The offer seemed too good to be true: a three-day cruise to the Bahamas for $129. At a minimum, that's room, meals and transit abroad for about the price of an average hotel room.
Budget cruises abound in the ever-growing industry, where 18 new ships are expected to launch this year, according to the Cruise Lines International Association. Based at the Port of Palm Beach, Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line operates a pair of ships that go back and forth to Freeport on Grand Bahama Island, about 90 miles away, year round.
I booked a $129 sailing on the 1,680-guest Grand Classica, launched by the Italian line Costa Cruises in 1991, repurposed in 2018 (double-occupancy rates currently run from $99 a person for an interior cabin to $459 a person for a suite). With tax and fees, the bill was about $210, still a good value provided the ship was clean, the food edible, the resort amenities diverting. I embarked in May to find out.
Embarkation gantlet
Most cruises from Florida depart from Miami, Fort Lauderdale or Port Canaveral, each accessible from a major airport. Palm Beach offers fewer flights, but the cruise line's website suggested getting tickets aboard the new Brightline train from $10 for the 43-minute trip between Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
The sleek, snub-nosed trains operate from modern downtown stations that allowed me to conduct my own pre- and post-cruise shore excursions on foot. From the West Palm station, it was a 10-minute Uber ride to the ship.
After a quick check-in, boarding the ship required running a gantlet of people with something to sell: the photographer, shore excursion staff, restaurant and alcohol reps. I'd prebooked an excursion, passed on the $33 upgrade to dine in the steakhouse and received a 6 p.m. seating assignment in the Yellow Elder dining room by a weary reservationist.
"You will get a table at the window and avoid the drunkards and loud teenagers," he said, explaining that the drinking age changes to 18 in international waters.
The resort at sea
I was prepared for a tiny, interior, windowless room. Instead, exterior cabin 6126 had a large porthole window next to a small table and two chairs, a queen bed, mini refrigerator and relatively spacious bathroom with a curtained shower. Internet access cost $15 for 24 hours.
Up four floors, past the Tuscan landscape art, there's a fully equipped gym that in two days of use I shared only once, with a staff dancer. It is part of the spa, offering a range of treatments from $20 brow shaping to 75-minute Balinese massages for $180.
At the 5 p.m. sail-away party by the aptly named Plunge Pool (there's also a small adults-only pool), entertainers led passengers in a conga line and the Macarena. Ship comedian Vince Taylor reminded us, "Remember, what happens on the cruise stays on Facebook!"
At the bar, I ordered a Bahamian Sands beer ($6.50) and met a multigenerational family from Georgia celebrating a daughter's graduation from medical school; a Colombian mother and daughter who praised the trip as "más económico" compared with alternatives; and young couples cruising for the first time. My fellow passengers were also far younger than the 50-plus set that tend to dominate longer cruises. The company says its core demographic is 25 to 45.
Some took the cruise to gamble in the ship's casino. Others combined it with an island resort stay. At dinner — a light "Floribbean" meal of shrimp cocktail and seared tuna niçoise salad — I met Kathleen Young from Central Florida, who uses the ship monthly to avoid flying on a small plane to the island, where she was receiving treatment for cancer.
"They practically pay me to cruise," she said, enumerating her $129 booking, including 10 free drink tickets and a $50 shipboard credit, perks that are often included in sales.
Kathleen introduced me to many secrets of the cruise, including the seated breakfast in the dining room unknown to buffetgoers, using drink coupons to buy 1.5-liter bottles of water and hitting the lounge to catch Sax and Songs, made up of a saxophone player and an R&B singer. She insisted on sitting in the front row for the nightly Las Vegas-style musical revue performed by a cast of 10 talented singers, dancers and aerialists and carried on at the late-night Latin dance party when I called it a day. Most of the entertainment was free, except Taylor's hilarious, R-rated stand-up show, which cost $9 for two tickets during a two-for-one sale.
Going ashore
"Who wants to go to the No. 1 party beach on the island?" bellowed our bus driver on a Best of Grand Bahama shore excursion.
Not me, but it was too late. I'd already signed up for the trip with Bahamas Adventures ($52). My intended excursion, to bike around the island ($89), was canceled for low enrollment. Unfortunately, the "best" island itinerary, involving two shopping stops and a nature center followed by an overcrowded beach club blaring Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA," wasn't close. When the early 1:45 p.m. shuttle back to the ship didn't appear, a band of five of us pressed the staff, who put us on another bus.
The happiest passengers had taken one of the beach excursions ($39 to $89) for a long day of uncomplicated sunning and swimming.
On the bus ride back to the ship, a Carnival Freedom guest asked me if Bahamas Paradise was like Carnival. "Not exactly," I said, and when our ship pulled out that evening, I could see how right I was: The Freedom had a ship-top basketball court, waterslides and a giant screen beside the pool.
For $129, you give up such ship amenities. But I also gave up FOMO, the fear of missing out that strikes me on ships with daily schedules of spinning, salsa dancing and cooking classes. For the most part, the ship frees you to sunbathe, read and, of course, party. It's a good value, and value was the talk of the ship, onboard and off.
