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Solo Cruising can be costly, as you often have to pay the same as two people. I explore how I cruise solo without paying too much. My solo cruise tips and tricks to cruise without breaking the bank.
List of cruise lines and ships with solo cabins: https://www.tipsfortravellers.com/solocabins/
ABOUT TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS: If you want to get cruising right, Tips For Travellers makes it easy to plan and have the incredible cruise experiences you dream of every time. All my Tips For Travellers advice, tips and tricks tips draw on everything that I have learnt on the 77 cruises I have done to date.
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0:00
cruising solo is a painful experience it
0:02
hits the bank
0:04
balance hard it's impossible to cruise
0:07
solo without paying the same price as a
0:10
couple
0:12
or is it i cruise up to 10 times a year
0:15
nine out of those ten
0:17
are normally solo because my partner
0:19
works full time
0:20
doesn't have the opportunity to come on
0:22
all those cruises
0:23
i want to stop like most people having
0:25
to pay the same
0:26
as two people to cruise then i could
0:29
actually get twice as many cruises
0:31
for my budget now as i headed back into
0:34
cruising after shutdown
0:35
i was booking cruises for the startup i
0:38
was planning into next year
0:39
i booked almost 15 cruises actually over
0:42
a period of time
0:43
and i realized that except for one i was
0:45
paying the price of two for just me
0:47
so for example my pound was coming on
0:48
cunard queen elizabeth and the cruise
0:50
was exactly the same price
0:52
for both of us going versus me going by
0:54
myself
0:55
so this is kind of crazy it made me stop
0:58
and think
1:00
my heart was making my decisions the
1:03
excitement of cruising
1:05
instead of my head which was looking for
1:07
value for money
1:09
and i got a little bit embarrassed
1:10
because i was actually ignoring and have
1:12
been ignoring
1:13
in my excitement to go cruising all the
1:15
past advice that i've been giving to
1:16
solo cruise
1:17
passengers so i stepped back and went
1:20
through the whole process again
1:21
to work out how to not pay so much when
1:24
cruising solo and this is what i found
1:26
out
1:27
the first option is of course to take
1:29
someone so if my partner can't go
1:31
ask a friend so share the cost so my
1:34
friends are not that interested in
1:35
cruising
1:36
so i could go and look for other sharing
1:37
options now there are options to share
1:39
with people
1:40
which companies and organizations will
1:43
arrange for you
1:44
and i wanted to focus on ones that if i
1:46
did that made me feel safe and
1:47
comfortable
1:48
so i looked at some options like an app
1:50
called cabin mate it's a bit like a
1:51
dating app
1:52
but it felt a bit random you could do
1:54
video chats but i thought it wasn't for
1:56
me
1:56
because i wanted to have more security
1:58
around who i would be sharing with
2:00
so the most promising option that i was
2:02
aware of and looked at again
2:04
was vacations to go they have single
2:06
cruises they run them around
2:08
six to eight times a year they go to
2:10
great places like the caribbean
2:12
alaska the mediterranean and they go on
2:14
lines like princess norwegian and
2:16
celebrities so definitely
2:17
something to appeal to me as i explored
2:20
them i discovered they'd run them for
2:22
over 15 years
2:23
so lots of experience importantly
2:25
they're hosted
2:26
and they have some activities and
2:28
excursions if you want to go on them
2:30
for those of you on the trip so this
2:31
that added layer of kind of security
2:34
they mostly use double occupancy rooms
2:36
and they match you with someone of the
2:37
same gender so you avoid the supplement
2:39
but what really appeal to me is if they
2:41
cannot find someone
2:42
suitable they cover the surcharge so
2:45
you can go look online you can sign up
2:47
for the newsletter so that sense of a
2:49
hosted
2:50
trip and the guarantee that if they
2:52
don't find someone suitable
2:53
you still pay the lower fare it was very
2:55
appealing there's also another
2:57
site which appealed which is called
2:58
singles travel international
3:00
they offer a mix of hosted trips and
3:03
unhosted cruises
3:04
what i liked about them is unlike
3:06
vacations to go they go to much more
3:08
exotic locations as well
3:10
more unusual cruise lines like sales
3:12
ships but they also offer that cabin
3:14
match
3:15
on the more costly options if they need
3:17
to so they can match you up with someone
3:18
and again they will cover the surcharge
3:20
so if you do want to
3:22
share with someone other than a friend
3:24
there is definitely an option but
3:26
the more i looked at it i decided it
3:27
definitely wasn't for me i don't want to
3:28
share with a stranger
3:30
because i can't even share with friends
3:31
i'd never go on vacation with friends
3:33
because i don't like sharing with
3:34
a room with them or a cabin with them
3:36
but i'd say that that hosted option did
3:38
feel a little bit more
3:39
safe so my next option that i went to
3:41
look at
3:42
was solo cabins on cruise lines
3:45
the great news as i looked at this is
