Christmas and New Year Cruises as deals offer from cheapest cheap to top luxury deals. At our website you will be able to compare major cruise lines ships Xmas and New Years cruise specials as itineraries, sailing schedule (December Holidays departure and port dates), and their “Holiday special” prices. Regardless expensive all-inclusive luxury or discounted cheap, all Christmas and New Year cruise deals offer a perfect combination of the three most popular “best buys” - holiday, travel and vacation. Christmas New Years packages on ship cruises fully represent the “ultimate holiday” experience of the Xmas fun-time and the vacation cruising. These are some of our super popular contemporary mini vacation ideas, presenting the cheapest way to travel in style on voyages to top destinations, like Caribbean, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand.
How to choose your Christmas and New Year cruises?
Generally, combined Christmas and New Years Eve cruises are operated with longer and one-way itineraries. Depending on cruise lines and destinations, your Xmas and NYE cruise itinerary may vary as duration from 10 to up to 30 days, extending from early or mid-December through the early dates of January, and sometimes – to mid-January and beyond if you book a segment from an Around The World tour starting in December. 
Christmas New Year mini cruise deals signify round-trip itineraries with duration 7-9 days, with departure dates very close to or on December 25 – very popular in Europe, and mostly with departures from UK. Fly cruise Christmas New Year deals are also in the category of affordable package holiday sailings. This option includes relatively cheap one-way flight tickets – mostly to Caribbean (Barbados, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, also to ports in Florida, USA) or to big Mediterranean ports in Spain, Italy or Egypt, and rarely to Asia and South America.
The ship vacation part includes an usually longer itinerary, 2-week packages on round-trips being the most traded of all deals. Caribbean cruise Christmas New Year itineraries include some of the region’s best vacation destinations and feature ports of call, the very short list of which includes Yucatan Mexico with Cozumel and Costa Maya, The Bahamas with Nassau and the lines’ private islands, Jamaica and Puerto Rico, also visited with round-trip departures or Caribbean fly cruise deals from UK.
Popular Christmas New Years Cruise Destinations
If you plan to spend at least a little bit of the year’s most festive season at sea splurging on Christmas and/or New Years Eve cruises, first thing you should know is that, at least major cruise lines, will work very very hard to ensure their December Holidays guests that the Christmas spirit is still very alive and kicking on their ships – fleetwide, and throughout the whole season.
The list of absolutely alluringly popular Xmas-NYE cruise destinations starts always with the sunny Caribbean, Australia, Hawaii. And this is not the best choice only for the “refugees” from the UK’s dreary winter weather. Who could resist the temptation of having an exotic cocktail on a pure magically white (but warm white) – a whole Universe away from the snowy cold cold Xmas at home! Well, only the price will tell you the truth!
Another interesting destination featuring relatively inexpensive Christmas New Year cruise deals is the Mediterranean. There you can enjoy sightseeing guided tours in beautiful (and charmingly big) ports and cities, with fewer tourists compared to the summer time. Med cruise vacations in December offer more ashore time to explore museums and attractions – definitely without the long queues of the summer tourists there.
Christmas market cruises deals are some of the most traded in the Baltic countries, and particularly in Germany. There are numerous combined sea and river cruise deals dedicated to the Europe’s best Christmas Market destinations. And when you think of Christmas Markets, first things coming to mind are shopping traditional (hopefully not China-manufactured) handcrafted gifts and gorging with traditional Xmas treats from all the itinerary’s ports of call.
The Span’s Canaries and the Portugal’s Madeira are also immensely popular island destinations best for cruises on Christmas and New Year. And especially on cruise ships departing from UK ports (like Southampton, Dover or Harwich). The so cheap food and drinks in the Canary Islands, and the stunning fireworks in Funchal are just the tip of the “pleasure iceberg” sinking so many “money ships” there each year.
Why the so not cheap Christmas and New Years Eve cruises as deals are still the best package offers at the end of each year?
