The Compelling Economics Of A Cruise Vacation In Fulfilling Dreams

When you purchase a vacation what are you doing? I like to think of it as fulfilling a dream. It was our dream to cruise to Alaska one day. This cruise was one dream fulfilled.

I love to read reviews from affiliate marketing sites before making a decision. If you've been on cruises, I hope reading this brings back happy memories.

The vast majority of reviews focus on the facts and figures. Information like this is helpful and necessary to decide what vacation to take. I wonder if the review included a good dose of emotional content would it be more successful in keeping the reader engaged which results in a sale? What do you think?

Where do most of your booking dollars go? Your cabin and the food. It makes sense to examine what a cabin is like and the food that is served in talking economics of cruising. I cover actual costs at the end.

What's Your Cabin?

Do you know which cabins get sold out first when a cruise is announced? The cheapest inside cabins with no view and few perks and the luxury suites at the high end, many with personal butlers. The balcony and ocean-view cabins are the easiest to find if you leave it too late. That is not a negative thing.

Balcony cabins have become so popular that newer cruise ships are building a higher ratio of these.

My wife and I have sailed on eight cruises, all on balcony cabins and only one with an ocean view. Instead of a balcony, an ocean-view cabin has a closed glass window. I do not recommend booking these as the cost differential with a balcony is minimal. You miss out on feeling the sea breezes and sounds from your cabin. And ocean-view windows never stay clean.

Since we booked a balcony cabin for our Alaskan cruise I am going to use that as my economic example.

Your Balcony

Picture yourself enjoying the wind rustling through your hair as you lean over the balcony shown above. Watch the sun glistening over the waves. Let's return to the cabin and relax on your bed or sofa. You open one of the two bottles of wine passengers are permitted to be brought on board and stored in your cabin fridge. Pour the wine into some glasses and enjoy. Cheers!

I loved that we had so many storage cabinets. As well as a hidden safe. When you step through the door, it makes it easy to put your clothes away.

You may be wondering what's the bathroom like. Wonder no more. It didn't feel pokey at all.

When you consider that there are three thousand plus people on the ship I was always able to enjoy a hot shower with no loss of water pressure. And the water from the faucets was perfect for drinking. The ship has its own water desalination system so there is no shortage of fresh water.

Where And What To Eat?

Decisions decisions. There are so many venues to grab a meal that requires planning each and every day. This is a wonderful problem to have.

The fare includes all meals. Where should we dine? In the main dining room or the buffet. The main dining room is located on decks 2 and 3. The buffet is on the Lido deck 9.

If you prefer to be served by waiters, the main dining room is the way to go. On the other hand, if you prefer sandwiches, pizza, Chinese, or the carvery, the buffet in the lido will be your choice.

In addition to these venues, there are other specialty restaurants, some free and others that charge a small fixed price fee. For example, we had Guys Burger Joint for what else burgers and fries, or The Blue Iguana for tacos and burritos. If you wanted seafood or sushi there were paid venues for these.

On our ship, there was a fancy evening steakhouse on deck 10 that required an additional $38 charge per person. This was a place for special celebrations and you would wear similar clothes for a fancy restaurant on land.

Let's See The Menu And Food

Eggs Benedict was my favorite choice in the dining room and omelets to order stole the day in the buffet for me. The buffet provided more choices of continental breakfast, fruits, and pastries in addition to the hot breakfasts that included eggs, sausage, and bacon. Pancakes and waffles were also offered.

I'm going to show you a typical dinner menu for a normal day as well as for a formal evening. All dinners comprised of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Choices were plentiful. If you preferred any item you could order more of it. Each day had a new menu.

Appetizers:

My selections were the shrimp cocktail and the roasted tomato soup for starters.

Entrees:

FROM THE GRILL section was the same every day. I often alternated between the salmon and the steak, medium rare.

Desserts:

Tiramisu was my choice. Sometimes I also added the cheese plate.

Formal Dinner Menu:

We had three formal meals on this trip and we dressed up in formal wear. I alternated between a tux and a suit.

Appetizers and Entrees:

My choice for appetizers was the gulf shrimp cocktail and the lobster bisque soup. For the entree, I selected the broiled lobster and grilled jumbo shrimp.

Childrens Choice and Dessert:

Can you guess my choice for dessert? What else but baked Alaska!

The Buffet

There were a few days when we dined in the buffet. I'll show you pictures of some of the food stations here.

The Carvery Menu And Serving Station:

The Sandwich Station:

Salad Bar:

Dessert Anyone?

The Sweet Spot was the busiest station in the buffet area. Amazingly I only visited it twice for the pistachio cake.

Comparable 5-Star Hotel Costs

Although the rooms of a land-based 5-star hotel would be larger than our cabin, I felt it was a fair comparison since we had loads of open lounges and spaces to enjoy. Last year when my wife and I stayed in a 5-star hotel in Pasadena for a special event, the room cost us $365 a night. Of course, that fee didn't include any meals. Those were extra.

My wife and I each had to pay $184 a day for this cruise, taxes included. Interestingly this was comparable to what we paid for the 5-star hotel last year. But look at all the meals that are included. And we could eat as much as we wanted to.

Our ship was like a hotel at sea. It transported us to 6 venues to visit. I have posted articles about Sitka and Juneau. More to come.

Here's the kicker. If you selected an inside cabin, the cost per person would have been about $90 a day. This fee would also include the same meals.

Compelling Economics

Let's get one thing straight. It cost us a lot of money to take this cruise. Since it sailed from close to home, it meant we didn't incur airfares. The tradeoff was it involved additional days at sea. But these were fun and relaxing days.

Entertainment was plentiful and varied. And free.

We saved hard to purchase this cruise a year ago. Tours and shopping cost extra hence the overall cost added up.

We have always had an Alaska cruise on our bucket list and are happy we can cross that off now. Also, it is hard to place a value in discovering Alaska up close and personal.

If we visited Alaska instead of taking a cruise, it would have cost us much more when adding up the multiple airfares, hotels in six places, meals, etc.

I took a boatload of pictures and videos that I shall be using in my YouTube channel. You bet I shall be using affiliate links for not only cruise companies, but also for Amazon for what we purchased to use on this cruise.

There's more that I discovered in Alaska that I shall be sharing in future posts. My final Alaska cruise post will discuss what it was really like to live life on the Carnival Miracle for 14 days.

I'd love to hear your comments on the cabin and the food details I have shared. If you have any questions please ask.

Cheers!

Edwin