How to keep costs down if you’re a solo cruiser. Photo / Getty Images
As solo cruising becomes more popular, pricing and cabin types are changing. Deals can be found, especially with advance planning but it takes a little know-how, writes Elaine Glusac
When cruising resumed after Covid-era travel restrictions were lifted, cruise lines wanted to fill ships fast. Some, like Windstar Cruises, which operates small ships carrying 148 to 342 passengers, pursued solo travellers with discounts on the penalties singles usually pay to occupy a cabin alone.
“To fill a lot of capacity in a short time, who do you go after? Those who don’t have to ask permission or arrange schedules for two,” said Janet Bava, the chief commercial officer for Windstar, which reduced its single occupancy fares to 120% of the standard fare a person sharing a double cabin would pay. Previously those solo cruisers were paying up to double the fare to have a cabin to themselves.
READ MORE: 10 of the best cruises for solo travellers
But the cruise industry has since recovered - Carnival Corp. recently announced 2025 bookings are pacing higher than 2024 in both price and occupancy - and many solo deals are disappearing. Windstar, for one, is snapping back to 2019 pre-pandemic pricing models.
“Now there’s less space,” said Bava, noting that the goal of every cruise line is “to maximise revenue at double occupancy at 100%.”
Still, even with increasing prices, travel advisers at the Virtuoso network say solo cruising is one of the top cruise trends for 2025. Solo travel in general has been on the upswing in the past few years. In a survey on 2024 travel intentions, Booking.com found that 59% of respondents planned to travel alone.
Savvy cruisers know that deals always exist in the dynamic world of cruise pricing for those who book early and otherwise game its unique economics. Here’s what you need to know about going solo affordably.
Unlike hotels, where the price of a room is generally the same whether there is one person or two people staying, cruise lines advertise their lowest rates as per person prices in cabins built for two, which can be misleading to first-time cruisers.
Cruise lines don’t want to sell cabins at half price or miss out on the extra shipboard charges for things like drinks and excursions that a companion might buy, so they try to recover that income by charging a single supplement, which can run 25% to 100% above the per-person double occupancy rate. That means, for example, a cruise that costs US$1000 ($1611) a person in a double cabin could cost a single passenger US$1250 to $2000 to have the cabin to themselves.
“We saw a change after the pandemic,” said Shelby Frenette, who runs the agency TravelFun.Biz, based in Boca Raton, Florida, which specialises in group solo travel. To get travellers back on ships, she said, “Cruise lines were waiving the single supplements in a big way.”
Now, she said, prices are again rising as interest in cruising grows. Passenger volume in 2023 was 31.7 million, according to the Cruise Lines International Association, exceeding 2019 levels by 7%.
“It’s so busy, we are back to pre-Covid times when there’s a lot less opportunity for singles to save money,” Frenette said.
In managing occupancy, cruise lines use single supplements like “a lever that can be pulled depending on their needs,” said Theresa Scalzitti, chief operations officer of CruisePlanners, a travel agency based in Coral Springs, Florida.
That’s why travellers might see more sales on shoulder - or off-season sailings across the cruise spectrum. But, Scalzitti added, “Business has been so good I don’t think a lot have had to use this.”
One solution to the solo supplement rub is to offer staterooms designed for one passenger. Norwegian Cruise Line became the first major cruise company to adopt solo cabins with the debut of the Norwegian Epic in 2010.
It now has nearly 1000 solo staterooms - ranging from inside cabins to those with balconies - across its 19 ships, most of which include access to private lounges for passengers in solo cabins. A solo cabin on a weeklong sailing in Alaska in October aboard the Norwegian Encore was recently priced at US$1200, compared with US$1,749 a person in a double occupancy room.
Other companies followed its lead. Holland America Line added solo cabins on its Pinnacle-class ships that debuted in 2016. Demand for single accommodations on the three ships - the Rotterdam, Koningsdam and Nieuw Statendam - is high, according to the company. A seven-day sailing in November between San Diego and Mexico’s Baja Peninsula was recently priced at US$1948 in a single cabin compared with US$2268 a person in a double.
But solo cabins can be elusive - according to Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic, they are often the first to sell out - and they aren’t necessarily cheap.
“A lot of solo cabins are on newer or larger ships, which tend to have higher pricing,” said Cheryl Cooper, who is based near Atlanta and vlogs as SIG Cruiser about solo cruising, among other topics.
On some ships, they are a premium offering. American Cruise Lines, which operates on waterways in the United States, offers single staterooms on each of its ships, many at 250 square feet (23 sq m) with private balconies. A nine-day trip next May on the Columbia and Snake rivers was recently priced at US$7620 for a private balcony solo stateroom; doubles started at US$5715 a person.
“When people see ‘no single supplement,’ they automatically think 75% to 50% off and that’s not the case,” Cooper said.
Seeking singles on river and expedition cruises
Besides Windstar, other small-ship lines, including those in river and expedition cruising - which tend to be more expensive than trips on large ships - have seen a jump in solo travellers and are pursuing them with incentives.
HX, formerly known as Hurtigruten Expeditions, says one in four bookings among American passengers are solo travellers, and the line experienced more than 50% growth in single sailors between 2022 and 2023.
In 2024, about half of its single passengers travelled without paying a supplement while the other half received discounts of varying levels (HX is currently selling supplement-free cabins to solo travellers on 10-day sailings in the Galapagos Islands, from US$8634 through March 2026).
Aqua Expeditions, which operates small ships on the Amazon and Mekong rivers, and in the Galapagos and Indonesia, saw its solo business grow 50% between 2019 and 2023. It waives the single supplement on select sailings. Three-night itineraries on the Amazon start around US$3450 a person.
Among river cruise operators, Tauck waives the single supplement on its European sailings in Category 1 cabins, which are 14 sq m and on a lower level with a pair of small windows, compared with the French balconies with floor-to-ceiling windows in other categories. (An eight-day cruise on the Danube River next summer starts at US$4990 in a single, the same price as a person sharing a double room).
Most cruise experts suggest making reservations early for the best price and cabin availability on ships. Avalon Waterways waives single supplements on a few cabins on most European sailings; booking early gives you the best chance of getting one.
If you book and a fare later drops, many lines will honour that lower rate.
Companies that specialise in solo travel may offer roommate matching, allowing a pair of strangers to split the cost of a double cabin. Aurora Expeditions, which operates a pair of 130-passenger ships in places like the Arctic and Antarctica, will assign solo travellers with another single of the same gender in a shared cabin if available. Frenette of TravelFun.Biz said about 80% of travellers with her groups take advantage of doubling up when it’s offered.
“There have been very, very few major problems,” she said. “The biggest is snoring.”
Prices quoted are in US dollars.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Elaine Glusac
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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