I haven’t for a cruise but I have for Mexico vacations and they were great.

My son and his family just were at Disneyworld booked thru Coscto and got better prices than they could get anywhere else. Last weekend over the holiday and all was perfect, they report.

My sister and bro in law regularly look for phenomenal deals on cruises. She said they just booked a cruise with Costco and it really was a better price than their usual amazing deals.

We have rented cars through Costco Travel with no problems at all. In fact, when renting a car through Costco, one’s spouse is automatically included as a driver for no extra charge.

Two weeks ago, I booked a cruise through Costco for mid-May. I’ve only been on 4 or 5 cruises. The first was booked through an acquaintance who was a cruise-travel agent who has since retired. The second was booked through a conventional travel agent, the next through VacationsToGo.com, one through American Airlines Cruises (for the points!), and this one through Costco.

With the Costco cruise, I get 2% back because we have an executive membership, and another 3% back because I used my Costco Visa card. On top of that, I get a $400-$500 Costco gift card. And I also got the sale package that the cruise line was offering (free WiFi, free drinks package, and pre-paid gratuities). I thought it was a pretty good deal.

I’ve only rented cars but no problem with that. I should check Costco more often for travel arrangements.

At least a couple of cruises. All went well.

Bbtx - that is just what my sister explained. For comparison they do usually use the vacationstogo but with the super discounts and they often get additional perks because they cruise so much. They booked an early May cruise with Costco and have the Costco Visa and all that.

(Funny that we have never been on a cruise. It's DH who is the hesitant one. He really does not do well in constant people contact and small quarters......and I am hesitant to be with him in those circumstances lol.....Some of these deals though, make it so enticing. I think for our first cruise though, a 10 day one is too much for starters!). .

I've rented cars without problem...did hear from someone somewhere that the costco booked cruise went well.

Also, we bought our new car via costco...went to the dealer got their price then said, we're costco customers, and they came back $1,800 lower. We were happy.

Good points- yes we have done all inclusives and love them. The difference though is it seems you really can always have space and privacy. I think if we do a cruise it will surely be a shorter one. The ones my sister takes (and the ones we hear about ) are usually Caribbean and on super massive boats. I think I could enjoy it but trust me when I say I am not sure I could enjoy being with DH if he was not enjoying it.:)

@salonva, take a look at this 5 day cruise on Celebrity. We were on a Celebrity Pacific Coast cruise last year on a slightly larger ship. It did not feel crowded to me. For comparison, the largest cruise ship is Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas. It carries almost 6700 passengers. The Celebrity cruise linked above is on a ship carrying about 2200 passengers.

We have friends who sail Celebrity a lot. They always book Aqua class. It has some private areas that are only available to guests in that class. I don’t get seasick but to avoid it, I always want a stateroom that is in the middle top to bottom and the middle bow to stern. That pretty much precludes Aqua class and suites.

I hear ya about being somewhere that your spouse is not enjoying!

Yes, Holland America cruise to Alaska. It's the same cabin as booked via a different seller.

Looked into using Costco for our Alaskan cruise this summer, but we ended up going directly with Princess as Costco did not have balcony availability for the cruise we wanted. Used Costco for a Dominican Republic trip, before all the problems, and it was a great, excellent price and it included Business Class airfare from LA at an economy price. Would not hesitate to use them again.

Might as well comment when appropriate-

No, we still have not gone on a cruise. We did however, book an all inclusive through Costco and went last month. It was wonderful. I do believe the price was very good, and it included private transfers from and to airrport/resort. I'd do it again.

@salonva - I do not enjoy being around a lot of people, especially strangers. I LOVE cruising. You do not have to interact with anyone if you don't want to. A quick amusing story to highlight my point -- on a recent cruise, we made the silly mistake of trying to get our sail away drink at the pool bar. Note, we were taking them back to our cabin to watch sail away from our verandah (not around people!). The bar was very crowded and the waiter that took our order kept walking by and saying, yes yes it's coming. Eventually, I went up to the bar and happened to be next to a woman who was clearly having the same issue. My DH came over and said to me - is everything OK. Yes, why? You're talking to someone! Ha! So you get the idea. I am completely anti-social on a cruise ship. I'm not there to meet people or make friends. We always dine at a table for two.

We also do not do the mega ships with a gazillion people. We prefer Holland America. A very not party atmosphere.

So as others suggested, a short cruise might get him hooked. Now if only I could convince my son-in-law to do the same thing. He gets sea sick (on a small boat at the jersey shore!) and is convinced he'll be sick the whole time. My daughter and I cannot convince him a cruise ship is totally different.

