No. of Recommendations: 4
We've been on 7 cruises, so there's definitely appeal there. If I booked something without consulting her...well, that wouldn't go well ;-)
I'm frugal...she's 3 standard deviations frugal, which is both a feature and a bug.Then I highly recommend two cruises. Both on Holland America.
One of the 10 day land/sea Alaska cruises. The land portion goes to Denali.
One is 7 days sea, 3 days land, the other is 3 days sea 7 days land.
We took both. The latter was the best if you've been to Alaska before. We took an inside cabin for the 3 days and didn't even unpack.
The other is a ~80 day Asia-Alaska-South Pacific cruise.
Book the cheapest balcony cabin. Not at the cruise line, at a broker like "Cruise Specialists"
https://www.cruisespecialists.com/cruise-expert.as...About 3-4 weeks before the sailing date, the cruise line will begin to make deals for cabin upgrade. Especially the highest category since not many people take those because of the high price. They'll accept offers so you can negotiate. We upgraded to the highest category, Neptune Suite, for what amounted to a 35% discount.
For the cruise line, better to get an extra $12,000 for a cabin that would otherwise be empty. The cabin travels with the ship whether empty or occupied. Plus they can then sell your original cheaper cabin to somebody else.
My wife loved it but she said "Don't tell me how much we paid."
Something that works on the 3 standard deviations frugal is "We made 2X in the market this year than this cruise costs."
