All About Cruising: Rough Waters Now. Smooth Sailing Ahead?

Is cruising coming back strong? Is it safe? Where are the best places to cruise right now? Bob Levinstein, CEO of Cruise Compete, covers many of your questions, and covers many types of ships and cruises, and offers inside tips.

Lea and Bob share some or their favorite, memorable experiences, including a special moment by a waterfall in Guadalope; a month-long cruise from Chile to Tahiti, with stops in Easter Island and Pitcairn Island, home of the mutineers from Mutiny on the Bounty. And a cruise through the pirate zone,
_____
Bob Levinstein is CEO and co-founder of Cruise Compete, where cruise agents compete for best cruise prices on discounted cruise deals.
___
Podcast host Lea Lane blogs at forbes.com, has traveled to over 100 countries, written nine books, including Places I Remember, and contributed to guidebooks. She's @lealane on Twitter; Travelea on Insta; on  Facebook, it's Places I Remember by Lea Lane. Website: placesirememberlealane.com.  Please follow, rate and review this weekly travel podcast!

Transcript

Lea Lane: 0:26

Sometimes I think the travel world can be divided into those willing to float on anything and those reluctant to get on the water, wary of crowded ports and the potential problems of close quarters. Or maybe you're in between ready for an out of the ordinary adventure and an ocean or river, I guess is Bob levenstein, CEO and co founder of cruise compete calm, a free service that allows travelers to select a cruise then compare multiple custom cruise offers from competing travel agencies. Cruise competing member agents have provided more than 17 point 5 million quotes to cruise travelers. Welcome, Bob, or should I say welcome aboard? Welcome aboard works. Okay. I've also been on many cruises in my over 50 years of international travel. In fact, I wrote a book in the 1990s called the world's most exciting cruises. Later in this episode, we'll be talking about some of our memorable cruises. But let's start with questions people are most interested in now. The situation is always changing, but what's going on concerning safety and health?

Bob Levinstein: 1:29

Well, the news is mostly good on the cruise front, the ships are starting to sail again, there are a lot of different safety measures in place. But I would say there are three that are most important. Number one is the ships are now the lines are now testing passengers before they get on board to make sure at the start of the cruise, no one's getting on board with COVID. The second thing that they are doing is requiring a lot of vaccines. It really depends on the ship in the line. It's changing frequently. But overall, I think what you what you'll find is just about all the adults on every cruise ship are vaccinated, all of the crews are absolutely vaccinated. And it's normally just the kids under 12, who aren't, aren't yet able to get vaccinations that are unvaccinated. And then the third thing that is that is probably the most important thing that they are doing is they've upgraded all of the ventilation systems on the ship. I think the more time that goes by as the changing understanding of this virus and how it spreads, evolves, the thing that really seems to be coming to the fore is this virus, bear spreads and unventilated areas, you need to get enough virus in in the air in a certain confined space, and you need to breathe it in for a certain amount of time before you get sick. And what the ships have really done is upgraded their air handling capabilities. So for example, in Royal Caribbean, the air in your cabin can be changed out as many times as 12 times in an hour. Wow. And in the larger spaces, the air is changed out as many times as 15 times in an hour. So you're talking you know, every four or five minutes. And they're not just changing it, they're running it through some very high level filters. And they also have some other other stuff that honestly I don't quite understand. But it's taking the virus, it's killing the virus as it goes. So it's these are the these are the these are the factors that really decide whether something's going to spread on board, there been a few cases, we had a Royal Caribbean ship that had over 3000 people come back and they ended up with six positive COVID tests, mild symptoms. So basically, we're talking about a ship with over 3000 people together for a week going into different ports into different situations. And at the end of the day, one person had this stuff. And that was it's really probably safer than then than going to your shop.

Lea Lane: 3:50

Good to know, I know that hygiene has been improved all the way around, of course and rules are stricter about tours and going off on ports. And there is a doctor aboard you suggest spending for insurance that lifts you out just in general when you're on a cruise.

Bob Levinstein: 4:05

I think it really depends on who you are, you know, being a fairly fit person I you know, with no comorbidities No, you know, particular issues. But you know, if I were in MMA when I'm in my 70s when I'm in my 80s absolutely I would do that it's not terribly expensive. No, there's a service called air ambulance which I think is I've heard good things about and it's you know, it's it's smart to look at all your options and read carefully what insurance covers and make a decision for yourself.

