How to AVOID paying a solo supplement on your next cruise!
Did you know - when you cruise solo, you often pay more for your cabin than your average neighbour who is sharing with someone? Well, if you’re reading this, there’s a chance that you’re considering either taking your first ever solo cruise, or maybe you’ve been cruising for quite some time but you’re fed up of paying extra for the privilege(!) of travelling solo…
Whichever camp you find yourself in, today we’re exploring the world of solo supplements in the cruise industry - what are these, how high can they be, and what are some of my tips to help you avoid paying them in the future? It’s no secret that I absolutely hate these solo supplements, and I also hate some of the issues with solo pricing in the industry, but more on this later in this post.
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Let’s start with the question of ‘what is a solo supplement?’. Well, the easy answer is that a solo supplement is the extra you pay to travel as a solo passenger on a cruise ship. You should expect to pay this additional fee if you book a cruise ship cabin that could have been sold to a party of two. For example, if you book a standard balcony cabin on a cruise ship, then it’s common practice for you to pay the standard ‘per person’ rate for person one (in other words, you), plus a fraction of the second passenger, as the cruise line could consider selling to you as a potential ‘loss of revenue’, due to the fact that they could have sold the cabin to another person paying a full second passenger fare.
So we’ve covered what a solo supplement is, but let’s now talk about how much this solo supplement can be. In some cases, you should expect to pay around 20% more than the ‘per person’ cruise fare, but this figure can be MUCH higher. To confirm, what I mean by the ‘per person cruise fare’ is the price that a person in a double-occupancy cabin would be paying to share that room. For example, they may be paying $999 per person for their balcony cabin for 2 people, but taking that room solo could mean that, with a 20% solo supplement, you’d expect to pay $1,200 for the room. While this sounds tough for a solo traveller, the news is about to get MUCH worse…
The above example of 20% solo supplement is unfortunately, in my experience, a very conservative estimate. On most of my cruises, I’d expect the supplement to sit somewhere around 40%, but there are some cruise lines who charge a supplement of 100% for the luxury of travelling as a solo passenger (yes, that’s right - some cruise lines will expect you to pay for the full second passenger!). I found this to be a real issue with my American cruises last year - so many lines had very high solo supplements, and it was really difficult to avoid these. One of the biggest offenders in this area is, in my experience, Royal Caribbean. This cruise line does offer solo cabins (more on these later, but they’re rooms designed for one traveller) but, should you wish to book a cabin designed for two people, you’ll be expected to pay the full double rate.
It just takes a quick search to find some examples of this - it’s one of the reasons that I’ve never managed to cruise on a Royal Caribbean ship out of the UK - they’re often just far too expensive for solo travellers! It’s worth answering now - why wouldn’t I just book a solo cabin to save some money, and instead opt for a cabin designed for two? Well, cruise ships don’t have a huge number of solo cabins. Some of the huge megaships will have only 10 or 20 solo cabins, and so it’s really difficult to book one of these - as you can imagine, they’re in VERY high demand!
Over the last few years, I’ve found some ways to dodge paying a high solo supplement. It’s worth noting that, although the below advice should help you to bring your solo supplement down, you’ll most of the time still find yourself paying a little more than your counterparts who have chosen to share their cabin. However, these tips should help you to bring your fare down, so let’s get started!
1. Be FLEXIBLE, with your cruise line, your location and also your cruise line!
This is one of the biggest tips that I can offer you - flexibility is key if you’re going to stand a good chance of reducing your solo supplement. Often, people think you just need to look at a range of dates, and choose the cheapest option, but there’s more to it than this! Yes, being flexible with dates will allow you to slide your vacation to head off when the prices are at their lowest, but have you thought about WHERE you’re opting to cruise, and the impact this could be having on your fare price?
Some new cruisers don’t necessarily think about this, but it’s important to remember that different parts of the world will experience their ‘peak cruise window’ at different points during the year. For example, if you’re looking to cruise in Europe, you can expect to see ships operating at their highest fill levels (and therefore often with their highest supplements) throughout the European Summer season (which generally runs from around May to September). During these months, you could have a good chance of minimising your solo fee if you choose to cruise in the Caribbean - yes, it’s hurricane season over there over the Summer months, but it’s a good way to get on ships with a lower occupancy level, and therefore often lower supplements!
Dates and location aside, it’s also important to be flexible with your choice of cruise line. I’ve always been of the viewpoint that no cruise line out there offers me good enough benefits/perks in exchange for my loyalty for me to cruise exclusively with them. For that reason, when I’m ‘cruise shopping’, I’m going to generally stick with those that aren’t charging me really high solo rates! A good example of this is why I’ve been really loyal to MSC on my UK-departing cruises - I’ve found some of their solo fares to be among the best in the industry, so I’ve sailed on their same ship (MSC Virtuosa) several times out of Southampton (my home port). That said, this isn’t a glowing recommendation to stick with MSC, as I’m seeing ridiculous solo supplements on many of their US departures. However, if you’re new to this and trying to find a decent deal, they’d probably be a good place to start searching for a good deal!
2. Be open to trying SOLO cabins!
Yes, that photograph you’ve seen in the brochure of someone relaxing on their own private balcony overlooking the ocean looks great, but trust me - you’re going to be paying for that luxury as you’ll usually need to book a cabin for 2 passengers. Whilst this isn’t always the case, the majority of solo cabins I’ve seen tend to be on the inside of the ship. You will be able to find solo ‘sea view’ and also balcony cabins out there, but they’re not as easy to source as their inside relatives.
