Conference abbott::cruise_travel

	Does anyone have any info on Discovery's Cruise'N Stay
Bahamas & Florida Vacation packages?

	The prices seem good, just wondering if anyone heard
anything good or bad.

	Discovery Cruise Line Partnership, a Liberian partnership!
Any comment on this?


		Thanks
			Cliff
		DTN: 226-6565

    Just make sure what you are getting. The Bahamas are very close to
    Florida, only a few hours cruise. What you might get is a quick
    cruise over, cheap hotel/motel rooms on either side etc. I would
    guess that most of these Cruise/bahama/fla packages are nothing like
    a good quality cruise, so if they seem real cheap there is a reason.
    
    As far as a Liberian partnership goes that is probably ok. Not
    sure about partnership part but most cruise ships including ones
    from good quality lines are registered in Panama and Liberia. 
    
    I would definitely talk to someone who has experienced this package
    first before going.
    
    				Harold C.
    
    

	A little more info on Discovery's Cruise and Stay.

	Yes it is only a part of a days cruise to the Bahamas,
	Then you pick a 3, 4 or 5 day stay at any one of 8
	of the top quality hotels on Grand Bahamas (Xanadu Beach Resort,
	Radisson, Lucayan Beach Resort, Bahamas Princess Resort, just
	to name a few)

	example 
	per person/ double occupany
	
	Radisson on Lucaya Beach
	4/16/94 - 12/15/94

	for 5 Days, 4 nights		$209
	includes:
	round trip cruise, breakfast & lunch
	on departure, dinner on return. Choise
	of resort on Grand Bahama Island, Casino
	show at the Lucayan Casino, Princess discount
	cupon book with show discount. Free Discovery 
	Fun Day or Dinner Party Cruise.

	round trip air Boston to
	Ft Lauderdale			$279

	Stay in Ft Laderdale
	before and after cruise		$ 64

		Cliff			

    If people thought about it this package would probably not appeal to
    most.
    
    First the price would be $488 each for air/cruise/hotel. Sounds good
    right ?? Not really. A 4 night cruise starts a few hundred dollars
    more but it includes ALL meals. Here you will have to buy all of
    your land based meals and most of these places are pretty expensive
    to eat at. 
    
    Also I think the cruise part would be disappointing because it is
    just too short to do anything. Only takes about 4 hours to get there.
    
    If there is nothing special about the cruise then why would you want to
    
    	fly into florida
    	get to ship, (they don't dock at the airport the last I knew)
    	handle baggage to ship
    		cruise
    	get off ship
    	go to hotel
    	handle baggage to hotel
    
    		on return same thing in reverse
    
    basically you are creating a lot of extra work getting to where
    you want to go.
    
    For the same price you could get flight to Bahamas or other places with
    hotel. Then you minimize the hassle of all the extra transferring.
    
       or 
    
    For more money you could get a good cruise for 5days/4nights with
    air etc. and it would include all meals and entertainment every
    night and other things. Bottom line is it would probably be cheaper.
    
    This might be something to try for someone who wants a taste of a
    cruise but mostly stay on land. This short cruise would probably not
    in anyway give you a real taste of a normal cruise.
    
    It is the kind of deal like a land base air/hotel package which sounds
    very inexpensive but by the time you are done you spend a whole lot
    more than what you may have thought.
    
    The $1000 for two for a week with hotel/air usually ends up costing
    the typical couple that goes $2000 and more easily.
    
    My personal opinion is all the extra handling and transferring would
    easily negate any value of the cruise itself. I guess if you like
    dragging luggage around, getting on buses etc you might like it.
    
    Just something to think about.
    					Harold C.
    

    I agree with Harold!  You'll be doing a lot of moving around,
    packing and unpacking.

    You might want to just go to Florida for a few days, and then
    take a one day cruise to the Bahamas while there.  

    There are one day cruises for <$100 from Miami and Ft.
    Lauderdale (Discovery and Sea Escape) and from West
    Palm (Crown).   From West Palm Beach to West End,
    Grand Bahama is only about sixty miles.  

    We went on the Viking Princess (Crown) once.  It's so short
    that they run at a reduced speed to stretch out the trip.
    During a tour of the bridge, the first officer referred to it
    as 'speed determined by the marketing department'.

    Or, take a 3-4 day cruise from Florida.

	Thanks for the info, I have never been on a cruise, and you
have brought up some good points. I am looking into other options.

	If any one knows of a good cruise or cruise/land vacation
for school vacation week April 18-22, 1994. please let me know.
	
	There will be 7 of us going, wife and I, daughter 17, son 15
Mother-in- law, Father-in-law, Sister-in-Law. (we get along great, we
travel together all the time.)

			Thanks 

			Cliff Caron
			RANGER::CARON
			226-6565

    I do have one caution, only to do with that date. We are going
    down to Florida then, and lots of other people are also because
    of school vacation. If you need to arrange airfare then you better
    start now for best prices and availability. The best discount
    flights for two low price charters I know of are already fully
    booked six months ahead !!! In other words the low $200 dollar
    round trip airfares are gone. I found that most airlines
    are quoting $450 round trip super saver, we got $380 by
    leaving on Fri 4/15 and returning the next Friday, which is what
    we needed anyway. The problem with that week is so much of New
    England has it off so everyone tries to schedule vacation so
    kids do not need to miss school. We invited some relatives to
    stay with us because we have a very large timeshare, in other
    words their room would be totally free, yet they cannot do it
    because of the high cost to fly a family of 4 down.
    
    Most cruises offer pre and post land based arrangements but I've
    found that you can arrange your own for the same price or less
    with better flexibility. In some cases the packages prevent using
    the air program which during this week would cost you more
    money.
    
    There are plenty of 3/4 night cruises from Florida. I believe
    typical is 3 night cruises leave Fri and return Mon, 4 night
    leave Mon and return Friday. 
    
    The reason I brought up the transferring stuff before is I did
    something similar years ago. In 88 we booked a 7 night premier
    cruise/WDW package taking our 3 year old. It was Fri to Fri
    with cruise from Mon to Fri, we then added on a 2 day extension
    at end so final was
    	leave boston fri
    	  orlando late fri go to hotel
    	    WDW Sat/Sun
    	  monday leave hotel drive to ship and transfer everything for
    	     cruise
          tues-thur  3 full days cruising
          fri get off ship early, customs etc. drive back to orlando to
             next hotel
          Sat -WDW 
          Sun fly back
    
    It just seemed in the end that yes we had a nine day vacation from
     Friday to Sunday a week later. But out of that, the first  and last
    days were almost all travel, the fourth and seventh day had a lot
    of time wasted checking out, driving, packing, unpacking etc. so
    out of 9 days we really had just 5 really full vacation days.
    from that experience I try to avoid changes in the vacation, I either
    go somewhere for a week and stay put or cruise for a week, (could
    never afford both at same time). As you can see I do not consider the
    travel part of a vacation as vacation.
    
    I think you need to go over with a good travel agent your desires
    and budget etc. they should be able to come up with something
    that should meet your needs.
    
    		good luck, Harold