When you get to a certain age — and sometimes even before then — one of the things that becomes important is getting a deal. A bargain. A discount cruise.
In fairness, this fact of life often is precipitated by having a fixed income with no realistic hope that it'll ever go up.
Now, AARP and NCL have put their acronyms together for OAPs.
Cruisers who are members of the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons can get a 10% discount and free upgrades on select Norwegian Cruise Line ships to ease the hit on their Old Age Pensioners.
Does anybody but us find this is a little ironic…the self-professed "youngest cruise fleet" attracting the self-admitted "oldest cruisers?"
The NCL ships are the magnificent Epic, Gem, Spirit, Sun, Star, Jade, Jewel, Pearl and even the Pride of America, the oft sold-out ship that sails only in the Hawaiian Islands. In other words, every NCL ship except the Sky and the Dawn are involved in this AARP promotion.
The length and the destinations of the cruises range from a lot of weeklies to the 24-day Transatlantic return of the Sun, from Copenhagen to Miami in the fall. The Sun is being replaced in Europe, the current cruising hot spot, by the Star next year and will join the Jade as NCL's two-ship European base. This is the first year Norwegian will have four of its 11 ships in Europe.
Independent of its AARP promotion, which ends May 14, NCL is also offering to subsidize select flights.
OAPs like that, too.
Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas
7 nights
May 13, 2012
Rome (return): Messina, Ephesus, Athens, Crete
Inside: $599
Cost per day: $85
www.rccl.com