The media, other travel writers and bloggers have been predicting that cruise prices would be dropping in the wake of the Costa Concordia accident. As someone who looks at cruise pricing every day, I want to be one of the first to tell you that I am not seeing it. In fact, I have been seeing a rise in prices year over year since their lowest levels in 2009. Even on Costa, prices have been rising for certain sailings.

A few days ago, I received a message from Doug Parker (@CruiseRadio) via Twitter asking if I would be interested in being featured on an episode of Cruise Radio. He had been reading cruise related blogs late one night and had come across my post called “Staying in touch while on Vacation…and not going bankrupt.”

This episode is now live and you can listen to it streaming over your computer’s speakers at this link. If you like hearing about all things cruising, Cruise Radio is worth checking out.

Chuck and Laura Flagg are fee-based travel consultants.

Being Cheap is Easy

There are many places you can choose to handle your vacation plans. Online agencies like Exp***a and Trav*****ty specialize in high-volume discounted travel.For cruises, these agencies sometimes have access to group amenities and can offer special perks with your booking. Other times, they are willing to make a lower commission by rebating some of their earnings in the form of an on-board credit for you and your party. There are also many cruise ship sailings we can offer the same types of perks. If you are flexible with your travel plans we can and often do find amazing values along with special perks.

For today I thought I would talk a bit about price versus value when it comes to a cruise experience. You have many choices how you will make your purchase, but you should take time to educate yourself on a few of the myths related to cruise pricing. I was able to come up with six: