Luxury – it’s more affordable then you think !!
I think all of us have that dream that one day when the kids have flown the nest and we are retired and have some savings behind us that we might just go wild and treat ourselves to the holiday of a lifetime. The holiday where it’s all about you. Pampering, sauners and beauty treatments. Amazing food and fine wine and above all else just lots and lots of luxury. Well I found out today that you may not have to wait quite as long as you first imagined. I did a cruise booking today for one of my clients and they really wanted to go and see the Dalmatian coast. I searched a few cruise lines and although a lot of the major lines featured Dubrovnik and Croatia the itinerary’s also featured a lot of Greece and Italy and didn’t really offer the sort of thing that my clients were looking for. After lots of attempts we finally came up with an option with shearing’s that had the perfect itinerary going for seven nights on a river cruise style ship in a basic cabin.
The price worked out to be about £269pp a day but was on a request basis and we had to await the reply back from them to see if the date was available. Unfortunately they came back to me to advise that the dates were not available. I was very disappointed as I knew the clients were desperate to get away and see this part of the world and nothing else would be a match for them. I had mentioned Seabourn cruises earlier to my clients but they snubbed it straight away as they thought the prices would be way out of the price range they were looking at. I decided to take a look and found a fabulous itinerary and going on the exact dates we were looking for. Thinking this was two good to be true I was prepared to go back to the client with a price out of budget and not feasible so imagine my surprise when I worked it out on a daily cost that it was actually £20pp cheaper and for a far superior cabin.
The seabourn line includes all soft drinks and wine with meals and open bars throughout. They have in-cabin mini-bars and all the gratuities on board are included. Also Seabourn are award winning for their culinary expertise and all specialist dining venues onboard are complimentary. Now if you actually sat down and added it all up the regular cruise versus the luxury is not as good value as you may initially think. While you’re sipping on a beautifully selected fine wine at dinner on your luxury cruise you would be paying on average $5.50 per glass on your regular cruise. Tipping is going to cost you about £7pp a day but the luxury line is all included and you are guaranteed first class services with staff always attentive and earnest to please. If you love eating in the speciality restaurants and enjoy a wide varied menu then it can cost you approx. $25 to re3serve this on a regular cruise – Luxury such as Seabourn include this. I think my main point really is don’t ever let the more expensive initial prices put you off. Put the whole cruise experience into account, the fare and the onboard spending that you are going to be doing and then all of a sudden the luxury cruise may become the much more attractive option. No one likes to finish the bargain cruise of the century only to find that they have got a hefty bill at the end of it to settle. Luxury may not be the distant dream that you thought it was after all.
About Me
I have been working in the Travel Industry for 16 years and originally started out in Business travel. After doing this for a while I was given an opportunity to move into the cruising industry and haven't looked back since. I thoroughly enjoy my job and can't think of anything…
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