As a follow-up to our piece about cheap Mediterranean cruises – or “cheap Med cruises,” for those who can’t be bothered to utter a few more syllables – we decided to delve into one specific component of these coveted vacations. (Who doesn’t want to take a cruise to the Mediterranean for cheap?) In particular, we are looking at the cruise lines that offer cheap Mediterranean cruises, informing you if your favorite cruise line (or at least a cruise line you want to travel with) offers these discounted voyages.
Mediterranean cruises, being a very popular vacation that many regard as ideal for cultural and recreational reasons, are widely available, particularly during the summer, the main season of travel on the Mediterranean Sea. However, plenty of people go in the spring, fall, and even winter (it’s a good place to go if you’re in, say, the cold north of Europe), so at any given point in the year you’ll fine plenty of cruises to the Mediterranean. And since there are a large number of options, there is a correspondingly large number of possible deals. As not-fully-booked ships approach the date of departure, you can find last-minute cruise deals, and any given cruise line might be offering discounted vacations for whatever reason (like a promotion). With this many options, it stands to reason that lots of different cruise lines are offering deals. And indeed they are.
The cruise lines that offer trips to the Mediterranean are largely the familiar industry players. Carnival, the world’s largest cruise company, of course offers Mediterranean cruises, as does the second largest cruise company in the world, Royal Caribbean. Each company has cruises that operate under their namesake cruise line, but a few of the cruise lines they own also offer trips to the Mediterranean. So, in the case of Carnival, Holland America and Seabourn sail ships in this part of the world, and the Royal Caribbean’s Celebrity and Azamara do the same. Several other cruise lines owned by neither conglomerate also offer Mediterranean cruises, including Norwegian, Costa, Disney, Princess, Regent Seven Seas, Oceania, MSC, and Cunard.
Not surprisingly, the easiest way to check which cruise lines are offering discounted trips to the Mediterranean is to review the major deal sites. However, even a review of a few of these sites doesn’t always show the full range of options. For instance, Thomson offers Mediterranean cruises – lots of them, in fact – and we haven’t seen any of their cruises listed on deal sites. The same is true of smaller cruise ship operators, like Tauck. Obviously, it is far from guaranteed that any given company you search for is offering a deal to the Mediterranean, though. The bottom line is that if you have a particular cruise line that you want to take a Mediterranean cruise with, look into it just in case they’re offering something cheap, but otherwise the above list essentially covers the available options.
Clearly, then, there are lots of cruise lines that offer Mediterranean cruises, and this is the case even if you limit yourself to those advertising promotions on the cruise-deal sites. A lack of cruise lines should not limit you from finding a good price to the Mediterranean, in short.
If you want to move forward on booking something, here are some of the places you can visit on a cheap Mediterranean cruise.
