Cruising solo is a painful experience. It hits the bank balance hard. It's impossible to cruise
solo without paying the same price as a couple. Or, is it?
I cruise up to 10 times a year, nine out of those 10 are normally solo because my
partner works full time and doesn't have the opportunity to come on all those cruises.
I want to stop, like most people, having to pay the same as two people
to cruise. Then I could actually get twice as many cruises for my budget.
Now, as I headed back into cruising after shutdown,
I was booking cruises for the start-up. I was planning it in next year. I'd booked
almost 15 cruises, actually over a period of time. And I realised that except for one,
I was paying the price of two for just me. For example, my partner was coming on Cunard Queen
Elizabeth and the cruise was the same price for both of us going versus me going by myself.
This is crazy. It made me stop and think. My heart was making my decisions,
the excitement of cruising, instead of my head, which was looking for value for money.
And I got a little bit embarrassed because I was actually ignoring and have been ignoring,
in my excitement to go cruising, all the past advice that I've been giving to solo cruise
passengers. I stepped back and went through the whole process again,
to work out how to not pay so much when cruising solo. And this is what I found out.
The first option is of course to take someone. If my partner can't go,
ask a friend, so share the cost. My friends are not that interested in cruising
so I could go look for other sharing options. Now there are options to share with people
which companies and organisations will arrange for you. And I wanted to focus on ones that if I did
that made me feel safe and comfortable. I looked at some options like an app called CabinMate,
it's a bit like a dating app, but it felt a bit random. You could do video chats, but I felt it
wasn't for me because I wanted to have more security around who I would be sharing with.
The most promising option that I was aware of and looked at again,
was Vacations To Go. They have single cruises. They run them around six to eight times a year.
They go to great places like the Caribbean, Alaska, the Mediterranean, and they go on lines
like Princess, Norwegian and Celebrity, so definitely something to appeal to me.
As I explored them, I discovered they'd run them for over 15 years
so lots of experience. Importantly, they're hosted and they have some activities and excursions if
you want to go on them, for those of you on the trips. There's that added layer of security.
They mostly use double occupancy rooms and they match you with someone of the same gender so you
avoid the supplement. But what really appealed to me is if they cannot find someone suitable,
they cover the surcharge. You can go look online. You can sign up for the newsletter.
That sense of a hosted trip and the guarantee that if they don't find someone suitable,
you still pay the lower fare was very appealing.
There's also another site which appealed, which is called Singles Travel International.
They offer a mix of hosted trips and hosted cruises. What I liked about them is unlike
Vacations To Go, they go to much more exotic locations as well, more unusual cruise lines,
like sail ships, but they also offer that cabin match on the more costly options if they need
to. If they can match you up with someone. And again, they will cover the surcharge.
If you do want to share with someone other than a friend, there is an option. But, the more I
looked at it, I decided it definitely wasn't for me. I don't want to share with a stranger because
I can't even share with friends. I'd never go on vacation with friends because I don't like sharing
a room with them or a cabin with them. But that hosted option did feel a little bit more safe.
My next option that I went to look at
was solo cabins on cruise lines. The great news, as I looked at this,
is even more cruise lines have started to address solo travel than when I last looked at it
and they're adding solo cabins to their new ships. Now there are a couple of problems I came across,
but I want to talk about some of the positives before I get into some of the problems.
Although I did find it quite hard to find, in one place, where all the solo cabins
were listed by cruise line and by ship. I actually created a list which is on my website and you can
take a look at that and I'll keep updating it as more ships and lines add solo cabins. There
are sites like Cruise Critic, which also have lists, but I found that they weren't
up to date. Hopefully my list will help. Now, as I developed that list and added to it,
a couple of things really came clear to me about solo cabins if I was to go down that route.
There are really only two lines that cater in a very focused way for solo travellers,
that's Norwegian Cruise Lines. They have their solo studios. They have them on five of their 15
ships, at least at the time of recording, like Escape, Bliss, Getaway, Pride of America and
so on. These are solo studios. It's a dedicated area. They have solo cabins. They have a lounge,
they have a secure key card access, but they're all inside cabins, but very focused.
Then the Saga Cruises, 20% of their cabins are solo cabins. What's great about them is
they're balcony upwards. They even have solos suites. However, if you want to go on Carnival,
the biggest cruise line in the world, or Princess, which is the fifth most
popular cruise line in the world, they don't,
certainly at the time of recording, have solo cabins. They're out of the way to start with.
Now of the other lines there are awesome options, Royal Caribbean, they've got 10
ships that now have solo cabins. Again, they're mostly inside so that may not be something that
appeals to you. MSC Cruises on certain of their new ships like Seaside, Seaview, Meravellia
and even Bellissima and so on, they also have a number of solo cabins. Again, mostly inside.
On an America, a really popular line, they on their new ships do have some solo
cabins. But again, it's pretty limited, so for example, they only have 12 cabins
on ships like the Konningsdam and their Nieuw Statendam. So again, pretty limited.
As I delved into it a bit further, I found a couple of other things. Is first of all,
prices are still pretty steep. Even those Norwegian solo studios, they're still about a 30%
premium if you're travelling an inside cabin with somebody else. It still is a premium,
but of course it's cheaper than paying for two people. Also, unless you book way, way,
way in advance, pretty much when cruises come on sale, you basically won't get them.
