A Blog About My Life’s Lessons

I’m very excited to announce that my wife and I have actually booked our first vacation is 3 years :-).  This vacation is the result of a few circumstances:

1. We actually budgeted the vacation as part of our first annual budget (only took 4 yrs) back in November
2. Our Daughter is old enough now that we feel comfortable leaving her for an extended period of time (My wife, Mrs Murphy is still nervous about this)
3. We are in a major need of getting a way from it all for a relaxing week of doing nothing.
4. Gives us a chance for a little alone time

Now to the details on why we choose a cruise and some money saving tips.  First off, why we choose to go on a cruise. We working from a budget of <$1,800 for the entire trip and we wanted to get the biggest bang for our buck.  Where else can the following conditions:

• 8 days in a tropical environment
• Great food (at least that’s what I hear)
• Forced relaxation during the “at sea” days
• See multiple locations (I’ll share our itinerary later)
• Get waited on hand and foot
• Take part in awesome activities (on and off the boat)
• Fairly fixed cost (transportation,lodging, food, drinks,etc…)
• No driving or flying during the trip
• A port was close to our house (Galveston,TX is about 2.5hrs away)

Now for some money saving tips.  Hopefully, my frugality is starting to come out.  I first went to kayak.com  (Checkout my post on this website) to findout our cruise options.  There are two competing cruise lines out of Galveston: Carnival and Royal Caribbean. From my research, Royal Caribbean seems to run $100-$200 more per person.  I really couldn’t justify in my mind the price difference based on the feature of the cruise and the reputation of both cruise line providers, so we decided on Carnival Cruise Line.   Using Kayak.com, I found the cheapest price was available through cruiseonly.com.  Not only was it the lowest fare, but they were offering additional perks, including a discount coupon booklet for the cruise as well as sending us a ”free” companion airfare and $50 restaurant gift-card after the cruise. 

One of the biggest lessons learned through this process is that the price was also negotiable.  I found this out very quickly when the agent offered $50 discount if I booked it that day.  In the end, I was able to negotiate a total of $100 off the price of the cruise.  With the $100 discount and the additional perks, we are getting an ocean-view “guarantee” room for the same value of a non ocean-view room.  Which made me very happy. At least for now :-).

Are there any additional lessons learned that you can share?