Looking for an Affordable, Last-Minute Cruise? Try a Standby Ticket
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Here's your Money Briefing for Friday, February 7th. I'm Mariana Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. Monitoring prices months ahead of time and planning every expense to a T is one way to travel on a budget.

But if you're okay with some chaos, trying to nab a last-minute standby ticket for a cruise is another option. Basically, you pay the money, but you don't find out if you get on until seven to two days before the cruise leaves. These programs, you know, ideally are for people who live in the port, right? Florida or Seattle. But I wanted to add a twist, so I...

book this. And I had to get all the way across the country on very short notice. So it was quite the adventure. Is it worth it? We'll talk with Wall Street Journal travel columnist Dawn Gilbertson about how she landed a low-cost ticket on a sold-out cruise after the break.

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Looking for a cheap getaway? Have you considered taking a chance on a standby cruise? Wall Street Journal travel columnist Dawn Gilbertson just did, and she joins me. Dawn, why did you choose to sail standby? There's some of the best deals out there, and I had heard about Holland America's standby program, and I was like, I wonder how this works in practice.

Can you give me like a quick definition? Like what is a standby cruise? Because I had never heard about it pre this story. The way Holland America standby cruise works is you go on their website and they have a list of eligible cruises over the next several months. So I had looked at it and I wanted to test a last minute cruise. So a few weeks in January, I looked and found a cruise out of Florida.

And basically, you pay the money, but you don't find out if you get on until seven to two days before the cruise leaves. These programs, you know, ideally are for people who live in the port, right? Florida or Seattle, the other places where Holland America has cruises. But I wanted to add a twist. So I...

book this. And I had to get all the way across the country on very short notice. So it was quite the adventure. How did you find this particular standby cruise deal? On their website. I had heard that, you know, Holland America had this great deal. I mean, it's $99 a day, including taxes for a inside cabin and $129 for a room with a balcony. And again, that applies whether your cruise is a week long or

you know, four weeks long. The price goes up for there. But I paid $693.00

for a week. And how much would that have normally cost you? You can find a cruise on Holland America for roughly this price, maybe not as low, but for roughly this price if you book in advance. But the appeal here was this was last minute and I could not find a last minute cruise deal, you know, when everybody's trying to flee the cold on the East Coast for this price. So that was the appeal.

You said you were waiting to hear back until about two days before. Is that correct? What was it like, like in that limbo to see if you had a spot on the cruise or not? Oh, my gosh. I was kind of freaking out because here's the rules. When you get on the standby list, you pay.

So if you get off the stand by list, meaning they approve you, you have to be there or you lose your money, right? Again, easier if you're in Florida, not so easy if you are in another city that you need to fly to. So I was just trying to put all the pieces of this trip together. I booked a non-refundable one-way ticket to Florida.

I, you know, kept an eye on hotels in Fort Lauderdale, you know, the port where it was leaving from. But basically, I was checking my email every single day, 10 times a day, you know, like a mom trying to see if their kid got into an Ivy League school.

What makes a standby cruise a good option for someone looking for a cheap, quick getaway? It was $693. I mean, there were extras like Wi-Fi and a soda package, but think about $693 for a week's vacation, seven nights vacation. It just doesn't math unless you're staying at a relative's house. If you want to have a hotel near the beach, on the beach, all your meals, think about a family. Do you know what I mean? I mean, this was per person, but it's a really, really good value. If

If someone's interested in pursuing a trip like this, what can they do to make sure that they don't throw away money on like what should be a really cheap trip? A couple of things. I mean, first of all, if you get on this particular standby list, make sure you're available that date, right? Because if they pick you and you're not in that thing, whether you live in Florida or you live in Phoenix...

you lose that money. So in my case, it would have been, you know, almost $1,400. But the other things to do is do the math because last minute, I got a good deal. But if you book a cruise in advance and you're a pretty savvy travel shopper, you can find a lot of deals that include a bunch of extras. Like I've been on cruises before where you get free Wi-Fi, you get a free beverage package, you know, so you have to be really savvy about looking at promotions, whether you're doing it yourself or

or through a travel agent, they stay on top of these pretty well. Are there any other things to look out for or possible pitfalls, downsides to pursuing a trip like this? With any cruise, whether it's a last-minute deal like this or one you do in advance, the challenge is adding everything up that you want to spend money on, right? You can really blow your budget on a cruise line. On this particular cruise, I mean, I needed internet and a lot of passengers I met didn't pay for it, but I needed internet to work.

and that internet package was $200 for the week and then soda I paid 60 something dollars because the only drinks are that are free on this particular cruise are lemonade and water and coffee so people that haven't been on a cruise you kind of need to read the fine print they are all-inclusive vacations but not everything is included you need to see what's important for you would you ever do it again

I would. I really would. I mean, think about it. If you're sitting out there right now and you're in freezing cold Connecticut or New York or wherever you are and you want a vacation, whether it's by yourself or with a partner or even with the family, you can't do a whole lot of things for $693. An airport hotel costs $200 a night these days. So I would recommend it for people with flexible schedules.

That's WSJ columnist Dawn Gilbertson. And that's it for your Money Briefing. Tomorrow, we'll have our weekly markets wrap-up, What's News in Markets. Join us on Sunday for episode two of our series, Tax Season 2025, What's New? Where we discuss the new tax rules that could save you time and money on your 2024 return.

This episode was produced by Jess Jupiter. I'm your host, Arianna Aspuru. Jessica Fenton and Michael LaValle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Aisha Al-Muslim is our development producer. Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is The Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. Thanks for listening.