Lea Lane: 4:36

Yes. Now let's talk about some of the reasons why cruising is a great way to travel. For one you see places you otherwise wouldn't. You are able to go all over the world and I know that's one of the reasons I love cruising. The convenience of just unpacking once of course is well known and then there's the lodging, food and entertainment you can count on wherever in the world you are. What are some of the others Well,

Bob Levinstein: 5:00

I think all of those are very, very good points. But there are there are just a lot of other things that that make cruising great. One just simply the idea you mentioned about people who love to be on the water I love being on the water. I love the feel of the ocean rocking me asleep I love sitting out on the balcony of the cruise ship at night and just you know here in the water go pass just there's just there's a real you know, romance with the sea. I think that people really enjoy Joy. Another thing that I love about a cruise that maybe doesn't people don't think about as much is the people who are the other passengers. I was once in one of my first cruises I took was out of San Juan. And this was many, many years ago, I had never been to Puerto Rico. And we figured, hey, you know, as long as we're here after the cruise, we'll spend, you know, we'll spend four nights on this tropical island. Well, you know, after having lots of entertainment and fun and people to hang out with first night, we said, okay, let's, let's go out and have dinner. Well, let's get some typical local food. So we asked the concierge at the hotel, and then we had to figure out how to get our rental car to that restaurant. And we got to that restaurant and there was an hour wait, so we ended up, you know, going somewhere else, then we thought, Well, you know, okay, let's go hear some live music. It was a Tuesday night, there's not a live lot of live music in the city on a Tuesday night. Whereas on the cruise ship, we had a choice of four or five venues, it's there's just lots and lots of convenience, there are lots of things that are already planned that are already set up for you. You don't have to think, um, it actually reminds me of a travel service called backroads that does these active tours. And it's fairly expensive, but you know, you're going to do a camping trip, kind of thing are you doing in trip and you stay in lodges. But one of the things you know, that did really struck me on one of the camping trips was just the amount of logistics that they handle for you that you don't have to think about, yes, it's more expensive than going on your own. But on the other hand, you get to do three or four times as much stuff. Because you're not worrying about the meals in the cooking, and how do I get stuff from one place to another. And cruising is like that everything is laid out for you. You get there. As he said, you get everything unpacked, you get organized. And you know, here's another thing that I realized about travel is I'm always stressed until things are organized and put in place. And I know where they are, there's so much stuff at home that you just take for granted of you know, I know where my clothes are, I know that I have you know that I have what I need, or I know that they're wash, or I know where to get my coffee, this all of these things, once you have that once you have that peace of mind where you know where stuff is, and you don't have to think about it becomes automatic, you relax more. And with cruising, you get that as you say you pack everything away, it's done, you know where it all is, and then you just go off and enjoy bars, aren't you, you know, we're you know, you can look at a thing go out well, we want to go hear some live music, here are five choices, having the option of short trips, the tours that are available, we do in fact, have crews compete, we have a partner that we work with called shore excursions group. And it's great because they don't have to work in his larger volume. Because generally, when you go on a tour on a cruise ship, they don't give you that many choices. And so and they're presented to a large number of people, so you tend to have much larger groups that you're going with that limit some of the things that you can do, it's got to be able to handle a large group. And also, of course, there's a markup, you're going to pay, you know, the cruise lines taken 35%. So you save money and you get smaller tours, and you get to do what you want. But again, the nice thing is, it's okay, we're at this port, we know we're going to meet here, we've already decided what we wanted to do, we've got an expert to take us there, and make sure that we spend the maximum amount of time enjoying and not trying to figure out where we're going, you know, what's the best way to do this? It's already there. Right?

