Disney Money Saving Tips

Since the U.S. recession hit, Disney has been offering many incentives to lure tourists to the Magic Kingdom, including complimentary dining plans and discounts up to 40 per cent off its onsite accommodations. Promotions come and go, however, and Disney is expected to phase out discounts by next year as the economy recovers.

Choosing an off-peak travel time offers the biggest savings. The “value season” for Disney World is September to October and January to mid-February. If you can avoid travelling around U.S. holidays, you’ll not only save on dining and accommodations, but the parks will be much less busy.

When you’re booking your stay, it’s important to know what’s a deal and what isn’t. If you’re staying at a Disney resort, the dining plan is a good buy. “Even when you have to pay for it, it still saves you 20 per cent or more on the cost of food.”

Andrea Hagman has visited Disney World five times and always buys the dining plan, which includes one counter-service meal, one sit-down meal, and one snack each day. The adult meals are so large, she says she and her husband can share their lunch with their two daughters and save the extra meal credits for the next day’s breakfast. “If you don’t use up the snacks, trade them in for snacks for the trip home,” she says. “Make it go as far as you can.”

One Disney deal that’s not so good is the “park-hopper” option that lets you visit multiple parks in a day. It’s just an added expense, and in a park that’s 122 square kilometers, “you’re not going to do it all.”

Renting a Disney stroller for $15 (U.S.) a day is also a waste of money, considering you can buy a cheap collapsible stroller for $30 or less.

If you buy a Disney photo package ahead of your trip, you get a discount, Ms. Hagman says, but she’s discovered that the Disney photographers are more than willing to snap a few pictures on her own camera, which she can print herself for much less.

Another place to save money is on your flight. Booking the flight separately from the Disney package is usually cheaper, as is flying from a U.S. airport.

Hurricane Earl - Canadian Port Changes

After knocking nearly a dozen cruise ships sailing in the Bahamas and the Caribbean off course in recent days, a northbound Hurricane Earl is now having an impact on vessels that sail to New England, Canada and Bermuda.

In the most dramatic fallout so far, Holland America says the 1,258-passenger Maasdam, currently on a seven-night sailing to Canada and New England, will return to its home port of Boston today two days ahead of schedule to ride out the storm at dock. Calls at Sydney and Halifax, Nova Scotia, as well as Bar Harbor, Maine have been canceled.

"This will put the ship safely alongside (a dock) in Boston ahead of the storm's anticipated arrival," the line says in statement. "Guests are welcome to stay onboard the ship until Saturday morning."

Holland America also has announced the 2,104-passenger Eurodam, currently on a trans-Atlantic cruise to New York, will call Friday at Halifax instead Sydney, Nova Scotia to avoid the storm. The ship will remain at sea on Saturday and Sunday to stay out of the storm's path before arriving in New York on Monday.

Another Holland America ship that sails out of New York to Bermuda, the 1,350-passenger Veendam, will depart Hamilton, Bermuda on Friday several hours early to make its return trip to New York as the storm approaches.

Other lines with New York-based ships making changes:

-- Princess Cruises. The 3,080-passenger Caribbean Princess will skip today's call in Halifax and sail directly for New York to avoid the worst effect of the hurricane, the line says. In an unusual diversion, the ship will pull into a Manhattan cruise berth on Friday for the day before moving early Saturday to its normal berth across the harbor at the Cruise Terminal in Brooklyn in time for disembarkation Saturday morning.

-- Carnival. The line says the 2,124-passenger Carnival Miracle, racing to stay ahead of Hurricane Earl, will pull into New York late on Friday, half a day ahead of schedule, as it returns to the city after an eight-night voyage to the Bahamas. The ship skipped a scheduled call in Nassau on Wednesday so it could depart for home early.

Hurricane Earl Impact on scheduled port visits

More cruise ships are altering course today as a "powerful" Hurricane Earl barrels north-westward toward the Bahamas and the East Coast of the USA.

