A Look at Planning a Cruise: Choosing Your Dates

When you are choosing your vacation dates, there are several factors to consider. Some people may be limited in choice because of school vacations, but there are still things to consider.

1. Peak Cruise Pricing

Cruises have peak pricing during spring break, mid-June through mid-August, fall break, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

2. Locations

While Caribbean cruises sale year round, some locations only sale during certain months. Cruises to Alaska, Canada, and Europe tend to only run during the summer months for weather concerns.

3. Hurricane Season

Speaking of weather concerns, hurricane season is officially June 1-November 1. While the season doesn't typically heat up until late August-mid October, this year some cruises were diverted because of tropical storms Bret and Cindy right around June 20. Tropical storms are named alphabetically A-Z. Here is my favorite website to monitor the hurricane situation in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Because we always cruise during hurricane season, we opt for the travel protection that Carnival offers, which on the cruise we just booked was $79 per person.

This is one of my favorite special touches on a cruise...the towel animal!!! They usually offer one or two "How-To" Sessions. I am surprising bad at towel animal folding. They also sell an instructional book in the gift shop.

Update on our Cruise: We are booked. We will sail on the Carnival Glory to Half Moon Cay, San Juan, St. Thomas and Grand Turk for 7 nights. We booked our shore excursions and our steakhouse dinner. All we have to do is check in, print some documents, pack and go...ok, that is still a lot...

#vacationplanning #Carnival #cruise #choosingadatetocruise