a room on the ship up to seven to two days before sailing. Although you get your money back if you don't get to the cruise, you don't get anything back if you get a place and don't pop up.
Living near a port can solve that problem. But those who don't do that, including Gilbertson, have to book a flight to the port without a clear place to claim on arrival.
“I used points to book return flights for my mother because I could get them back if the journey did not happen,” said Gilbertson.
Eventually she bought a repayable one -way ticket from Phoenix to Fort Lauderdale for herself.
Only two days before they sail – also the deadline day to find out if you got it on the ship – Gilbertson finally received a confirmation that only three of the seven standby passengers took a place, and luckily she was one of them
The Saturday of January 25 on Saturday of the 2,666 passenger ship she had booked was sold out completely online, which only increased the stress to be in the unknown.
“From the moment I booked, I have controlled my e -mail obsessively as a helicopter parent who waited or their child came to that Ivy League school,” she wrote. “Nothing, nothing and nothing more.”
There was a feeling of false hope when the cruise company asked to check in Gilbertson with her flight information, booking and passport. In the end it meant nothing.
With five days to the cruise and not a word about an available place, Gilbertson called the Reservation Line of Holland – but again, nowhere.
“I was in Cruise Limbo and it was frustrating,” Gilbertson wrote. 'If I was rejected on Wednesday, I would just cancel the entire trip. If I didn't find out until Thursday, we had to fly to Fort Lauderdale that morning on our agreed flights, in case we got a yes that evening. '
The time was ticking and Gilbertson felt like she needed a backup plan. She searched the internet for other cruises in Florida. But even if she found another deal, she could not book anything without first hearing from Holland.
Only two days before they sail – also the deadline day to find out if you got it on the ship – Gilbertson finally received a confirmation on her journey.
Confused that it was not via an e -mail as promised and instead by a warning on the app that informed her about a assigned passenger number, she called the cruise line to wonder if it was a fluke.
In great news – it wasn't. In Beter Nieuws, only three of the seven standby passengers held a place and Gilbertson was one of them.