My point here is that it’s key that you’re open to cruising in different cabin grades if you’re keen to minimise your ‘base fare’ spend on a cruise. Generally speaking, I’m happy with much smaller cabins designed for 1 on the inside of the ship, providing it means that I’ll save a bunch on my cruise fare. Take Norwegian Cruise Line as an example - most of their solo (or Studio, as they call them) cabins are on the inside of the ship, but they come with some VERY attractive benefits, making them appeal to many solo’s (more on this in the below YouTube video). Some people would instantly switch off when they think about booking a cruise ship cabin with no window, but this can often save you HUNDREDS on your fare, if not more! There are 2 videos below - first, check out an inside solo cabin that I LOVED onboard Norwegian Escape, and then check out a cabin that I really didn’t love: a solo/single cabin onboard MSC Meraviglia. I cruised on these ships immediately after each other, so it was great to see how each cruise line differed…!
3. Consider ‘automatically assigned’ cabins
Ok, if you’ve never cruised before, this one might be a bit of a strange one for you. Before taking my first cruise, I’d only ever really travelled and stayed in hotels. I’d have found it really weird if, when booking, I chose the specific room to stay in at the hotel. However, this is exactly what you can do when you book a cruise - you can choose exactly which room you’d like to book when you make your booking!
This is a really advantageous move to make if you’re a light sleeper - you might not want to be above a theatre, near a dining room, or underneath a swimming pool. In this example, it’s worth paying the extra to choose where your cabin will be. However, if you’re anything like me (and can sleep like a log almost anywhere…), then you won’t need to pay this price. While this recommendation isn’t necessarily helping you to pay a lower solo supplement, it might surprise you just how much money you could save on your overall cruise fare by choosing not to pick your specific cabin, and instead opting for the cheaper rate where they’ll automatically assign your cabin to you.
4. Get ready to search, search and search some more. Also, get yourself well acquainted with a good Travel Agent!
If you’re reading this post, you probably know as well as I do - decent solo deals rarely present themselves to you on a plate - you’re going to have to do some searching to find one that you’re happy with. I’d always recommend finding a decent cruise search engine site to get started (I use Viva Voyage for my initial research). This will allow you to search through lots of cruises at the same time, therefore saving you time from looking on every cruise lines’ website individually. One point to note - it’s usually not possible to search for just 1 passenger using these sites, and so the prices will go up when you click through and confirm that you’re a solo traveller - these sites do help you plan dates, routes, and see where offers are for double occupancy - this will mean your base fare will also be lower!
In addition to searching yourself, it’s really important that you get to know a good Travel Agent. It’s in a TA’s best interests to notify you of good deals to encourage you to book - they’re on commissions, of course! Booking through a good agent will often score you additional perks onboard (onboard spend, a meal in a restaurant, or something else) and they’ll get their commissions, so it’s beneficial for all involved! My travel agent is brilliant at signposting when she spots deals with low solo supplements (or good rates generally) becoming available, and she’s comfortable with my normal budgets etc, so we work really well together. Whenever we realise that we’re in the same part of the world at the same time, we try to meet up and say ‘hello’ - here we are in Miami, when I disembarked my Carnival Horizon cruise and she was preparing to board her Virgin Voyages cruise!
If you’re not sure, TA’s are everywhere! I found mine on Instagram one day - they also advertise on Facebook, Youtube etc, or you’ll even find them via wider travel agency websites. Long story short, happy searching!
5. When choosing your cabin, check ALL room types - don’t automatically jump to the solo options - they’re not always the cheapest!
In this post, I’ve told you about both solo cabins, and the cabins designed for two passengers that you can opt to book for your solo cruise. A term that it’s really important for you to get familiar with in your cruise searching is ‘supply and demand’ - this is the model the the majority of the industry adjusts their pricing as a result of.
With each individual room type onboard, the price will generally increase as more and more rooms begin to sell out. This means that, once the ‘solo cabins’ are 70% sold out, the prices will generally be pretty high. However, the sell-through level of a standard cabin (designed for 2) could be much lower (as there’s often hundreds of these rooms, rather than just a few), meaning that their price can be much lower. This means that it can actually be cheaper to pay for a standard cabin and pay the solo supplement, than it would be to book the solo cabin for one passenger! It’s in these examples that you hear of people getting some crazy deals that just don’t make sense. A few years ago, I cruised on P&O Britannia, one of the ships primarily serving the British cruise market. I was staying in a solo balcony cabin, but I met SO MANY people on there who were staying in standard balcony cabins, designed for 2 passengers. When we compared how much we had paid for the cruise (I know - the cardinal sin), I was amazed to learn that so many people had got a much bigger, and considered ‘better’ cabin for a lower price!
Hopefully I’ve been able to impart at least some of my knowledge on solo supplements to you during this post, and I really hope you’ve enjoyed reading. If you’d like to learn more, then check out my other posts here on the site (just head to the banner at the top to scroll through the various pages), SIGN UP to receive my updates and newsletters, and come and subscribe over on my YouTube channel - I’ve got SO MUCH MORE to show you!