- First of all, most people got some money left (of put aside) to be spent at the year’s end – and we’re talking about big spending, like there’s no tomorrow. No better way to crash a huge sum of money than a Christmas cruise! The most not cheap time of the whole year, huge demand, huge crowds of travelers hungry for their crazy-fun end-time, splurging frenzy everywhere! It’s almost like huge splurging (even to be left without money at all) is the best deal there is, like ever!
- Second of all, no snow means the world for so many many thousands of travelers! There’s no better time to enjoy tropical climates than during the cold winter months! Go travel to sunny destination, like the Caribbean (Bahamas from Florida is the cheapest), Mexico (both Western Caribbean and the Mexican Riviera), Hawaii, Southeast Asia and Australia with all the beautiful islands of the South Pacific. Make sandmen instead of snowmen, drink icy cocktails instead of hot punch – well, you got the general idea, right?
- The next one is the ship festivity itself – all cruise ships look totally festive during the December holiday season! The so many Xmas specials make December one of the best months for cruise travel. On Xmas cruises, ships will be surely decorated properly. Think of immpresively amazing decorations, themed parties, special dining menus, many special activities (including on shore excursions), not to forget the themed drinks. Add to this colorful picture thousands of sparkling lights, mini Christmas trees (all plastic, of course) and gingerbread houses in cabins. The “home like” festive decoration on the ship, both in staterooms and public areas, will be a true feast to the eyes, and “The Fun” will be immense! Cruise lines will make you feel like your money is perfectly well spend on fun – you can count on that!
- The ultimate truth about cruises over Christmas and New Year’s Eve is that the biggest ever benefit of booking a December Holiday vacation is the fact that you won’t be cooking, serving and washing dishes – the special Xmas dinner is a bonus deal! Be sure that dinner on board your Holiday vacation ship will be sumptuous, most luxurious, beautifully presented in a most entertaining environment. Plus, you won’t be watching the “usual suspects” – all the TV stars and their so predictable Holiday TV programming after dinner. After your formal Christmas or New Year cruise ship dinner, you’ll be entertained by only first class live productions and fresh looking young people participating in special events organised especially for you.
- Next is the family fun. Holiday cruises as a rule cater to families – all kinds of events and activities will be available on board your boat – suitable for guests of all ages, delivering best fun experiences, all of them hot cool!
- One of the main disadvantages of cruising over Xmas-NYE is the lower/limited availability, followed closely by the higher prices. This is simply the most profitable time for cruise lines and they want to get most of it. Booking early is essential to secure your Holiday fun as itinerary and particular cabin category. Early Fall (October) is a good time to book your Christmas cruise deals – early booking savings, plus this is the time when lines start promoting the holiday discount rates.
- If you like to gamble, try your best luck with the last minute Christmas New Year cruise deals! Not recommended for the faint in heart (overly serious won’t like it either), but these are simply the best prices on Christmas deals – highly discounted rates, limited choice of cabins, very risky, fast and thrilling experiences. And may be it’s not such a bad idea to check with a travel agency for advice on this one. But I totally like “last minute” – if you loose you loose. But if you win – you win double – it’s so good to get a bargain on their expensive time deals! And what the hell – if you loose in the last minute Christmas cruise deals game – there’s still plenty of alcohol to be had ashore!
Very soon on this page you’ll see another link for all big cruise line ships sailing on combined Christmas and New Year cruises in 2013 and 2014. For now we can offer you our review on all the Xmas Cruises. And right after that will be available for comparison our New Years Eve Cruises selection. Our website offers segmented itinerary and prices information by cruise line. Here you can compare destinations/itineraries, departure dates and cruise prices by ship (lines are listed at page right). Even only for the curiosity they provoke, the Holiday cruises for Christmas and New Year are some of the most popular topics regarding December travel deals and specials closely following the shopping frenzy (in general) and all the kids deals. You can share our Christmas and New Year pages via the social buttons all over the place. You guys have the most merry and happy ship cruise over the special end-of-the-year time for fun, always safe sailings and best-deal cruises in all the years to come! Just do your best to be a happy person, enjoy your money and appreciate your life – now it’s a so good time to be alive, isn’t it!