Royal Caribbean says the 2,354-passenger Monarch of the Seas was unable to call today at CocoCay, its private island in the Bahamas. The ship instead is sailing directly to Nassau, Bahamas, where it will stay until midnight on Wednesday.

Also skipping a call at a private island in the Bahamas today was Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Jewel (scheduled to visit the line's Great Stirrup Cay). Like Monarch of the Seas, the vessel docked early in Nassau. Norwegian says that due to the approaching storm Jewel also may have to leave Nassau early on Wednesday.

Two other ships making last-minute changes today include the 2,354-passenger Majesty of the Seas, which extended its port call in Key West, Fla. today until early tomorrow morning. The ship now will spend the remainder of Wednesday at sea before calling on Nassau on Thursday.

The 2,758-passenger Carnival Victory, meanwhile, is replacing today's port call in Dominica with a stop in St. Lucia. The vessel now will visit Dominica on Thursday in place of St. Lucia. As previously announced, the ship has canceled a port call planned in St. Maarten for later in the week and pushed back a port call scheduled for St. Thomas.

The four new itinerary changes are on top of half a dozen others ann0unced over the past two days:

-- The 2,124-passenger Carnival Pride, which set sail from Baltimore on Sunday, is skipping a port call scheduled for Wednesday in Grand Turk and instead visiting Port Canaveral, Fla. A port call at Half Moon Cay has been replaced with a visit to Nassau, Bahamas.

-- The 3,646-passenger Carnival Dream is reversing the order of two port calls in Roatan, Honduras and Belize scheduled for today and Wednesday.

-- Norwegian Cruise Line's 4,100-passenger Norwegian Epic, which set sail from Miami on Saturday, has headed to the Western Caribbean this week instead of the Eastern Caribbean. Port calls in St. Martin and St. Thomas have been replaced with calls in Cozumel, Mexico and Roatan, Honduras.

-- Royal Caribbean's 2,446-passenger Enchantment of the Seas, which set sail from Baltimore on Thursday, skipped a call Monday in St. Thomas. The ship instead called at Samana, Dominican Republic and, today, at Labadee, Haiti. The vessel will spend Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at sea as it returns to Baltimore on Saturday as scheduled.

-- Royal Caribbean's 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas, which departed Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, is skipping its scheduled port calls in St. Thomas today and St. Maarten on Wednesday. The ship instead has headed to the Western Caribbean where it will stop at Costa Maya on Wednesday and Cozumel on Thursday.

Royal Caribbean's 3,634-passenger Freedom of the Seas, which set sail Sunday from Port Canaveral, has headed to the Western Caribbean ports of George Town, Grand Cayman and Cozumel this week instead of scheduled calls in St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

Taken together, the itinerary changes this week have affected the vacations of at least 30,000 people.

As of 2 pm AST, Earl was 175 miles east of Grand Turk Island and moving to the west-northwest at about 14 miles per hour. The storm has maximum sustained winds of 135 miles per hour, giving it Category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale.

The National Hurricane Center says a Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Turks and Caicos Islands, and a Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the Southeastern Bahamas, although the storm is expected to pass north of the islands (click HERE for the USA TODAY Weather Page's related story on the storm's projected path).

The National Hurricane Center says the storm is likely to remain a powerful Category 4 storm for the next day or two.

Australia growing in cruise options

Cruising Down Under

Consider this: Celebrity Cruises earlier this summer said it was canceling its departures out of Baltimore and would instead return to Australia and New Zealand next year, reversing a 2008 decision to leave the Down Under market and put a ship in Baltimore. That kind of mobility enables cruise lines to tap new markets and create new itineraries with relative ease, while the U.S. ports they serve enjoy no such flexibility.

Besides Celebrity, Royal Caribbean International, Holland America and Princess have all committed additional capacity to Australia over the next few years. According to Cruise Down Under, a regional, cooperative cruise marketing organization, that could mean an increase of as much as 20% in the number of cruise ships visiting the area during the winter 2011-12 season (the austral summer).