@Jsk look my @ is working!

That was a cute story!

You can tell you Son in law that my sister ( the one who cruises numerous times a year) always got seasick on small boats. Even on the Staten Island Ferry, when she was a teacher and took her class, she said she didn't know how she survived the little trip. However, she said on the big cruise ships she doesn't feel a thing.

Quite a walk down Memory Lane. The cruise booked through Costco that I referenced above 4 years ago never happened. C0V1D shut everything down and the cruise didn’t happen. Costco refunded everything but the $200 non-refundable deposit. I was quite surprised and disappointed in Costco under the circumstances. However, Princess gave everyone a very generous ”future cruise credit,” so I felt more than adequately compensated

Since then I’ve taken an NCL cruise, an HAL cruise, a Regent cruise, and a Disney cruise with the grands. (WoW! I had no idea I had taken that many cruises in the last 2.5 years!)

In the coming year, I’m scheduled to take a 4- night Royal Caribbean cruise with a friend who is unsure of whether or not she will like cruising. And I’m also scheduled for a Celebrity cruise circumnavigating Iceland with the grands.

@Jsk (my @ isn’t working!) maybe your SIL’s doc could give him an anti-anxiety med. How does he do flying? Riding in a car? DGS gets car sick but not seasick or air sick. We were very concerned about his being on a ship. We went equipped with the accupressure wrist bands and with kiddie Bonine and never used any of it. Even though we hit a patch of roughness, he sailed through it like a champ (pun intended).

@salonva @bbstx (my @s are working for the moment)

We have tried to explain that a cruise ship is like a city. You hardly feel any movement at all. He's just not buying it.

He does fine flying and in a car. My daughter's dad has a sail boat at the Jersey shore and he can't go on that in the ocean. Only in the bay. We try to explain to him that these boats are like the small boat in the bay. He's not buying it!

I so want to take them on a cruise, but we just can't convince him.

I didn't know so many here love to cruise. We find that's it's such a good deal. We also go to an all inclusive in Mexico once a year which we love but it is more expensive than a cruise.

We are booked on a 17 day San Diego to Hawaii in Jan 2025. I've never been away from home that long. My sweet spot is 10 days. 7 days is too short, but after 10 days I'm ready to come home (I'm a total homebody). We'll also spend a few days in/around San Diego so we'll be gone for 3 weeks. It's going to be a test for me to see if I can do the cruise I really want to do when I retire -- 35 days San Diego to Tahiti.

Gee, your SIL’s aversion to cruising is unfortunate. But you couldn’t talk me into getting on a roller coaster, so I suppose we all have our limits. I’ve seen some ”getting to know cruising” overnight cruises, but they are generally out of Australia. I can’t find any out of the US.

Oh, I just realized why they probably can’t be found in the US. PVSA, the Passenger Vessel Services Act, does not allow a cruise ship to sail from one US port to another (or back to the same one) without stopping at an intervening foreign port. The one exception that I am aware of is if the ship were built in the US…and AFAIK there is only one ship which meets this requirement. I don’t recall the name, but I think it is an NCL ship that does intra-island sailings in Hawaii.

I think it's where the ship is registered that matters. If registered in the US, they don't have to go to a foreign port. There's one cruise line that sails around the Hawaii islands (doesn't start on the main land like the one we're doing). Can't remember the line. They're registered in the US. Of course it's more expensive to register here so all the major lines don't do it.

Our cruise makes a stop in Mexico on the way back to San Diego to satisfy that law.

I can understand his hesitation because being sea sick is awful. And when he gets sea sick it takes him a day to recover once on land. We also once sailed back from Bermuda through a hurricane. That was not fun and there were many sea sick including 1/2 the crew. He always reminds us of that story when we discuss. Should never have told him that story!

I sympathize with anyone who gets seasick. I thought I would be OK on a boat since I spent many hours as a teen on the water. My parents had a summer place on a huge lake and we would water ski or go out on Dad's pontoon. But I learned my lesson when DH took me fishing in the Bahamas. They had to return to shore to drop me off after I became ill. When it happend on another trip I realized that I can't handle the rocking motion. When it happened on the ferry from Bar Harbor to Novia Scotia DH gave me Dramamine and I spent a good part of the trip sleeping in the movie theater.

But a few years ago a friend wanted me to take a Viking Cruise with her. This time I had both Bonine and the wrist band others recommended but never used them. The only incident was the one time we were having lunch in the dining room while the ship was moving and I was facing the window. As soon as I began to feel nauseous I switched seats to face inward and that helped.