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Carnival Cruise Lines |
Carnival - The "Drive-To" Cruise Leader
Special Carnival Information for our Readers
One of the best experiences you can give your family is shared memories from a travel vacation.
But family travel requires a lot more than just a break from school. It requires saving money, budgeting to stay within spending limits and sometimes resolving logistical challenges.
When considering family travel, travel specialists agree - cruises provide one of the best vacation values available. Once you board a cruise ship, your accommodations, meals, entertainment and transportation to exotic ports of call all are included in the cruise fare. That makes it easier to budget for the rest of your trip and to control additional costs.
But what if you don't live close to a major cruise port? Carnival Cruise Lines has created opportunities for more than half of the population of the United States to drive six hours or less from home to reach a cruise departure port. Carnival calls them "drive-to" cruises, and they represent an affordable alternative to airline travel.
The Challenges of Air Travel
From enhanced security measures that require arriving at the airport well ahead of your flight time to new fees for checked luggage to the logistics of moving a family through an airport, air travel is more complicated and more challenging than it used to be.
For many, the advantages of air travel - the ability to cover long distances quickly and safely - don't outweigh the perceived disadvantages. And when purchasing multiple airline tickets, for families, airfare can get quite expensive.
The Advantages of Driving
When you compare the costs of traveling via airline to a car trip, driving often makes better budgetary sense.
For example, a Boston family of four wants to take a seven-day cruise. The closest departure port is Baltimore, where the Carnival Pride offers a seven-day eastern Caribbean cruise departing for $579 per person in an inside cabin or $729 per person in a balcony cabin.
The drive from Boston to Baltimore is just over six hours and fuel is roughly $84 round-trip. The combined cost of flying a family of four with all expenses is about $800, and you save only two hours of travel time. Other examples of drive-to ports that you might not have considered are Atlanta to Mobile, Ala., which is about five hours, and Phoenix to Los Angeles, which is about 5.5 hours. Oklahoma City to Galveston is a 6.5-hour drive, while Memphis to New Orleans is just under 6 hours.
Carnival's Drive-to Cruise Advantages
Growing families are most likely to benefit from driving rather than flying - the cost of transportation is the same whether one or five people are in the car, and the only luggage restriction is the size of the trunk.
And Carnival offers age-specific programs for kids ages two to 17, they have special cabins for families with adjoining doors and pull-down beds, and high-quality cruise amenities and family fun at an affordable price.
Carnival now offers drive-to cruises from 15 U.S. ports. On the East Coast, Carnival Pride sails from Baltimore year-round. Other U.S. homeports include Long Beach, San Diego, Galveston, Mobile, New Orleans, Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Port Canaveral. In May, Carnival introduces the first year-round cruise program from Charleston, S.C.
Cities where Carnival offers seasonal cruises include New York, Seattle, and Norfolk, Va. Carnival cruises also are available out of Honolulu, Hawaii, or San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Galveston serves the southwestern U.S. Carnival Ecstasy sails four- and five-day western Caribbean cruises to Cozumel and Progresso, Mexico, for as little $499 for a balcony cabin. The larger Carnival Conquest departs on seven-day eastern or western Caribbean cruises offering fares as low as $689 for a balcony cabin.
From Jacksonville, Fla., Carnival Fascination sails four- and five-day cruises for as little as $519 in a balcony cabin to Freeport, Bahamas, and Key West.
Carnival Fantasy sails out of Mobile, Ala., on four-, five- and seven-day cruises to ports on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula (Carnival Elation will be deployed to Mobile beginning in May).
From New Orleans, Carnival Triumph makes four-, five- and seven-day cruises to the eastern and western Caribbean.
San Diego offers my favorite Mexican Riviera cruise - the eight-day Carnival Spirit itinerary to Acapulco (for an overnight stay), Ixtapa and Manzanillo. In addition, San Diego offers four-day cruises to Cabo San Lucas on Carnival Elation through April. During the summer Spirit makes seven-day cruises to Alaska, round-trip from Seattle.
Other Carnival Spirit-class vessels include Carnival Pride sailing year-round out of Baltimore, Carnival Legend sailing year-round from Tampa and Carnival Miracle sailing from New York City April through October, and Fort Lauderdale the rest of the year.
West Coasters are lucky to have the state-of-the-art Carnival Splendor, just introduced in fall 2008, sailing regularly out of Long Beach on seven-day cruises to Mexico.
Discover the Drive-to Cruise Convenience
Carnival's drive-to cruises are yet another way the company has introduced the value of cruising to more Americans than any other cruise line. The line offers the perfect vacation for families with some of the best food, service and entertainment in the industry at a very attractive price point.
Additional expenses are purely at your discretion. Optional activities and services that carry a fee - such as a glass of wine with dinner or booking a shore tour - can be added to your vacation costs one item at a time, making it easy to track your expenses.
Driving is much more convenient and cost-effective than flying. You can fill your car with luggage without the hassles of checking bags, tipping porters, paying for taxis and the stress of going through airport security. When the cruise is over, you can bring back as many souvenirs as your car can hold.
For your next vacation consider driving to a cruise. You just might be surprised how far you can go.
This special supplement for our readers was sponsored by Carnival Cruise Lines
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