Princess recently said it was putting an unprecedented four ships in Australia in 2011; citing increased demand from Australians, Princess' sister company, Cunard Line, recently said that the Queen Mary 2 would be based in Australia in 2012 for a circumnavigation of the continent, a first for Cunard; Royal Caribbean will deploy two ships to Australia in 2011, adding the Radiance of the Seas out of Sydney. The Radiance will join the Rhapsody of the Seas, currently sailing its third Australian summer season.

Conde Nast Traveler - Celebrity Solstice is best mega-size cruise ship

It is if you trust the readers of Conde Nast Traveler. The travel magazine's closely-watched annual readers poll of best ships, in this month's issue, puts the one-year-old Celebrity vessel at the tops among vessels carrying 2,500 passengers or more.

The 2,850-passenger Celebrity Solstice scored an 88.9 (out of 100) in the poll, putting it first among mega-ships in 2010. Disney Cruise Line's Disney Wonder scored 88.2 to place second. The next highest rated mega-ships were Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas (87.9), the Disney Magic (87.7) and Princess Cruises' Ruby Princess (83.6).

Conde Nast also ranked "small" ships carrying fewer than 500 passengers and "large" ships carrying from 500 to 2,500 passengers.

In the small ship category, the winner for 2010 is Sea Cloud Cruises' historic Sea Cloud II, originally built in 1931 for Marjorie Merriweather Post. It scored an almost perfect 98.0.

Runners-up in the small ship category were the Sea Cloud (93.6), Uniworld's River Duchess (91.5), The Yachts of Seabourn's Seabourn Spirit (91.5) and Seabourn's Seabourn Legend (90.8).

In the large ship category, the winner for 2010 is the Crystal Serenity with a score of 93.0.

Runners-up in the large ship category are Crystal Cruises' Crystal Symphony (92.4), Regent's Seven Seas Voyager (90.9), Cunard Line's Queen Victoria (90.1) and Regent's Seven Seas Mariner (90.0).

Carnival to Increase Prices

Carnival Cruise Lines is reporting record wave season bookings, with strong reservations activity for 2010 departures. As a result of the strong booking volumes, a general price increase will be implemented effective March 22 for all summer sailings in June, July and August.

For the period of Jan. 1 through Feb. 21, 2010, bookings were at unprecedented levels for the line's 22 ships which operate three- to 15-day voyages from a variety of convenient North American home ports.

Carnival President and CEO Gerry Cahill said, "We're seeing significantly increased volume as consumers are taking advantage of the incredible value that a Carnival cruise provides. And while pricing hasn't fully recovered to 2008 levels, we are increasing prices and will implement an across-the-board increase effective March 22."

He said that the price increases will vary by departure date but will be up to 5 percent.

NCL Announces staterooms for Singles

Norwegian Cruise Line will market the 100-square-foot studio accommodations on its upcoming newbuild, the 4,200-passenger Norwegian Epic, to solo travelers.

The Epic's 128 studio cabins will be designated and priced for single travelers, eliminating the so-called "single supplement" common for cruisers traveling alone, a rate that is typically equal to the price of the second berth in the cabin.

Prices for the studios start at $799.

"Solo travelers have typically been ignored by the cruise industry," Maria Miller, senior vice president of marketing for NCL, said during a webcast last week.

"We've taken the opportunity to reposition the studios and go after this market."

The studios, slightly smaller than standard inside cabins, have windows looking onto corridors. All passengers in the studios share exclusive use of the Living Room, a common space with a lounge, private bar and two large-screen TVs.

Miller pointed to data suggesting that there are 100 million single adults in the U.S., and that 35 million adults take solo vacations every year. However, less than 5% of those travelers take cruises.

Miller added that the single supplement has always been the "key barrier" to getting solo cruisers.

"Our goal is to break down that barrier and make it more comfortable for single travelers," she said.

"Solo travel is well suited to a cruise," she said. "Cruising is ideal for people who want to travel alone but don't want to be alone."