Cruising is always in season . . .

Cruising is a great vacation at any time of the year. In winter there is always the Carribean. The rest of the year, you can cruise just about anywhere. This year you can look for some real cruising bargains. I say that because the media is having a field day with stories about crime on cruise ships. Some people will turn to other types of vacations because of the bad publicity, and that will leave more cabins for the rest of us. When cruise lines see the possibility of sailing with a bunch of empty cabins, they start slashing prices.

I think the media is being unfair. Cruise ships are far safer than a vacation in a city. Think about the number of people who are on cruise ships at any given moment during the busy part of the cruise season. It's enough people to populate a fair sized city. The on-board crime rate is going to be way less than in that hypothetical city. Cities have all kinds of people. They have rich, poor, homeless, drug addicts, and criminals of every kind. The percentage people likely to commit crimes is far smaller on a cruise. Most crimes on cruises happen when somebody gets drunk and does something really stupid. Very few people get on a cruise planning a crime.

So how do you get in on this windfall of bargain cruises? Book late. You will have less choices if some ships sell out weeks before sailing, but with the current media induced hysteria, it is not likely to happen.

Work through a good travel agent. They know where the best deals are and can probably get you a better price than you will find online. But they also use their experience to help you dodge some of the pitfalls.

One horror story I've heard is about a woman who booked her own cruise and was left standing on the pier, because she didn't have a birth certificate or a passport. She was not aware that she needed one. Any travel agent worth his salt would have mentioned that. They can tell you what to take and what to leave home. Most travel agents have traveled enough to even give you first hand information about your destinations. And you don't pay the agent to book your cruise. The cruise line does.

So is there really crime on cruise ships? Not real often, but I suppose it happens sometimes. My personal experience is that it is rare. If I count correctly, I have been on 14 cruises of a week or more, and have never seen nor heard of a crime on board. I have never had anything stolen, and I have never been cheated. A cruise ship would not be a very good place for criminal activity, because there is no place to run.

So turn off that TV and let's go cruising.