Cruise Deals: River Cruise Review + Celebrity Reflection Sale + NCL Cruise Deals

River Cruising Experience

CruiseDeals.com’s Vice President, Kevin Weisner just returned from an Avalon River cruise with his 13 year old daughter. Here, he shares his experience:

“I recently took an Avalon Waterways river cruise with my 13-year-old daughter, Molly. We were able to cruise aboard the Avalon Felicity on the Rhine River from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam and for me, it fell into “trip of a lifetime” status. It was also a “first” on several levels:

• It was our first father/daughter trip (my wife had to stay home and look after our twin boys so I owe her big time)!

• It was Molly’s first visit to Europe. Her mother is German, so it’s really part of her own story to see some of the German towns and cities along the Rhine.

• It was the first river cruise for both of us. I’ve probably been on 20 or so blue-water cruises (not counting when I was a crewmember) and my daughter’s been on four, so we have a pretty good handle on that experience for comparison.

In this post, I’ve summarized the overall trip but have tried to keep the focus on what the brochure or website can’t really tell you about it, as well as some insider tips, having ‘been there, done that.’ Molly has also written about the experience from the point of view of a young teen. And since most river cruise guests have at least one blue-water cruise under their belt, I also wanted to draw out some of the contrasts, so that’s where I’ll start…”

 
Read more about Kevin’s Avalon River Cruise experience here.

This Week’s Handpicked Deals

Celebrity Reflection Prepaid Gratuities

A Signature Suite aboard the Celebrity Reflection

Celebrity’s newest ship the Reflection will be making its debut this Fall. The brand new ship will make a few Mediterranean voyages before to heading towards the U.S. at the end of November.

CruiseDeals.com has a fantastic exclusive offer on two of these Mediterranean voyages featuring prepaid gratuities plus onboard credit for balcony staterooms and above!

Book a balcony stateroom or higher on the October 21st or the November 4th departures of the Celebrity Reflection by August 31st and receive:

Prepaid Gratuities- a $322 to $420 value per cabin

PLUS

View both applicable Celebrity Reflection cruise deals here.

NCL Pride Advantages

CruiseDeals.com currently has hundreds of Norwegian Cruises where rates are are much lower than NCL’s. In some cases these special rates provide a huge savings- for example a $1260 price advantage per cabin on a Hawaii sailing. Plus, on top of great rates, we can also offer booking bonuses such as onboard credits on many of these cruises too.

I’ve provided just a small sampling of our great Norwegian Cruise deals below:

December 1st NCL Epic 7-Night Eastern Caribbean from $499 per person- On this sailing CruiseDeals.com has rates that are up to $560 less per cabin than NCL’s rates.
View this Norwegian Epic cruise deal here.

January 6th through January 27th Norwegian Dawn 7-Nt Caribbean cruises out of Tampa from $394 per person – On this sailing CruiseDeals.com has rates that are $160 to $360 less per cabin than NCL’s rates.
View this Norwegian Dawn cruise deal here.

January 5th & 12th Pride of America 7-Night Hawaii from $1029 per person- On this sailing CruiseDeals.com has rates that are up to $1260 less per cabin than NCL’s rates
View this Pride of America cruise deal here.

March 22nd Gem 9-Night Caribbean from New York from $859- On this sailing CruiseDeals.com has rates that are up to $700 less per cabin than NCL’s rates.
View this Norwegian Gem cruise deal here. 

Don’t believe these huge price advantages? Here is an image showing a side by side comparison of our rates on a specific sailings vs NCL’s rates:

Coming Up Tomorrow- Special sale from Royal Caribbean

We can’t reveal any details but be sure to check back at CruiseDeals.com tomorrow (Saturday, August 25th) for a special one day sale from Royal Caribbean!

On Deck: What’s Coming Up Next Week

Last Minute Price Drops- One Day Only

Looking for a last minute cruise? Tuesday will be a great day to book because Royal Caribbean and Celebrity will both drop rates on a handful of sailings departing in the next couple of months for one day only! These cruise deals feature very discounted rates that really are only bookable for one day on Tuesday so be sure to act on this offer while you can because once Wednesday comes around, the rates will go right back up to where they came from. Check out my favorite picks from each:

Royal Caribbean

Celebrity