9 Simple Steps to Choosing a Cruise

If you’ve spent any time researching cruise options, you know that the options can be overwhelming – especially if you’re not someone who enjoys planning.  So how do you go from the 18 bazillion options to choosing a cruise that’s best for you?

Last week I shared the Carnival Cruise Ship Comparison Chart.  I’ve had so much great feedback on this – I’m really glad y’all are benefiting from it.  But let’s face it – even if you’re narrowed down to just one cruise line {for instance, Carnival}, you may open the chart and see that there are 24 ships listed… like, whoa.  The steps below are what I’ve used to get our options from 18 bazillion {approximately} down to two.  Okay, in all reality – using the Priceline search tool without any parameters gave us a whopping 4,217 cruises to choose from.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.

1. When do you want to go?
Even narrowing down your search to a whole month {or two} will take your numbers down immensely.  For us, my husband’s work schedule is a pain so the only time available we have is summer {you know, like every family in America}.  Sailing on off-peak times can really reduce your prices, but that’s just not an option for us… for the next few years at least.  We decided July was the best option {mid-June through early-August have about the same prices and July was our guaranteed availability so July it is}.  Update: Search now gives us 106 cruises {remember, it was 4,217 before this one decision}.

2. Do you have a preferred cruise line?
We’re choosing a cruise for about a year and a half from now.  Carnival is the only big name that has its Caribbean cruise schedules available, so that made this decision… nonexistent.  Carnival it is!  Update: Search now gives us 25 cruises.

3. Where do you want to cruise from?
We live in Indiana… so there aren’t really a massive supply of ports nearby {darn the luck!}.  Airline prices are roughly the same for Eastern/Southern ports but we’d like to sail from Florida to minimize our sea days.  We narrowed it down to Orlando (Port Canaveral) or Miami.  Update: Search now gives us 8 cruises.

4. What’s your budget?
Whether you’re on the caviar or crackers budget, cruises offer something for everyone.  If there are cruises that are out of your target price, eliminate those now so you don’t have to drool over them.  Our results are in the same price neighborhood, so I’m not eliminating any based on price.

5. What length cruise are you looking for?
Our results are now all 6-8 day cruises.  Perfect!  We’re still at 8 cruises.

6. Where do you want to cruise to?
Our results are now all Caribbean cruises.  We like the Caribbean, but have decided we can narrow it down to Western Caribbean.  This brings us to 3 cruises.

7. Nitty-gritty decisions
At this point, hopefully you’re down to 10 cruises or less.  If you’re looking at a closer date than we are, there may be more options available.  At this point, it’s going to get pretty individualized.  Once you have it down to 10ish cruises – what are you really hoping to get out of a cruise?  If it’s more ports, eliminate cruises with more sea days.  If you’d like to visit a certain port, you can eliminate cruises that don’t stop there.  You get the point.  For us, I know I don’t want to sail on the Vista, the latest-greatest {read: most expensive} ship and I want to visit at least 4 ports.  That takes our total results down to….. two cruises!

8. Consult the spreadsheet.
If you haven’t caught on by now, I love spreadsheets.  Seriously.  Our two cruises are similar, but on different ships and out of different ports.  To help us with the decision of choosing a cruise, I opened the Carnival Cruise Ship Comparison Sheet in Excel.  I know that bad boy can be intimidating, but we have it narrowed down to two cruises so let’s simplify the spreadsheet.  I deleted all the ships but the 2 we’re looking at {this took the spreadsheet from 25 columns to 3}.  I also deleted any line items {restaurants, bars, activities, etc} that weren’t available on either ship.  I deleted the kids activities because it’s just the two of us.  This took the spreadsheet from 147 rows down to 89.  Much better!  I removed the standard itinerary info and replaced it with the relevant cruise-specific info: sailing date, ports, etc.  Here’s what I’m left with:

9. What do you reallllly want? {AKA Nitty Gritty Decisions Round 2}
As you can see, the choices are now much more narrowed down and this makes it so much easier to see the differences between these two cruises.  At this point it’s just a matter of preference.  Does one ship have more dining options you’d like or do you really want the expanded spa facilities?  Which ports look most interesting for your family?  Cruising is really about creating the best individualized vacation experience.  Think about what you’d like to get from this vacation, what you’d like to see, what you plan to do… then book it and start planning for your date to set sail!

10. {Optional} Return to Step 1 and Try Again!
We would love to cruise during winter {to cut down on costs}, but hubby’s work schedule for 2017 only allows us to go in the summer…. July, he thought.  He just told me {after I finished the whole process listed above} that June is an option as well.  Back to Step 1 for us!  Thankfully, the process is fairly quick once you do it once or twice…. or 12 times.

Happy cruising!  It may take some time to get from the 18 bazillion choices down to two or three, but hopefully this method will help you in the process of choosing a cruise as painlessly as possible.

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