The travel gurus have discovered that those of us who are retired have the time to travel-for example, we are the majority of folks filling the cruise ships. We are not restricted to a vacation once a year when the kids are out of school for the summer. We’ve been there and done that, thank you. We can go when we want, where we want, alone or together. If we find a deal, we can be on the train or ship headed wherever it goes tomorrow. We can take our grandchildren, or we can leave them with the parents who can only travel when the kids are out of school for the summer. We can live life to the fullest and partake of adventure travel, educational travel, foreign and domestic travel, whatever our hearts desire-as long as the money holds out. And because a lot of cruise lines and tour packages make more money from us while we are on board or on tour, they have, intelligently, cut the prices so that we can get on board or take that tour.
Remember, that the cruises and tours are cheap because the companies make their money from you in other ways. It’s just like going to Las Vegas and getting a room for $30 per night and full meals for $1.99-and then spending $200 in the casino. It’s easy to have a wonderful and cheap mini-vacation if you decide in advance how much you are going to give the company, and then stick to it. They would love to have you spending your money in the ship’s casino or at the souvenir shops the tours stop at, but that may not be your smartest move. Instead, try tucking the money away that you were going to spend for the souvenir and use it as a down-payment for the next cruise or tour you run into.
Look for all-inclusive tours (cruises are pretty much all-inclusive anyway-except for the tips at the end of the cruise). If you can’t find all-inclusive tours, try to find the next best thing-the almost all-inclusive. Maybe 6 of 7 dinners are included, or 7 breakfasts are included, something like that. If you are traveling outside of the U.S., a breakfast is usually big enough to keep your stomach full through most of the day-it’s not like our Continental breakfasts at our hotels or motels. See if you can get by with eating only twice a day on your vacation-breakfast and dinner.
Ask for discounts, ask for lowest rates at hotels, ask, ask, ask. People who just take the stated price are the losers. The worst that can happen when you ask, is that there is no better deal available. And even then, if you aren’t pushy or you don’t have an attitude, you can sometimes get that discount by looking very sad and saying something like “Oh, I did so want to do this”, or “I had my heart set on staying here, I’ve heard such wonderful things…”. I’ve even cried to get a discount I want. That probably won’t work well for an ex-football player-type, but for me, it was fine. Whatever works.
The companies that you are dealing with want your money. Hotel managers hate empty rooms, rental cars that sit in the lot are costing money and making none, so take advantage of that. I have to admit, airlines have cut back on their flights so drastically that most planes are full-if you’ve been scrunched into the middle seat in coach recently, you know what I mean. Cruise ships are, also, fairly full nowadays. But, you know what? Airline tickets are, on a par, lower than they were years ago, and you can find a cruise for a beautiful price. Ask for senior rates everywhere!
For more information about travel tips for seniors visit www.mytravelsecrets.com.