Now you could find it easier on Norwegian and Saga because they'd have so many more.
The other thing I discovered with pricing is that you need to watch it very carefully because
in several cases, I've found that going in a different cabin and paying for two people
was going to be cheaper than the solo cabin option. And that's because there
were promotions on those high-grade cabins, but not promotions on the solo cabin. Very important,
watch and make sure that it's actually still the cheapest option. But, very importantly,
because not all the ships and all the lines have solo travellers it does mean that us as solo
travellers are actually limited to the itineraries that we can go on because they're limited to those
itineraries that those ships are doing rather than perhaps itineraries that we really want to do. And
also because they tend to be on bigger ships, the choice of itineraries is much more limited.
It's pretty good if you do want to go cruising to say the Caribbean on the standard cruise
the Mediterranean on a standard cruise or possibly Alaskan. In other words,
the three biggest cruise regions, you're probably going to find a solo cabin if you
plan well in advance. But what if you want to do something a little bit different?
Definitely finding a solo of cabin with a bit of good planning on a
good classic route in Alaska, the Mediterranean or the Caribbean was going to be an option, but
I want to go on some of the more bucket-list unusual exotic cruises for my plans ahead.
I want to go to the Baltics, Iceland, Norway, through the Panama Canal to French Polynesia,
or perhaps the more unusual Caribbean and Mediterranean itineraries.
What can I do then? What are my options then? Well, what solution I found was quite a simple
one. Sign up for email newsletters for all the lines that I like and basically wait for deals
to come through, because they do. A lot of cruise lines will do reduced surcharge, single travel,
solo travel deals. I found through that process, for example, a great river cruise on AmaWaterways
for next year, but it's a much more erratic way of doing it because you're really relying
on promotions. What I did find though is there are agents and sites that will collate all the
offers that are available for solo travellers, and that is going to open so many more options
for me and for you. And I've actually used these to guide my plans ahead because they
let me know what are happening and they have visibility of all the lines. Some
of which I may not have considered, even some of the itineraries I may not have considered.
The most useful of those sites I found were again, Vacations To Go. They also have
a un-hosted solo cruise page where they list
all the various deals that are going. So they're good for people like me that don't want to go on a
shared or a hosted cruise. They have a great list there. And at the time that I looked, they had
about 40 or 50 cruises, which range from 0% to 25% supplement. That's a really good one to look at.
Another good one, which I was actually recommended,
is called Passion For Cruises. And that's a UK based site. They, again, list loads and
loads of solo deals. There are a couple of others which are not cruise specific like
Solo Holidays UK. And of course, don't forget that Singles Travel
International site that I referred to early because they also list non-hosted cruises.
How did all this work out for me? Well, I faced probably the ultimate test of solo cruising
is Antarctica. I went to Antarctica on Silversea in 2019, but I wanted to go again. I didn't just
want to do the Antarctica Peninsula, but I also wanted to see South Georgia, the Falklands, to
see those huge penguin colonies. There's a couple of great cruises I saw on different cruise lines,
including Silversea, Ponant. They last about three weeks, but the cabin would cost around 30,000
pounds, about $40,000 if two people were going, but also if one person was going. They don't have
solo cabins. Sharing wasn't an option. My partner didn't want to do it. My friends didn't want to
go cruising and couldn't afford it. It pretty much looked impossible. This is one I absolutely
had to solve. There was no way I could possibly pay that amount of money to go by myself.
I'd signed up for lots of emails. I spoke to my agent
and the good news was through focusing on those sites, which listed all the cruises,
focusing on the email newsletters, I eventually did get an email which listed a low solo surcharge
on a Ponant cruise, that three week cruise. Spoke to my travel agent and booked it and I got that
for a very low 15% surcharge. The process worked for me. There were no solo cabins.
There's no way that I could share, not for three weeks and that last process worked.
Which also got me thinking, because the way that I found my original Silversea cruise
was also through email newsletters when Silversea were doing a last-minute deal on Antarctica where
they were offering, I guess what were empty cabins for solo travellers again at a 20% only surcharge.
That's another good example about how signing up for those email newsletters, watching those
sites and making sure your travel agent knows that you're looking for those deals can work.
The great news is I found a way of doing those cruises for at least
less than I am paying now. Of course there are unfortunately still some that I'm paying for
full surcharge because it's an itinerary I really want to do and none of these things worked.
Have I found the ultimate solution to the problem of paying twice for every single cruise?
I haven't found that solution yet, but I think through these various steps I have at least found
the way that half or more of my cruises will be for much less. And, importantly, those really big,
costly ones. When I'm going to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean or Alaska, I can find a way
of doing it really, really inexpensively. How can I actually help you? Well, hopefully
by sharing this approach, it's given you a sense of how to tackle it. And that resource hopefully
will be one way to help you cruise for the price of one, not for the price of two.
If you want more tips, for example, what are the best cruise lines to think of
as a solo traveller or as an adult traveller? Take a look at this playlist. And I'm a start
in there with the very best of the cruise lines to focus on as a solo traveller. See you over there.