You're about to learn how you can go cruising for free.I'm Gary Bembridge
and this is another of my Tips For Travellers. I'm about to share with you nine
ways that you could cruise for free. While most of them are very practical and easy
to do, some of them are perhaps a little bit more outlandish. However, you're
likely to find a number of ways that you could go cruising for free. The
first, and most obvious way, is to become a Cruise Line crew member,
salaried crew. Of course this is not for everybody because you're going to have
to commit to going between three months, six months or in some cases even nine
months contracts where you're working seven days a week and very long hours.
However, if that appeals for you as a way to cruise for free and if you want to get
paid for cruising. A couple things to bear in mind if you want to see a lot of the
ports, do not look for jobs which are going to keep you onboard when you're in
port. The secret is to look for jobs which are in departments and functions
that are closed when you're in port. So for example, the shops and the casino
as they have to close when in port. Another great department to be in is in the
Entertainment Department. If you're one of the singers and dancers in one of
the production shows, whilst they do rehearse some days in port days, you'll
often find when you are in port you will see the dancers and the singers around and
about exploring the ports. So, that's another great role to consider if you
have those talents. The second thing to consider, if you've got any special
skills or talents, is to look at one of those roles which are not actually paid
to go on cruises but get free cruises. Some of these are the
guest speakers onboard, gentleman dance hosts which
some cruise ships have, or perhaps running some sort of craft
workshops, run bridge classes or even some of the digital workshops. A lot
of those roles, whilst they're not paid, you do get free cruising and you're
normally allowed in some of those roles to bring up a partner along as well. The
other thing to do, if you're a professional singer, dancer, comedian,
juggler or have some novelty act is to become a guest entertainer. Guest
entertainers are employed constantly by every single cruise line. Every single
week they'll have a number of guest entertainers on board. Another great way
to cruise for free is to look at being loyal to a cruise line. Pretty much every
single Cruise Line has a loyalty program, and if you want to cruise for free if
you choose one cruise line as amass points and nights
on board they can qualify for either discounts or completely free cruises.
It's very important that you choose the right cruise line if that's the route
you want to go. For example, I've found that most of the Carnival Corporation
Cruise Lines loyalty programs do not include free cruises, so lines like
Cunard, Princess and Costa. However, if you take a look at the Royal
Caribbean group of cruise lines (Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Azamara, Silversea)
their loyalty programs, at the time of recording, as you build points
lead to free cruises. Also Norwegian Cruise Line, again at the time of
recording, also you can build up to free cruises. The great thing about sticking
to one cruise line and building up loyalty points with that cruise line is,
whilst I may not lead to free cruises, it will give you lots of benefits
that'll save you a lot of money anyway. You'll get things like free laundry,
free Wi-Fi, speciality dining, priority embarkation and disembarkation at any
grade you're in. It'll give you all sorts of benefits and perks that certainly
will reduce the cost of cruising. So, whilst it doesn't always give you a
free cruise, it will significantly reduce the cost of cruising. My next tip and one
of the easiest of all is competitions. There are a huge amount of competitions
running at any one point of time, and pretty much every single major cruising
country which offers free cruises if you go to a search engine and put in "free cruise
competitions" it will throw up many many competitions. There's a surprisingly
large amount of competitions offering cruises as a prize. The other thing to do
is to look out for two-for-one cruises. This means that's only one
of you cruising, if you're cruising as a couple or with a friend,
will get a free cruise. Whilst these are not very common, there are a couple of
cruise lines that use them quite a lot. Again you can just go online and search
for two-for-one cruises and we'll throw up whatever's being offered at that time.
Whilst it's not very common, they are offered at various points of the year.
Normally out of peak season, but it's definitely a great way for a couple to
at least get one of you to cruise for free.
Related to that, my next tip is around children. If you're a family and you have
kids, there are a number of cruise lines that let your kids cruise for free.
The two most obvious examples are MSC
Cruises and the other one is Hapag Lloyd. MSC Cruises is much a
more mass market value line and Hapag Lloyd are an ultra luxury and expensive
line. Both of these have schemes where if your kids are cruising in the same cabin
as you, they cruise for free. They have different age limits, some of them
your kids have to be under 11 years old and some a little bit older. Certainly if you're
travelling as a family, take a look at cruise lines that will let your kids
cruise for free. My next tip is also relatively easy one to do, and that's
organize a group. Pretty much every Cruise Line, whether it's an ocean cruise
line or a river cruise line, will offer free berths and free cabins if
you can get together a group of people. If you want to travel with a
group of friends or perhaps some members of a club or a society or even if it's
just on an extended family cruise. The way this normally works is if you book
16 people (i.e. eight cabins) you will get a cabin for free. It does differ a
little bit by cruise line but pretty much for every eight cabins you'll get
one cabin free. All you have to do is get together eight couples, friends or people
from your club or society and you will get a free cruise. You can either do
that through the travel agent or what I recommend also as you talk directly to
the cruise company. Even if you have a relatively small club or Society
what I recommend you do is take a look for themed cruises and you're probably
going to find one that your club or society members will be really interested in
doing. And if you have a big extended family, it's a great way of
getting a free cabin for yourself and your partner. Bear in mind that the rest
of the people in the party will not be paying anything more. All you perhaps
have to do is do a little bit of organization or perhaps onboard organize
a few activities. It's not a lot of work for a free cruise. My next tip on
getting a free cruise is to take a look for cruise line companies that have
credit cards. This applies much more in the United States at the moment than other
countries, but many of the cruise line companies have a credit card and for
every dollar that you spend your collect points which you can then use to redeem
either for onboard credit, activities, discounts on cruises and of
course ultimately for a free cruise. So, if you put all your spend on
everything you buy onto that credit card, it is surprisingly how quickly
points mount up and that could lead to a free cruise. At the time of recording
I could find credit cards for Carnival Cruise Line, Disney Cruise Line,
Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America and Royal Caribbean. And
literally by every time you spend something put it through on that
credit card points build up and you will soon find yourself on your way to
free nights, discounts and hopefully a free cruise in its entirety. Another
great way of getting a free cruise is when you're on board take a look
at bingo, and find out what the prize is. A lot of cruise lines have a free
cruise as their ultimate prize in bingo. On many cruise lines the big prize on
the last day is a cruise lasting normally around about seven nights for
two people. Of course that's a game of chance and you may not approve of game
of chance, but it's certainly definitely a way that you could find yourself on a
free cruise because somebody has to win that cruise. Cruising for free is
very possible. Whilst there are some more extreme ways of doing it where
you become a crew member or you become a guest entertainer or run
workshops on board or give talks, but there are very practical things you can
take. Whether it's being loyal to a cruise line, having a cruise line credit card or
being very clever about looking for competitions or two-for-one deals or
cruise lines if you have kids that let kids cruise for free. I hope you found that
helpful and has given you some ideas on how you can get a cheaper or free cruise.
I'd love it if you watch them any more of my Tips For Travellers videos because I
will give you more inspiration and advice and tips on how to maximize and
make the most use of your very precious travel time and money with a land and of
course very importantly at sea.