Are Cruises the Best Way to Stretch Your $$$ in Europe?

Posted by Anne Campbell
Posted in Cruise Tips, Europe Cruises

Last weekend, Wendy Perrin, Conde Nast Traveler’s consumer news editor, wrote an interesting article on her blog: “Cruises Are NOT the Best Way to Stretch Your Dollar in Europe”. Wendy is one of the most highly respected travel journalists in the industry so her opinion matters. I suggest clicking on the title and reading her comments.

First of all, I’d never say cruises are the best way to stretch your dollar in Europe. My brother and sister-in-law searched airfare on Kayak and nailed a $1,000 round-trip flight to Bologna ($500 per person below the standard airfare for peak season travel). He and his wife have rented a lovely apartment for $700 for a week. He’ll hop on and off trains to get around. This probably beats the price of any cruise.

I agree with many points Wendy makes. Europe cruisers get a brief glance at many countries. She says that shore excursions are “ridiculously overpriced”. As I’ve written before, purchasing shore excursions in every port will drive your final tab up astronomically.

However, Wendy is writing as if travelers are all the same. There are plenty of folks like my brother who prefer to make their own arrangements and travel around Europe on their own. Many of these folks wouldn’t be caught dead on a cruise ship. Cruisers, on the other hand, love the creature comforts a cruise ship provides, waking up each day in another port and are delighted they don’t have to worry about accommodations, meals and sightseeing on their own.

In the end, Europe cruising can be highly affordable if you use Google to search out sightseeing options in each port before departure, skip the ship’s spa, art gallery and boutiques.

What’s your opinion of Wendy’s article? Do you think Europe cruises are the best way to stretch your vacation dollar?

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28 April

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 10:22 am and is filed under Cruise Tips, Europe Cruises. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Comments Are Cruises the Best Way to Stretch Your $$$ in Europe?

Wendy Perrin

April 28th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
1

HI ANNE,
ARE YOU BY ANY CHANCE THE “CRUISERANNE” WHO POSTED THOSE COMMENTS ON MY BLOG? IF SO, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SMART, INSIGHTFUL COMMENTARY.

IN RETROSPECT I CAN SEE HOW IT MAY HAVE SOUNDED LIKE I WAS PUTTING ALL TRAVELERS IN ONE BASKET. I DIDN’T MEAN TO. AS I SAW IT, I WAS WRITING SPECIFICALLY FOR THE MANY CONDE NAST TRAVELER READERS WHO ARE EUROPHILES, HAVE NEVER CRUISED, AND MIGHT BE CONSIDERING A EUROPEAN CRUISE THIS SUMMER BECAUSE OF ALL THE PRESS OUT THERE ABOUT HOW A CRUISE IS CURRENTLY THE CHEAPEST WAY TO SEE EUROPE. I WAS NOT WRITING FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY CRUISERS. ONCE YOU’VE CRUISED, YOU DON’T NEED ME TO TELL YOU THE PROS AND CONS, THE COSTS AND BENEFITS; ONCE YOU’VE CRUISED, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GETTING INTO, YOU CAN DIGEST THE PRESS COVERAGE IN AN EDUCATED WAY, AND YOU KNOW WHETHER OR NOT YOU’D ENJOY SEEING EUROPE BY SHIP.

SECOND, I MUST THANK YOU FOR YOUR CRUISINGFROMNEWYORK.COM WEB SITE. WHEN MY FAMILY AND I WANTED TO TAKE A CRUISE OUT OF THE NYC AREA LAST MARCH, WE LOOKED AT YOUR SITE TO FIGURE OUT OUR OPTIONS AND ENDED UP ON THE NORWEGIAN GEM. THANKS FOR THAT.

WENDY PERRIN
Anne Campbell

April 28th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
2

Hi Wendy…..

Yup, I’m CruiserAnne and I thought you wrote a terrific post. I assume it’s the cruise lines who blatantly claim a cruise ship is the only affordable way to visit Europe. As you pointed out, shore excursions and other onboard purchases can double the price of a cruise.

My brother will take a Caribbean cruise but never one in Europe because a few hours in port is too short.

Thanks for visiting!
Rick Beato

April 28th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
3

I suppose you could call me a “cruiserphile,” because since my wife and I tried our first four-day New York-to-Halifax and back we cannot imagine a vacation without a cruise ship under it. If my goal were to see a lot of sights in Europe at the lowest price, I suppose I could go backpacking and sleeping in hostels. But that would not be much of a vacation experience to me. If I were only interested in economy, I should stay at home in the Chicago area, where there are plenty of things to do and plenty of great restaurants. We like unpacking aboard ship, seeing a few sights and experiencing a taste of each port, and getting back aboard our floating hotel.

We are looking forward to 2009 for our first taste of Europe, from Britain through Germany to Russia, aboard Carnival Liberty. We are thrilled with the plans.

And there must be thousands of others just like us, or they would not be building the huge new ships that are joining the fleet every year.
Anne Campbell

April 29th, 2008 at 9:04 am
4

Oh yes, Europe is having its biggest season ever and next year more ships will cruise there. I doubt that many Europe cruisers are there because they think it’s the only affordable way to visit Europe……they like being aboard ships!
travelman1938

April 29th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
5

Bob Bestor, a guy who covers Germany, Austria & Switzerland for http://www.gemut.com and http://theeuropetraveler.com agrees with you and Ms. Perrin. He doesn’t seem to have anything against cruising, but says the idea that it’s the most affordable way to see Europe is just so much PR spin generated by cruise companies. Even the New York Times Practical Traveler jumped on the bandwagon a week or so ago. Cruising is great, but, c’mon, if you want to see the real Europe cheap get a rail pass or rental car and rent an apartment…mingle with the locals.
Cath Lawson

February 20th, 2009 at 4:55 am
6

Hi, I’ve found both blogposts extremely useful. I’ve only cruised once on Disney Cruiseline and I definitely didn’t find it an economical way to travel. With spa treatments and alcohol alone, you can easily spend more onboard than what you actually paid for the cruise.

I am planning to take a cruise in Europe this year but I am from the UK. I priced out doing a land trip in Italy and compared it to what we’d spend onboard the ship – being realistic about all the extras. Even though we’ll tour most places on our own, rather than take the ships excursions, I really don’t think the cruise will cost any less.

The main reason we’re doing the cruise is because of the fun activities for the kids. We’ve already done a lot of land trips in Europe and I must admit, these great Royal Caribbean ships are a huge draw for us. But we’re not planning to see everything.

I’ve spent a bit of time on Cruise Critic and it seems that many cruisers from the US seem to race around trying to see every historical building and museum they can. I’m exhausted just reading some of the trip reports and I don’t see how they find all that rushing around enjoyable.
lurkerm1e

March 7th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
7

Hi,

I’ve wandered the United States on my own and did the same in England, but taking AMA Waterways for my early Christmas Cruise down the Danube in 2009 was the best trip I’ve had. It’s not just the three gourmet meals a day and not worrying whether your hotel will be clean; it’s the included tours and the fact that if you speak English and no other language, the folks at AMA will insure that you can understand what the site you are seeing is about. It is also the fact that they make sure you meet you flights on the trip home. I give this company a big thumbs up.