3:47
even more cruise lines
3:49
have started to address solar travel
3:50
than when i last looked at it
3:52
and they are adding solar cabins to
3:54
their new ships
3:55
now there are a couple of problems i
3:56
came across but i want to talk about
3:58
some of the
3:59
positives before i get into some of the
4:01
problems
4:02
although i did find it quite hard to
4:04
find
4:05
in one place where all the solo cabins
4:09
were listed by cruise line and by ship
4:11
so i actually
4:12
created a list which is on my website
4:15
and you can take a look at that and i'll
4:16
keep updating it
4:17
as more ships and lines add solar cabins
4:20
there are sites like
4:21
cruise critic which also have lists but
4:23
i found that they weren't
4:25
up to date so hopefully my list will
4:27
help now as i developed that list and
4:29
added to it
4:30
a couple of things really came clear to
4:32
me about
4:33
solar cabins if i was to go down that
4:35
route there are really only two lines
4:37
that cater in a very
4:38
focused way for solar travelers that's
4:40
norwegian cruise lines they have their
4:42
solo studios they have them on five of
4:45
their 15 ships at least the time
4:46
recordings like escape
4:48
bliss getaway pride of america and
4:51
so on these are solo studios it's a
4:53
dedicated area
4:54
they have solo cabins they have a lounge
4:56
they have a secure key card access
4:58
but they're all inside cabins but very
5:01
very focused
5:02
then the saga cruisers 20 of their
5:04
cabins
5:05
are solid cabins what's great about them
5:06
is their balcony
5:08
upwards they even have solo suites
5:10
however if you want to go on carnival
5:12
the biggest cruise line in the world or
5:13
princess which is the fifth most
5:15
popular cruise line in the world they
5:16
don't certainly the time of recording
5:18
have
5:18
solar cabins so they're out of the way
5:20
to start with now of the other lines
5:23
there are some options royal caribbean
5:25
they've got 10 ships that now have solar
5:27
cabins
5:28
again they're mostly insides so that may
5:30
not
5:31
be something that appeals to you msc
5:33
cruises on certain
5:35
new ships like seaside seaview metavelia
5:38
and even bellissima and so on they also
5:41
have a number of
5:42
solo cabins again mostly inside
5:45
holland america a really popular line
5:48
they on their new ships do have some
5:49
solar cabins but again it's pretty
5:51
limited so for example they only have 12
5:52
cabins
5:53
on ships like the conning stamp and the
5:55
new staten dam so again
5:57
pretty limited as i dialed into it a bit
5:59
further i found a couple of other things
6:00
is first of all prices are still pretty
6:03
steep so even those
6:04
norwegian solo studios they're still
6:06
about a 30
6:08
premium if you're traveling an inside
6:10
cabin with somebody else
6:11
so it still is a premium but of course
6:14
it's cheaper than paying for two people
6:16
also unless you book way way way in
6:18
advance pretty much when cruisers come
6:20
on sale you basically won't get them now
6:22
you could find
6:23
easier on norwegian and saga because
6:25
they'd have so many more
6:26
the other thing i discovered with
6:28
pricing is that you need to watch it
6:29
very carefully because
6:31
in a number of cases i've found that
6:33
actually going in a different cabin and
6:35
paying for two people
6:36
was actually going to be cheaper than
6:37
the solo cabin option
6:39
and that's because there were promotions
6:41
on those high grade cabins
6:43
but not promotions on the solo cabin so
6:45
very important
6:46
watch and make sure that it's actually
6:48
still the cheapest option but very
6:49
importantly
6:50
because not all the ships and all the
6:52
lines have solar travelers
6:54
it does mean that us as solo travelers
6:56
are actually limited
6:57
to the itineraries that we can go on
6:59
because they're limited to those
7:01
identities that those ships are doing
7:02
rather than perhaps itineraries that
7:04
we really want to do and also because
7:06
they tend to be on bigger ships the
7:08
choice of itineraries
7:09
is much more limited so it's pretty good
7:12
if you do want to go cruising to
7:13
say the caribbean on the standard sort
7:15
of cruise the mediterranean
7:17
on the standard cruises or possibly
7:19
alaska in other words the three biggest
7:20
cruise regions
7:22
you're probably going to find a solar
7:23
cabin if you plan on advance but what
7:26
if you want to do something a little bit
7:28
different so definitely
7:30
finding a solar cabin with a bit of good
7:32
planning on a
7:34
good classic route in alaska the
7:35
mediterranean or the caribbean was going
7:37
to be an option but
7:38
i want to go on some of the more bucket
7:40
list unusual
7:41
exotic cruises for my plans ahead i want
7:44
to go to the baltics
7:45
iceland norway through the panama canal
7:47
to french peninsula
7:48
or perhaps some more unusual caribbean
7:50
and mediterranean itineraries
7:52
so what can i do then what are my
7:54
options then well what a
7:56
solution i found was quite a simple one
7:59
sign up for email
8:00
newsletters for all the lines that i
8:02
like and basically wait for deals to
8:04
come through
8:05
because they do a lot of cruise lines
8:06
will do reduced
