If you are anything like I used to be, maybe you would love to go on a cruise but you cannot afford it. That is when I started to investigate any ways that I could get a free cruise.
Here are four ideas that I came across.
Get a group together.
I found out that, often, if you could get a group of friends together and organize a cruise for them all, then you could get a complimentary ticket. Typically for every fifteen people booked there would be one cruise for free.
Perhaps you belong to a local gardening club, sports club or bridge club. They may want take a cruising vacation but do not feel capable of organizing it themselves. Get fourteen couples together and you and your spouse get to travel for nothing. Of course you will have a lot of work to do and collecting and dealing with them all will be time consuming but it will be worth it.
If you do not think that you have enough friends you can do it on a semi professional level. Set yourself up as a tour leader and advertise yourself to the social clubs in your local community or wherever you choose. Offer to arrange holiday cruises for them.
Get some work on cruise liners.
Admittedly this is a little bit like normal working but it will give you the opportunity to travel for free and you will get some time off to enjoy the places that you visit. In the winter you can be cruising in sunny places. Imagine being in the sunshine all year around.
All your food and accommodation are included obviously and you do not even have to pay the fare or struggle through the traffic jams to get to work every morning. You can be in the office from your bed in a couple of minutes on these free cruises.
Use your talents
Are you good at anything? Maybe you consider yourself to be good at public speaking. The cruise companies are always on the lookout for people to do presentations to the passengers. They have to fill up the time and keep them entertained. There are also always requirements for staff to help with the daily sports and other activities on board.
Maybe you are an entertainer. Apply to the cruise lines and find out whether they can use what you are good at. There is a great need for singers, dancers, comedians, magicians etc to provide the evening entertainment after dinner.
As a general rule there are many more women who go on cruises than men. If you are male and are a competent dancer you could cruise as a dance partner and you will have plenty of dancing every evening. Ladies love to dance after dinner.
Win a cruise.
While you are considering and applying for all the above you can enter the various competitions that appear in the newspapers and other media with a cruise as the prize for the winner. More recently the internet has a lot of this type of offer but, although there will be a winner, it is often an opportunity to get your email address for spam purposes so beware.
Off-line competitions will give you a better opportunity. You will be surprised how few entries the organizers get for some of them.
Some of these ideas will enable you to cruise for free all through the year whilst others will give you the chance of just one cruise. You know which you want so go down the relevant route and good luck in searching for your free cruise.