Lea Lane: 8:41

I would say that, you know, many people go walk off the ship and they select one of the many cabs so the tour companies that are that are on the dock, I would just warn that you want to make sure you can get back to the ship because the ship will leave and that's one of the risks when you go on your own. It's It's fun, but keep that in mind. You want to go well

Bob Levinstein: 8:59

be the that's what you know, that's something that people are worried about. Really people missing the ship doesn't happen all that often. And usually when it does, there's a lot of alcohol involved. But the for instance, the company that we work with guarantees returned to the ship. And you know, they'll fly you to the next port if you miss it and all that

Lea Lane: 9:19

I almost missed when I was on one in Norway. I almost missed it. I shouldn't the gangplank was going up. So that one I guess I remember forever. Yeah, I was away. It was a male boat on in Norway. Anyway, I should mention also that it's easy to budget with a cruise. It's all inclusive, you know, meals, entertainment activities, it's easy to know what you're going to spend. Many cruise ships now add standard spirits and tips. So you have an idea about spending

Bob Levinstein: 9:50

cruise ships in general, traditionally, your alcohol, your shore excursions and you're in the casino are their three biggest onboard revenue generators. I would add to that there are a lot more a lot more specialty restaurants these days where you can pay a little bit more and get a fancier or a different dining experience. But no, absolutely. The value that you get on a cruise is really unparalleled in terms of you know, not being able to worry not having to worry about the food, the entertainment and all of these other things.

Lea Lane: 10:20

And the staff you get a very nice staff to clean your room and to help you out. It's a lovely feeling.

Bob Levinstein: 10:25

Well, you Just as it's as having the passengers around, the other passengers are great, especially the higher your meeting boss and meeting people who've been all over the world and love to travel, and have great stories, and can give you advice on where to go next and how to do things better. It's they tend to be really interesting people, and interesting other experiences in life, you know, that part is, is really an underrated part of the experience. You know, another thing about the cruise experience that is really wonderful is, especially on the larger ships, it's not monolithic. It's not one experience, it can be whatever you want it to be, I remember, you know, back in the day again, going on a three night cruise and you know, closing down the disco every night at 3am and partying the whole time. And then not too much longer. After that going on a seven night cruise where I was training for triathlon. And we maybe made it to the formal dinner twice in the whole trip, I worked out twice a day, it was you know, just a much healthier went to bed earlier. And it can be your choice. You know, for example, you're traveling with, you know, often you get these family groups where you have kids and grandkids and you know, the grandparents can go play bridge or go to a lecture or do the things they want to do. The kids clubs are wonderful on these things. It's basically like a summer camp kind of a deal. And I remember taking my son when he was seven, this was a Norwegian Cruise. And they mentioned that the kids club, you know, closes at 10 o'clock at night and it's like, come on my kids seven, he goes to bed at you know, 738 o'clock, they'll never be in there. 10 o'clock. Well turned out if we tried to pull them out of that kid's club at 955 he complained. Such a great time gives the parents you know, time to do their go to the pool, go to you know, go hear some music at night, do whatever they want to do. So it's really a nice thing where everybody can get together for meals, they can go on shore excursions together. But everybody can can tailor their own experience to what they like and what they want to do.

Lea Lane: 12:17

Yes, and I've traveled many times solo on a ship. And it's a wonderful way to meet people, you can be by yourself, if you want, chill out whatever order you can ask the maitre D at the restaurant to see you with interesting people. And I've, I've sat with wonderful people throughout the world and that people were still friends today, it's a great place to go. If you're solo, if you can especially find one ship that is good about the single supplements, I think you have to check that out carefully. Sometimes it's a good deal. Sometimes it isn't. But I

Bob Levinstein: 12:48

think, oddly enough on a cruise ship, they will charge you more per person if you're the only person in your cabin. And there's actually it seems odd, but there are actually good reasons from this for from a from a cruise line perspective, which is obviously they're not able to sell that other bed in that cabin if you're already there. But beyond that, they're not making that bet onboard revenue that I mentioned earlier. You know, there's only one person to drink there's only one person to gamble in the casino or watch shorter versions, so they charge more. However, there's been a trend over the last few years of a number of lines having special offers or getting rid of the single supplement. Norwegian I think was the first to start putting out single cabins.

Lea Lane: 13:29

Yes, I've stayed in one. They're tiny, but they're yours and it's wonderful. And you meet others. You don't need much on a ship.

Bob Levinstein: 13:38

Right? And if you look around they're often offers of reduced or getting our or waived single supplements on a number of different chips. It really just depends.

Lea Lane: 13:46

Yeah, I think that's an insider chip, if you can check that before you you know, sign up you there were there were many deals, and many different times I think, what are some other chips? I mean, one thing I would say I think it's personal but I would splurge for a balcony. I know a lot of people feel an inside cabin is just fine. And I'm sure it is. But I like the idea when I'm especially by myself to be able to go out on the balcony and just enjoy the quiet. Another thing repositioning cruises. Tell us about that. That's a really good deal. If you if you like to see especially if you like being on the water.