8:08
surcharge single travel solo travel
8:10
deals
8:11
i found through that process for example
8:12
a great river cruise on ammo waterways
8:14
for next year but it's a much more
8:16
erratic way of doing it because you're
8:18
really relying on promotions
8:19
what i did find though is there are
8:22
agents and sites that will collate
8:24
all the offers that are available for
8:25
solar travelers and that is going to
8:27
open so many more options
8:28
for me and for you and i've actually
8:30
used these to guide my
8:32
plans ahead because they let me know
8:35
what are happening
8:36
and they have visibility of all the
8:38
lines some of which i may not have
8:39
considered
8:40
even some of the itineraries i may not
8:42
have considered the most useful
8:43
of those sites i found were again
8:45
vacations to go so they also have
8:48
a unhosted solo cruise page where they
8:51
list
8:52
all the various deals that are going so
8:54
good for people like me that don't want
8:55
to go on a
8:56
shared or a hosted cruise they have a
8:58
great list there
8:59
and at the time that i looked they had
9:02
about 40 or 50 cruises
9:04
which range from north percent to 25
9:07
supplement so that's a really good one
9:09
to look at another good one which i was
9:11
actually recommended
9:12
is called passion for cruises and that's
9:15
a uk-based
9:16
site they again list loads and loads of
9:19
solar deals
9:20
there are a couple of others which are
9:21
not cruise specific like
9:23
solo holidays uk and of course don't
9:26
forget
9:26
that singles travel international site
9:28
that i referred to earlier because they
9:30
also list
9:31
non-hosted cruises so how did all this
9:34
work out for me well i
9:35
faced probably the ultimate test of solo
9:38
cruising
9:39
is antarctica i went to antarctica on
9:42
silversea in 2019 but i wanted
9:44
to go again i didn't just want to do the
9:46
antarctica peninsula
9:48
but i also want to see south georgia the
9:49
falklands to see those huge
9:51
penguin colonies there's a couple of
9:54
great cruises i saw on different cruise
9:55
lines including silversea pennant they
9:57
last about three weeks but the cabin
9:59
would cost around thirty thousand pounds
10:02
about forty thousand dollars
10:03
if two people were going but also if one
10:06
person was going they don't have solar
10:07
cabins
10:08
sharing wasn't an option my partner
10:10
didn't want to do it
10:11
my friends didn't want to go cruising
10:13
and couldn't afford it so
10:15
it pretty much looked impossible and
10:16
this is one i absolutely
10:18
had to solve there was no way i could
10:20
possibly pay that amount of money to go
10:22
by myself so i signed up for lots of
10:23
emails i spoke to my agent
10:26
and the good news was through focusing
10:28
on those sites which listed all the
10:30
cruises
10:31
focusing on the email newsletters i
10:33
eventually did get an email
10:35
which listed a low solo surcharge
10:38
on open on cruise that three week cruise
10:41
spoke to my
10:42
travel agent and booked it and i got
10:43
that for a very low 15 percent
10:47
surcharge so the process worked for me
10:50
there were no soda cabins
10:51
there's no way that i could share
10:53
something not for three weeks
10:54
and that last process worked which also
10:57
got me thinking because the way that i
10:58
found my original silverc cruise
11:01
was also through email newsletters when
11:04
silversea
11:04
were doing a last-minute deal on
11:06
antarctica where they were offering
11:08
i guess what were empty cabins for solo
11:10
travelers again
11:12
at a 20 percent only surcharge so that's
11:15
another good example about how signing
11:17
up for those
11:17
email newsletters watching those sites
11:20
and making sure your travel agent knows
11:21
that you're looking for those deals
11:23
can work so the great news is i found a
11:26
way of doing those cruises
11:27
for at least less than i am paying now
11:30
of course there are
11:31
unfortunately still some that i am
11:32
paying for
11:34
full surcharge because it's itinerary i
11:36
really want to do and none of these
11:37
things worked so have i found the
11:40
ultimate solution to the problem
11:42
of paying twice for every single cruise
11:45
i haven't found that solution yet but i
11:47
think through these various steps
11:49
i have at least found the way that half
11:52
or more of my cruises
11:53
will be for much less and importantly
11:56
those really big
11:57
costly ones so when i'm going to the
11:59
caribbean the mediterranean or alaska i
12:01
can find a way of doing it
12:02
really really inexpensively how can i
12:04
actually help you well hopefully by
12:06
showing this approach
12:07
it's given you a sense of how to tackle
12:08
it and that resource hopefully
12:10
will be one way to help you cruise for
12:13
the price of one
12:14
not for the price of two if you want
12:16
more tips for example what are the best
12:18
cruise lines to think of
12:19
as a solo traveler or as an adult
12:21
traveler take a look at this playlist
12:22
and i'm gonna start in there with the
12:24
very best
12:26
of the cruise lines to focus on as a
12:28
solo traveler
12:29
see you over there
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