That's Interesting I seen a lot of posts where people pay off their cruises with gift cards. I would never use gift cards to book a cruise. I get a lot of protection using a credit card. I only buy them to use as OBC.
When I was looking at availability for our summer 2025 cruise on the Treasure, the price difference was only 4k between our family verandah and concierge which doesn't feel that bad.
Canada is obviously huge, but where in Canada are you flying out of to Galveston. I feel like I've exhausted all of the ports for sailings leaving out of Florida, but Galveston flights are significantly higher than to FLL, MCO, or MIA.
My CC provides trip protection if I use my CC to buy GC's and use those to pay for my cruise. It might be worth verifying
It does seem a little risky just to save 5%.
Keep in mind during Covid DCL itself was being generous with refunding money. Basically all you had to say was you were in contact with someone with covid (didn't need a positive test) and DCL would refund your money.
I think he was just pointing out that during that time people were getting money refunded to gift cards that they couldn't use for anything other than Disney. Another disadvantage of paying with gift cards. If I book a cruise PIF, and have to cancel before the penalty period I would not want all that money coming back onto multiple gift cards. I would want my money back to use for something else.
I think if you mind the gift cards depends on the person. I wouldn't have minded them (in fact I know we had some go back on for a sailing I caught Covid two weeks before) and to me that was fine because I bought Disney Gift Cards knowing that if the trip didn't happen then it would still happen later (and it did)
We're in Vancouver so we can get a direct flight to Houston or save a bit of money and drive down to Seattle for a direct flight to Houston. I've got a Google flights notification set right now for both routes (still too early to book) but right now it would be about $600CDN pp to fly from Seattle and $800CDN pp to fly from YVR. I'm hoping both prices drop a bit
VV is so much fun! I went in 2023 and am going again in 2025 and taking my husband and some friends this time. I felt like they offered Disney-esque service alongside fantastic value, a beautiful ship with lovely staterooms, and awesome food.I looked up Virgin Voyages fares after watching some videos and was extremely surprised how relatively inexpensive it was, considering everything that’s included. Basically the only extras are alcohol, tasting classes, and taxes. Even tips and WiFi are included! I told my husband if we ever cruise by ourselves we’re definitely doing Virgin.
If looking at Princess in Alaska, look at the 2-bedroom family suites. They price really well! They are only on some ships (i.e. Sapphire Princess) and cannot be booked online, so you will have to call or have your TA call.
Exactly... We had an early April 2020 WDW trip planned that we purchased with gift cards and sure enough it happened to us. Rather than going through the whole multiple gift card refund thing, which would have been trouble. We just kept rebooking our trip until we finally took the trip in spring of 2021. So for well over a year we had all that money tied up.
Even crazier when converted to Canadian dollars for us to the north!
Ditto re Australian dollars for those in the south!
