Holland America Line's Veendam
We are now in a time for travel when everything costs less than it usually does. That's because from now until Christmas, travel slumps. The autumn is when cruises, flights, and hotel rooms are so lightly booked that their owners get frantic and slash the price to fill those cruises, flights, and rooms.
Nothing better illustrates this pattern than an e-mail widely circulated in recent days by VacationsToGo.com, which vies with CruisesOnly.com as the nation's largest cruise discounter. In it, the aggressive cruise wholesaler lists a five-night cruise sailing round-trip from Miami in October and November on which autumn cabins are priced at $198 per person ($39 per day).
While that's for an inside cabin on a cruise going briefly to Key West, Cozumel, and other days simply at sea, who could deny that the value is superb? Imagine spending only $39 a day for accommodations, transportation, several excellent meals each day, access to a swimming pool, lounge, fitness room and library, and some evening entertainment.
For perhaps an even better value, consider spending a heftier $71 per person per day in autumn, for a seven-night cruise on Holland America Line's Veendam or Rotterdam for a really interesting cruise from Boston to Quebec City, Halifax, Sydney, and Prince Edward Island. $499 per person will bring you an inside cabin on several such autumn cruises to the Canadian Maritime provinces.
And bear in mind that such stunning prices in autumn are offered not simply by the two large companies I've named, but by all the several cruise discounters, including ExpediaCruises.com and CruiseBrothers.com.
Even the supposedly-more-glamorous cruises, like those of the Mediterranean, sell for stunningly low rates in the autumn months prior to Christmas. It's then that you can pay as little as $599 (for a one-weeker costing only $85 a day per person) on a ship of the Norwegian Cruise Line, for seven days leaving from and returning to Venice, and going to most of the famous European ports, including Athens, Naples, Rome, and the Greek Islands. Take a look at the offerings of the near-dozen major cruise discounters I've named.
And finally, bear in mind that land vacations in the Caribbean, this time including airfare. are also priced at amazingly low levels in the autumn months, which is a definite low season in the tropics. Nearly all the tour packagers price their air-and-land at prices that begin under $1,000 per person for round-trip airfare to an island resort, accommodations for seven nights, three meals daily, unlimited drinks, and non-motorized sports. Such packages for all-inclusive vacations in the Dominican Republic are particularly cheap, and if you'll insert the names of popular D.R. resorts into a search engine (try "Punta Cana" and "Puerto Plata" in particular), and you'll soon be dreaming of a week-long appointment with a white sand beach and bathtub-warm waters.
Incidentally, the Canadian tour packagers—such companies as Sunwing.ca, Sunquest.ca, AirCanadaVacations.ca, others—operate one-week all-inclusive beach vacations from Toronto to Cuba in the fall months (airfare, seven nights' hotel, all meals and drinks) for as little as $600 per person, but it's an open question as to whether they'll accept Americans on their flights. You might consider using them when and if our own regulations governing the right to vacation in Cuba are further liberalized, as they undoubtedly will be.