Find out how travel agents can highlight the value of a cruise holiday – without saying the word ‘cheap’
If there’s one word cruise lines don’t want agents to use when selling their holidays it’s ‘cheap’. So how do you get around that and sell them on ‘value’, instead? We’ve picked eight talking points to get you started.
1. Save cash in expensive destinations
The Norwegian fjords are jaw-dropping, much like the cost of eating out in Norway, where a one-course meal and a beer in a restaurant will cost more than £35. Cue a cruise with its included food and – sometimes – drinks.
Not that the UK can point the finger when it comes to expensive. One of the selling points of cruising the British Isles is the ease of seeing towns and cities while avoiding costly hotels and restaurants.
Venice is another on the ‘best-on-a-cruise’ list. A week’s room-only in a good hotel on the Grand Canal will cost at least £1,500, but for just a few hundred pounds more, you can spend seven nights sailing the lagoon on Uniworld River Cruises’ La Venezia itinerary with flights, transfers, meals and excursions – and a private after-hours visit to St Mark’s Basilica – included.
2. Shore excursions
Tours can easily add several hundred pounds to the onboard spend, so it’s no wonder many cruisers see great value in having them included. Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Viking and Silversea are among the ocean cruise lines that include tours; head to the rivers and you can add AmaWaterways, Uniworld River Cruises and Viking, again, to the list (although Viking includes only one tour per port and charges for others).
Scenic includes a choice of excursions at each port – even its exclusive Scenic Enrich tours. These might be private evening concerts or dinners ashore. That said, some passengers prefer to do their own thing in port, so they see value in not paying for included tours they won’t take. On the rivers, point them towards A-Rosa Cruises or Amadeus River Cruises.
3. Ex-UK cruises
There are many reasons why no-fly cruising is popular – one of the main ones being that there is no flight to pay for. It might not be such a big saving for a couple flying out to cruise from a well-served spot such as Barcelona. But for a family of four, sailing from the UK and not having to shell out for flights makes a cruise great value compared with a flight-plus-hotel package – and they get to see lots of destinations as well.
P&O Cruises offers ‘British-style holidays’ on six ships that are either family-friendly or adult-only, and sail from Southampton to northern Europe, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean next summer. For a European vibe, MSC Cruises’ family-friendly MSC Virtuosa is sailing from Southampton to northern Europe, the Norwegian fjords and Mediterranean in summer 2025.
4. Full-board food
Almost all cruise lines include breakfast, lunch and dinner in the dining room, as well as casual options such as burgers by the pool and all-day self-service restaurants, which alone puts them way ahead of hotels in the value stakes. Add in all the lines that also include dining in speciality restaurants – Virgin Voyages, Oceania Cruises and many more – and the value is phenomenal.
But there are ways to offer good value even where a supplement applies: Fred Olsen Cruise Lines’ Colours & Tastes Asian speciality restaurant is great value at £10 per person when pre-booked (£15 on board). Carnival Cruise Line’s JiJi, which also offers Asian fare, costs a bit more but at $24 per person, it’s one of the best restaurants at sea for value, quality and quantity.
5. Drinks packages on cruises
If customers enjoy a glass of something at lunch or dinner but just hate thinking about the cost every time they go to the bar, they should consider a drinks package. These cover unlimited drinks, often within a certain price. Celestyal’s Sky’s the Limit package on Celestyal Journey and Discovery, for instance, costs €47 per person per day and covers drinks up to €10.
Fred Olsen Cruise Lines takes the prize for the best value, with prices from £5 for a beer, £6 for a glass of wine, £7 for a cocktail and a drinks package for £24 per person per day. Ambassador Cruise Line’s drinks package costs £38.95, and with house wines from £21.95 a bottle, it’s a good buy for oenophiles planning to taste their way through the cruise.
6. Free kids’ clubs on cruise ships
Lots of resort hotels bill themselves as family-friendly but then charge for kids’ clubs, bike hire, babysitting and more. It’s little wonder that more families are turning to cruise lines’ well-equipped resort ships that press all the right fun buttons for kids without charging a penny extra.
Norwegian Cruise Line, Carnival Cruise Line, MSC Cruises and Royal Caribbean International are among family favourites, with kids’ clubs offering supervised games and activities for children aged three to 12, and discos and parties for tweens and 13 to 17-year-olds. Disney Cruise Line adds in free soft-drinks stations by the pool, character meet-and-greet sessions and pirate parties.
River cruise line A-Rosa targets the family market with a kids’ club on board A-Rosa Sena, and free cruises for children aged 15 and under on its other vessels.
7. Entertainment and enrichment
Customers are unlikely to book a cruise just for the entertainment, but it all adds to the value. Royal Caribbean International has made its name staging well-known musicals (the latest is The Wizard of Oz on board Icon of the Seas) that rival anything playing in London’s West End. But whereas the latter could set you back £200-plus for tickets, transport and a night in a hotel, shows on ships are free.
And the entertainment doesn’t just kick in after dark. Seabourn’s Conversations programme features talks on everything from world affairs to science and culture. Holland America Line, meanwhile, has World Stage presentations by the cruise and travel director that deploy huge LED screens to add expert commentary, maps, pictures and diagrams that bring the talk to life, all at no extra cost.
8. Activities on cruise ships
It’s not just kids who can have hours of fun for free on cruises. The big resort ships are packed with activities for mums and dads too. Sail on Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras, Celebration or Jubilee and you can ride Bolt (pictured), a rollercoaster that reaches speeds of up to 40mph, dropping and twisting as it goes.
MSC Cruises’ MSC World America, which launches in April, will have a 90-degree drop slide that promises to take passengers’ breath away. NCL’s Norwegian Prima and Norwegian Viva offer drop slides, go-karts and escape rooms (the last two cost $15 extra, but given escape rooms in London cost about £30 per person, it’s still great value). Norwegian Aqua will feature an Aqua Slidecoaster – a rollercoaster waterslide – when it enters service in 2025.
PICTURES: Uniworld River Cruises; Christopher Ison; Jimmy DeFlippo; Fred Olsen Cruise Lines; bw-photo/Roy Riley
