First Time Cruisers

• Some Important Things You Should Know About Making Cruise Reservations
• The Ten Leading Myths About Cruising
• The Most Important Cruise Vacation Decisions
• Disney Cruise Line Strategies

Perhaps no portion of travel is as prone to exaggeration and misleading pricing information as the cruise industry. Look around the Internet and you will find scores of sites claiming to offer the "best deals", "deepest discounts", and "fantastic savings". The cruise lines own advertising often features an incomplete price offered on the lowest possible category of accommodation.

Our cruise section is designed to help you steer a straight course through all of the phony hyperbole and come-on-pricing.

For all but a handful of niche lines, all cruise lines offer discounts based on projected yield per sailing. For instance, repositioning sailing's at the beginning or end of a season carry far higher discounts than prime season space.

Any smart marketer who wants to assume that the public is naive can play the Internet price game, promising a one-week cruise for $699. Or less.

The fact is that all of the top quality lines try to assure that all of their top agents receive the same pricing benefits.

Where travel firms tend to differ is in the quality of their consulting and the benefits and amenities they provide.

We hope that the information that follows will help you make an informed decision when it comes to the planning of your first, or next cruise vacation.