Bob Levinstein: 14:20

Yes, well, cruise ships are seasonal. And for example, the Alaska season is going to go from sometime in the middle of May to sometime in September, and then it gets too cold. Ditto with with the big ships in Europe, but a lot of normally sail pretty much in the summer month. So where do they go? Well, they all go to the Caribbean for the wind. And to get the ship from the when they take the ship from you know, from Europe to the Caribbean or from Alaska around to the Caribbean, maybe they're going through the Panama Canal, you often have these, these itineraries that are not port heavy, you may have two or three days in a row, and you're going to have to have to one way flights, generally, because you've got to get to the start and you got to get home from where it ends, rather than it being in the same place and you can buy a round trip. And because of that those are often less expensive. The other reason why they tend to be cheaper as they're sailing at times of the year, they're less popular. And that's really the probably my first tip on getting a good deal on a cruise is you want to cruise when other people aren't. And generally the general rule on that one is simple. If kids are in school, the cruise will be less expensive if kids are out of school because be more expensive, you know, people wonder why oh, well, you know, it's the middle of the summer who's gonna want to go to the Caribbean in the summer? And the answer is people with kids can take them with them. So yeah, summer cruises are more expensive than then a lot of winter cruises. And in fact, so the times to avoid generally in the summer is a bit more expensive. Obviously, Christmas is expensive, and spring break. And spring break is a very loose term that can go on for, you know, a month and a half, the same cabin, same itinerary, same ship for two weeks of December, for one quarter of the price.

Lea Lane: 16:05

And there are many discount brokers who offer you know, 50 60% off, depending, you know, on the cruise and the time, I've used many of them, and have gotten some really good deals.

Bob Levinstein: 16:16

Well, speaking of that, we've actually that's my reason, for Oh, we've we've made that a lot easier. We give you a lot of tools to figure out which cruise you want to take, there's a virtual agent that will help you. There's all kinds of other information there available. We have over 500 different travel agencies who are members who can see your request, and they respond with their best offer. So those discount brokers, you know, folks who really know how to work the system, who really know how to get you good deals, are all competing with each other. They all know that they're competing with each other. So they're going to come out with their best absolute best offer right off the bat. And then you can compare those so you can communicate directly with these people via email or phone ask any questions that you like. And if you are interested then you you know you can book but you that's really the best way to get to get the best deal because you're not just going to one travel agency and seeing what they have. You've got this this pool of experts and on their end, they can decide which ones they want to quote if they know they've got a great deal on a certain sailing, they can search for that on that on their end it comes up people who want that sailing come up and and you know they can communicate with you directly through your quote. So

Lea Lane: 17:27

yeah, that's a great way to get a good deal I know. Now when most people think of cruises, they think of big ships and mainstream cruises, which is what we're mainly talking about here. But there are many types of cruise ships available besides the mainstream the big ones. We have the premium ones the high end the very high end ones the ships are perhaps a bit smaller, medium size usually you have the small ships which can go they vary I've been on I've been on ships I went to Baja California there were only 12 people on the on the I guess you would call it a yacht I'm not sure what the name would be. But it was a wonderful ship we saw blue whale. I remember any of it just so few of us it was it was meaningful. Also to the Galapagos I took a very small it held 20 there were only seven passengers. So that's that's another kind of cruise super duper. There are expedition ships that go to places all around the world that you can't get to otherwise and are focused on adventure. These are not mainly for families or kids. They're more for adventurers and there are lots of those as well. There are sailing ships, where they put up the sales part of the time not usually all of the time. But I've I've taken some wonderful sailing cruises to the Mediterranean and to Costa Rica. And then there were commercial ships. I was on a male ship I mentioned I almost missed the boat on on that one on the Norwegian coast. Hurtigruten, I guess you pronounce it? And also freighters? I don't know, do you have anything to do with that? Um, no, not.

