If you book a cruise that takes place during a school break, you can expect to travel with a ship full of noisy children. If that appeals to you – fine. But if you cruise to relax – children are the enemy so carefully avoid any cruises that occur when school is out.

On that same note, cruises that occur after Memorial Day and before Labor Day will also include many little ones. A few days after Labor Day the little ones vanish into thin air until the next spring.  

You’ll see deeply discounted Caribbean cruises offered in August and September. This is because experienced cruisers avoid the area during those months like the plague for a very simple reason – hurricanes. The biggest and most destructive storms have hit during the first half of September when the waters of the Caribbean are their warmest. (this fuels the hurricanes and creates the most dangerous storms)

Cruise Tip: Avoid cruising in the Caribbean and Atlantic during the months of August and September. This is the peak of the hurricane season. You can expect the cruise lines to offer special fares during these periods that experienced cruisers carefully avoid. Unless you feel luck - stay away from these dangerous months.

If you shop around you’ll notice a few things. Ships that cruise the Caribbean (with the exception of Jamaica) and those that cruise England, France, Portugal and Spain (including the Spanish islands near Africa) are the least expensive cruises. While those that visit Scandinavia and Europe are much more expensive. I can only guess that those ports charge much higher docking fees which pushes the cruise prices skyward.

Cruise Tip: The least expensive cruises can be found along the Mexican coast, in the Caribbean and in the least expensive parts of Europe. Any stops in Scandinavia will boost the cruise price.

Never, ever try to book a cruise at the last minute unless you book through one of those special last minute booking services. You can usually get a substantial discount by booking well in advance. I recently tried to book a Transatlantic cruise on Royal Caribbean on the newer ship "Jewel of the Seas". I figured that by booking ten months in advance I would get the sizeable "early booking" discount and would get my pick of cabin since I was booking so far in advance.

I was shocked to find only two or three relatively undesirable cabins (more on that later) which vanished quickly. The next day when I logged onto the Royal Caribbean web site there it was – Cruise Sold Out!

Cruise Tip: Always book your cruise as far in advance as possible. Most cruise lines offer substantial discounts for early bookings. If you wait too long you may get stuck paying the full "brochure" fare. Also, with the growth in cruising, highly desirable cruises are getting booked up earlier and earlier each year.

After 9/11 the whole tourist business went into a tailspin. But since that time (as of this writing) there haven’t been any additional terrorist attacks, tourist travel is returning to normal levels which means many cruises are being booked a full year in advance. Some are sold out a week or ten days after they are posted on the cruise line’s site!

On most Royal Caribbean cruises a sales lady sits at a desk on one of the upper levels where she assists passengers in booking future cruises including returning for the same cruise next year. If you’re interested in another Royal Caribbean cruise, why not stop by and ask the sales lady if they’re offering any special deals during the cruise? If bookings are soft they may be offering some juicy discounts.

When you find the cruise you want – book it as early as possible. Grab the best cabin you can find and get your down payment in the books or the cabin may soon fly away. Don’t ever assume that a cabin will stay on the market until you make up your mind or discuss the matter. You may miss your cruise entirely.

We don’t care to have a cabin that’s located waaaaay down one of those horribly long hallways you find on cruise ships. We’d rather be relatively close to the elevators. So we look for cabins that are more than three cabins from the elevators (If you’re too close to the elevator area you may end up with too much noise) but not too far down the hall.