Christmas Breeze: Planning
Booking
I didn’t want to book this particular cruise. But since I filled up my schedule with Norwegian cruises and I wanted to get diamond status on Carnival in the spring, I needed this cruise to be at least a 4-day Carnival cruise.
My next concern was the NFL schedule. Last year I waited until the schedule came out to book and got priced out of Carnival cruises. I ended up booking Regal Princess out of Galveston instead.
I knew I needed to book early to make sure the same thing didn’t happen this time. Without knowing the NFL schedule, I had to make it a five day cruise to guarantee I wouldn’t miss a game.
Princess is still the better value this time of year in Galveston. I could’ve had a 7-day on Regal Princess for about $100 more than this 5-day. And I took the cheapest room I could get on the Breeze. An interior upper/lower. I’ve never done that before. Add to that the fact that Princess Plus is a much better deal than what Carnival sells and it really would’ve been a better price and a longer cruise on Princess.
Princess Plus would’ve been $400 for the week and that includes the drink package, internet, gratuities, and more. Normally the drink package on Carnival would cost about $490 for a 7 day cruise. Since they increase the price by $10/day for shorter cruises and they don’t sell it on day one out of Galveston, Cheers costs $330 for four days on this 5-day cruise. Add in gratuities and internet and this 5-day cruise costs more than a 7-day would’ve on Princess.
I’ve already booked Princess for the holidays next year. I booked a 6-day cruise that works around the football schedule. I compared it to the 6-day on Dream out of Galveston the same week and I got the cruise with Princess Plus for the same price as just the cruise fare on Dream.
Accommodations
Normally when I book a cruise out of Galveston it’s a Saturday cruise and I drive to Webster on Friday after work. With this being a Monday during football season I decided to drive down on Saturday and try to book a place convenient to a good football watching location. I ended up booking an Airbnb close to the beach (and all of the beach bars). My total for two nights was $220 which was better than the decent hotels in the area and the location is perfect.
Parking
I booked parking for $90 at Discount Cruise Parking.
Onboard purchases
I paid for my Cheers and Wifi a year ago with 10% off gift cards from AARP. I believe I did that because Wifi was going up at the beginning of the year and I just protected myself from another potential Cheers price increase by paying for it early. It’s already more expensive than usual because they raise the price $10/day for cruises of 6 days or less now. Of course they don’t sell Cheers the first day out of Galveston so they’re going to get in my pocket more for drinks on day 1.
Ports
Cozumel
I’ve been to Cozumel enough and I’m going back a couple times next year so I’m just planning on making that day another sea day.
Progreso
Progreso is a port I haven’t been to since 2017. I definitely want to take advantage of that port stop. I’m going to see the Uxmal Mayan ruins. I wanted to book with Autoprogreso. I had good luck with them in the past. But it has been a long time since I’ve been there. I wasn’t able to book it online. I tried both mobile and regular webpages. One said they had no tours that week. The other did but wouldn’t allow me to pay for the tour. I emailed them twice with no response.
I decided to just book through Carnival and try to price match with Autoprogreso which is $35 cheaper. I figured it was a long shot because the Carnival one includes a box lunch and the Autoprogreso one does not. Sure enough they denied me based on that and it being a 6.5 hour tour vs. a 5 hour tour.
I ended up paying $108 for the excursion. But since I booked with my Carnival Mastercard I get about $11 back so it’ll only be $23 more than the Autoprogreso excursion.