Bob Levinstein: 18:59

The other one that you've that you have mentioned is river cruising. Oh, we're gonna get to that library that's become very popular. Basically heavy ships, it'll go from anywhere from 40 to 220 passengers, they tend to mostly sail in Europe, but there are some in Africa there are some in rivers and Russia. And the real appeal of the river ships is when they dock at the port you're usually right downtown in the middle of things. I think as we all know, cities grown up around water sources right and they've grown up around rivers and so it's a great way to see Europe because you're on the ship again you've you've unpacked once you have you know your meals and and other things all in one place. And then you know, you'll in the morning you'll wake up and you're in a new port, you can look around and see the cathedrals or tour and you know, castles, culinary experiences, wine tasting, the European Christmas markets are also very popular in December. But essentially, the main thing is you're right there. You know, you're right in the middle of everything. And it's a great way to see art and architecture and experience.

Lea Lane: 20:05

Absolutely. It has less to do on board and it's more laid back but you get to know your fellow passages and as you say you're right in the middle of the city or wherever you are some of my favorites around the world. Were one I took on the Danube all the way to Bulgaria. I took one on the Yangtze River in China by the Three Gorges Dam. I was on the Designed to Manaus, I was Myanmar, which now is unfortunately having problems that at the time was one of the most interesting places I had ever been. I took a river cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow where you could see the staples of the former villages sticking out from the water where Stalin had made the waterways go over the villages. It was fascinating. And the little towns were fascinating. This was in 1995, when they were coming back to life, really. And I recently took one in Ukraine on the Neva River to the Black Sea. And again, now it's very difficult. So you know, one of the one of the things I'm thinking when I'm thinking of these cruises, I've been all over on cruises. And sometimes you want to take advantage and do it because you can't do it later. And when I say these places, many of them right now, or you're unable to get there very easily. So it's a wonderful way to see the world. The name of the podcast is places I remember. So what are some of the memorable things you can remember about your cruises? Well, we'll both talk about that.

Bob Levinstein: 21:30

You know, one of the first cruises that I went on was out of Puerto Rico. In fact, he was the one that I had mentioned earlier, one of the memories from that one that really sticks is we went to Guadalupe, Dr. Guadalupe and there was this hike to this waterfall and I had never actually been to a again many years ago, I've never really seen a real tropical waterfall before and hiking to this thing and just the energy of standing underneath the waterfall in the you know, in this tropical jungle pool that just I really remember the feeling of that because you know, you put it into words and just Well yes, you know, it's water falling off a cliff. But it just the emotions that it evokes just still stick with me to this day. After so much time. Yes,

Lea Lane: 22:11

sometimes a beautiful moment sticks with you for your whole life. As you mentioned, I think cruises take take you to some of these places where you can find these moments. I wrote down a list of some of the more interesting places that I've been I've been doing this a long time. And so many times the cruise is what I remember the most because we go to places I as I said before, you can't get to otherwise. I took a cruise from Santiago, Chile to Easter Island, which is far out in the ocean in the Pacific on its on the way to Bora Bora and Tahiti. That was an unusual cruise I was a month we went to a place called Pitcairn Island, where the relatives of Fletcher Christian from the Mutiny on the Bounty still live there. Only about 40 of the people they came on board, our cruise ship, selling t shirts and so forth. They were very excited to see the cruise ship there isn't that much going on in the middle of the South Pacific. That was very memorable. We met most of the people from Pitcairn Island. It's an unusual group of people. Now it's a bit it's like a rock in the middle of the ocean. But it was interesting. And then there was another month long cruise I took few years ago from Dubai to Cape Town. Fabulous itinerary where we went to the Seychelles, the Maldives and Madagascar ended up in in Cape Town. But the bad part was we had to go through the pirate zone for two weeks, half of the much of the time where we had to turn our lights off at night. The ship we were on. It was an Oceana ship that had been actually hit by pirates in 2008. So it wasn't something that we were just, you know, joking about. We had, we had all kinds of, you know, drills and so forth. But we got through, and it was kind of exciting. I don't I don't recommend this for everyone. But the itinerary is so fabulous that you had to go through this zone to get there, there was no choice. So, you know, a lot of people didn't want to do it. They canceled when they when they thought about it. But some people have a different risk factor and then others. So you know, there there are many, many wonderful places in the world. I just think that if you haven't yet cruise, you should try a short one. And you may be a cruise lover and not yet know it. And if you do love to get on a ship, hang in there cruising isn't going away. It remains one of the best ways to see the world and it will adapt to our changing world. Bob levenstein I hope to see you on the see. Thank you for a really interesting discussion. Thanks a lot. Thank you