In February, Barb McGowan took a seven-day cruise on Holland America Line, visiting the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and the Dominican Republic for just $343, or $49 a day, excluding taxes, port fees and extras. By comparison, Holland America currently lists a seven-day Caribbean itinerary in October from about $700.
The catch: She had just 48 hours’ notice.
Ms. McGown, a 64-year-old from Naples, Fla., who runs a restaurant franchise, took one in all the road’s recent standby cruises, that are aimed toward travelers who live near departure ports and intended to fill ship vacancies.
“I search for deals, and this was an especially good experience,” Ms. McGowan said, praising the food and entertainment. “I used to be impressed enough to place down a deposit on a future cruise.”
A solution to keep ships full
Holland America introduced its standby program last August to maximise ship occupancy, knowing that cancellations are inevitable. So far, the remaining of the cruise industry has not followed its lead.
“If cancellations are inside every week or two of sailing, it’s difficult to resell that space within the open market,” said Dan Rough, the vice chairman of revenue management at Holland America.
In the identical way that airlines oversell seats, cruise lines may compensate for cancellations by overselling staterooms. Filling in with standbys, nevertheless, reduces Holland America’s reliance on overselling, which runs the chance of bumping passengers to distant departures or potentially offering generous money incentives to coax volunteers to cancel.
Though the corporate doesn’t heavily promote the brand new practice, it has attracted a following among the many thrifty by dangling a bargain rate — $49 an individual, whether sharing a cabin or traveling solo, before taxes and costs — on an online page that lists available departure dates to draw flexible travelers. Standbys should expect an inside cabin, in response to the corporate, though ocean-view and veranda cabins have been assigned. (The company declined to say what number of standby cabins it has offered.)
“Forty-nine dollars per person, per day is pretty exceptional,” said Colleen McDaniel, the editor of CruiseCritic.com, an internet site that reviews cruises, noting that the worth covers all meals and entertainment. “You can’t find a less expensive rate at a land resort for what’s included.” (In 2023, the common nightly rate for a hotel room within the United States was nearly $156, in response to STR, an information analytics firm that monitors the hospitality industry.)
To participate, travelers select an itinerary from the standby list on the web site — current embarkation ports include Boston; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Montreal; Quebec City; San Diego; Seattle; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Whittier, Alaska — and pay for the trip prematurely by calling Holland America or booking through a travel adviser.
There are not any refunds for standby cruisers who wish to back out. However, if the gamble fails to repay, and the cruise line cannot offer a cabin to someone on the standby list, it issues a refund.
The company says standby offerings are added on a rolling basis and typically lists itineraries inside two to 3 months of departure. Current offerings include seven-day sailings in Alaska’s Inside Passage from April through September and seven-to-11-day trips cruising the coast of New England and Canada’s Maritime Provinces between May and October.
Proximity is a bonus
Standby cruisers don’t learn of their acceptance or denial until every week to 2 days before departure, complicating transportation arrangements.
“Last-minute airfare could offset the savings on a cruise,” wrote Crystal Seaton, the owner of Road to Relaxation Travel, a travel agency based in Raleigh, N.C., in an email. Though she has not booked a client on a standby sailing yet, she surmised that it is meant for travelers who can drive to a port.
“We were lucky; we came upon Tuesday we were happening a Friday 3 p.m. sailing,” said Sheila Valloney, 66, of Clermont, Fla., who together with her husband spent nine days aboard a Holland America ship within the southern Caribbean in February by going standby.
Before being cleared, she reserved a parking spot near the ship dock in Fort Lauderdale, which might have set her back about $6 if she canceled. She also kept their vacation clothes able to go on the last minute for the three-and-a-half-hour drive to port.
Booking a refundable airline ticket — or no less than one which guarantees a credit in loyalty points or money within the event of cancellation — is a technique travelers who must fly can make the most of the deal.
For her standby sailing, Ms. McGowan drove 90 minutes from her home to the ship in Fort Lauderdale. But her travel companion was coming from Indiana, so when she joined the standby list just a few months before the departure date, she booked her friend a Southwest Airlines flight using frequent flier points that may be refunded if the last-minute cruise didn’t come through.
Avoiding extra charges
Once on board, charges for extras like cabin upgrades, Wi-Fi, alcohol and shore excursions can inflate the bill, though the thriftiest travelers attempt to avoid them.
Ms. McGowan sprang for the $17.50-a-day charge for an upgraded drink package (basic nonalcoholic drinks are included within the cruise) and took one shore tour, focused on coffee growing, which she deemed value at $89.
On their Caribbean cruise, the Valloneys asked around for recommendations for good beaches, where they went to loosen up on port days, and waited until they were on land to examine emails, to be able to avoid paying for Wi-Fi on the ship.
“We didn’t miss it in any respect,” Ms. Valloney said. “For beverages, we’d wait until completely happy hour, when it was buy one, get one free.”
Will other corporations follow suit?
To date, no other cruise lines have adopted standby programs.
Princess Cruises said it didn’t plan to supply cabins on a standby basis, but noted that it already offers last-minute deals, which are inclined to run about $50 to $60 per passenger per day. For example, a seven-day Alaska sailing from Vancouver to Anchorage departing on May 8 is listed at $399 an individual in a double-occupancy cabin.
Several other major cruise lines didn’t reply to inquiries about potentially adopting standby programs, though operators like Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line also offer last-minute deals on their web sites.
“We could be surprised to see many mainstream cruise lines begin to adopt an analogous model” to the standby system, wrote Kimberly Coyne, the pinnacle of sales and content strategy for Cruiseline.com, a cruise review site, in an email. She said the standby fares could be financially unsustainable for cruise lines and cited the potential that travelers might develop into too accustomed to late-booking deals.
More ways to save lots of
With the recent surge in cruise bookings, corporations are discounting less, said Ms. McDaniel of CruiseCritic.com.
She identified more reliable ways to get a deal compared with going standby, corresponding to booking during “wave season,” a sales period that generally runs January through March, or taking a repositioning cruise, wherein a ship relocates from one region to a different seasonally. A repositioning itinerary might sail in the autumn from Alaska to the Caribbean via the Panama Canal.
“It’s commonplace to see a repositioning cruise at lower than $75 per night,” Ms. McDaniel, said, noting that other expenses corresponding to an airline itinerary into one city and coming back from one other may cost greater than a normal round-trip ticket.
Repositioning cruises are inclined to stop at fewer ports and add more shipboard enrichment programs, corresponding to lectures and activities like cake decorating classes and craft spirits tastings.
“For quite a lot of people the ship is the destination and that is the right activity for individuals who prefer to be on the ship,” she said.
