It’s “The World’s Largest Cruise Sale!” Or, at least it’s billed so by the Cruise Lines International Association. For the past six years CLIA, the cruise line’s trade association, has organized 24 hours of cruise discounts and promotions on one day in October. This year, they decided to do seven times better by launching National Cruise Vacation Week.

Continue →

Looking for an unusual cruise destination? Are the fjords of Scandinavia, the beaches of the Caribbean and the ports of Greece too beautiful or colorful for you? Then consider a cruise to a reclusive communist state instead.

North Korea’s state tourism bureau recently inaugurated its first ever regularly scheduled cruise.

This is not the Hermit Kingdom’s first attempt to woo vacationers; Spot Cool Stuff readers may remember our post about North Korea’s inaugural golf international golf tournament. Those efforts did not exactly turn the country into a tourist mecca. So might this new cruise offering?

Continue →

Time was, you used to be able to get ultra-cheap air fares if you flew standby. You’d buy a special standby ticket and show up at the airport. If there were room on the plane you’d get on; if there wasn’t you didn’t. The idea being that an airline would rather get a little bit of money for a seat than fly with it empty and get none at all.

Though some airlines still sell full-fare standby tickets, the days of them being deeply discounted are no more, sadly.

Happily, the standby concept might be taking hold in another travel industry: cruises. Luxury operator Crystal Cruises is now offering deals to those willing to be a bit spontaneous with their vacation.

Continue →

If you are longing to get away from the heat—or to find it—Spot Cool Stuff has a collection of awesome airfare discounts, spectacular cruise sales, reduced resort rates and high-value all-inclusive vacations.

To see our latest deals:

• go directly to our vacation deals page;

• or get a Kindle subscription to our travel blog;

• or subscribe to our RSS feed and get all of our travel posts delivered directly to your email inbox or to your RSS aggregator;

or—why not?—act on all three of those options.

Most of these sales are good for the whole of July 2010 but all expire at some point. So act quickly if you see a deal that matches your travel desires.

Continue →

It seems there are always cruise deals of some sort to be found. But with the industry trying to jumpstart travel as the world economy rebounds, there are some especially good cruise deals to be found right now.

Here’s our selection of a few sales on cruises to the Bahamas, to the Caribbean and to Europe. As always, you can see our latest collection of discounts by visiting our travel deals archive or subscribing to our RSS feed.

Please note: All of the offers below are valid for a limited time only. In fact, all require booking before the end of March 2010 at the latest, though most allow for travel after that.

Continue →

October is an odd time for travel booking. It is low season for cruises (check out our review of luxury cruise lines currently offering discounts) and for Europe and for Southeast Asia. The northern hemisphere ski season hasn’t started yet and the Caribbean is at the tail end of hurricane season. But all this means there are more travel bargains for you.

As always, you can stay updated on our latest travel deal posts by . . .

• going directly to our travel hot deals page;

• or, getting a Kindle subscription to our travel blog;

• or, perhaps best of all, subscribing to our RSS feed and getting all of our travel posts delivered directly to your email inbox or to your RSS aggregator;

or—why not?—act on all three of those options.

Please note that most of the offers below are for a limited time. And with that, here’s to happy, high-value travel!

Continue →

Close your eyes and picture this: You’re on the Christina O(nassis) with Jackie-O and Ari sailing the Greek Isles. Oh Jackie-O this is marvelous. So cool. Cocktail hour and then a fabulous dinner of the freshest daily catch followed by great conversation. Ari did what! And laughter. Next a rousing game of charades with J & A. She’s so funny—who knew! Please don’t wake me.

That exact scenario may be a dream but your ability to afford a luxury cruise may not be. Some of the best cruise promotions being offered today are in the premium market. Premium sailings serve up the good life and a whole lot more. Luxury cruises are capturing a younger, more sophisticated yet less stuffy crowd. While mass market cruise lines carry 2000+ passengers, making it hard from them to indulge passengers with fine dining and highly personalized service, luxury cruises offer a more upscale and intimate environment. And who doesn’t want a little more luxury and a little more pampering on their vacation?

A year ago we would not have been able to say premium cruising is affordable. Now we can say: Luxury is affordable and you can go on a luxury cruise. I can, yes I can! And I will!

Here are our three luxury cruise lines of choice. Each are currently offering outstanding promotions:

Continue →

All work and no play makes Dracula a dull vampire

This January the Carnival Liberty will set sail on a special Fangs and Fur Cruise. But if you imagine this is an opportunity for you and your four-legged companion to take to the high seas—a sort of Rover + You + the Love Boat—you are off. Way off.

The fangs in question belong to a vampire. The fur belongs to a werewolf. And the cruise’s target audience is literally literary—it is for aspiring authors of the gothic genre.

Continue →