9 Best Cruise Lines for Cruise & Stay Packages - Cruise Critic

Posted: 17 Jan 2020 04:44 PM PST

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What is a Cruise & Stay Package?

Package holidays with flights, transfers, accommodation and meals included have been around for years cruise & stay packages are just a natural progression of this.

It means having a pre- or post-cruise hotel stay included with your cruise and flights. Sometimes the basic hotel bed-and-breakfast offering is topped up with a few free extras such as sightseeing tours.

The number of hotel nights can vary: from just one night before you sail, to make sure flight delays don't make you miss your ship, to several nights in one of the more glamorous port cities so you can really get to know a place.

Sometimes the stay will be in specialist resorts, though, enabling you to explore exceptional countryside or just take it easy at a beautiful beach.

When is the Best Time to Book a Cruise & Stay Package?

You can book directly with some cruise lines, but it's worth asking your travel agent if they can put together a bespoke deal, or take a look at specialist online agents who always have cruise & stay packages on offer.

The best time to book direct with cruise lines can be when they first release their new itineraries, so that could be up to two years before you go. At this early stage, they may include free onboard credit to pay for excursions or bar drinks, Wi-Fi or specialty dining, and the price is likely to be at its cheapest.

It also means you have the best choice of cabins on the ship you want to cruise on to the destinations you really want to see, rather than just picking through what's left nearer the departure date.

Cruise lines tend to increase their prices as the months slip by and try to avoid last-minute discounting. But, canny cruisers may wait to snap up bargains during the wave season, from

January

to , when special offers are available, although you lose the opportunity to choose just about any cabin or cruise you want. Also, it may not be as cheap as when the itinerary was launched.

Buying your next cruise while you're still on a cruise can lead to good discounts, especially if cruise lines offer upgrades and loyalty schemes get you free amenities.

Some cruise lines even join the shopping frenzy of Black Friday, the pre-Thanksgiving Day sale in that is now a feature of British retail life. And, some may have their own sales -- although these are rarely as good value as during the wave season.

Finally, last-minute deals do happen, mostly through online travel agents, so it's worth signing up for their alerts in case you suddenly get the urge to travel.

Royal Caribbean

Independence of the Seas

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

Royal Caribbean has popular packages, including Western Mediterranean, Eastern Caribbean and the United Arab Emirates. You can book on its website or by calling one of its agents with a code that appears when you click to pay on the website.

Seven-night Mediterranean cruises from Barcelona have a three-night half-board stay at PortAventura Hotel Gold River in Salou, which includes unlimited access to the PortAventura theme park.

During the return trip, the ship calls at the Spanish island of Majorca, Marseille in the south of France and Italy's La Spezia and Civitavecchia -- for excursions to Florence or Pisa and Rome -- plus a day in Naples.

Or, if you take a seven-night Eastern Caribbean cruise, you can add on a stay in Orlando, room only, with unlimited access to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Volcano Bay.

After the six-night Holiday Inn stay near Universal, you'll sail from Port Canaveral to Philipsburg in St. Maarten, San Juan in Puerto Rico and spend a day at CocoCay in the Bahamas. Then you'll arrive back in Florida, flying to the UK from Orlando.

Middle East cruises from Dubai have packages that include seven-night sailings around the United Arab Emirates. This is followed by a two-night half-board stay at Atlantis, The Palm, giving you unlimited access to the Aquaventure Waterpark and the Lost Chambers Aquarium.

During the cruise you call at Doha and Bahrain, and then spend the day at the Sir Bani Yas beach resort, followed by a stop in Abu Dhabi, before returning to Dubai for your hotel stay and flight home.

What's included:

In addition to a Royal Caribbean cruise, with some of the best facilities and entertainment at sea, you'll stay at a four- and five-star hotel with return flights and transfers organised for you in one booking.

Anything else?

Royal Caribbean usually throws in free onboard Wi-Fi and curated excursions, tickets to attractions or escorted tours during your hotel stay.

What you need to know:

Royal Caribbean ships are built for fun-loving passengers and the line's adrenalin-charged cruise and stay packages reflect this. The packages are perfect for families, groups of friends and couples who want the opportunity to relax in luxurious surroundings and also enjoy high-energy shore excursions and onboard facilities.

Princess Cruises

Royal Princess (Photo: Princess Cruises)

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

Princess has cruise tour packages in America, Europe, Asia and South America that you can book on its website, and these tend to be from four to eight nights long, depending on the destination.

Its 11-night Europe's Imperial Treasures cruise, for instance, can come with an eight-day tour of continental cities, such as Budapest, Vienna, Prague and Berlin, before leaving Copenhagen for a classic Baltic itinerary. This includes a day in Norway's capital Oslo, two days in St. Petersburg to see Russia's treasures and calls at Warnemunde in Germany, Estonia's fairytale town of Tallinn, beautiful Helsinki in Finland and the Swedish capital Stockholm, where ABBA The Museum is a big hit. There are several other European options, with stays in Italy or Spain, before Mediterranean cruises.

In Asia you can spend five days on land seeing Cambodia's temples in Phnom Penh and the magnificent Angkor Wat complex at Siem Reap. Then a 10-night return trip cruise from Singapore calls at Kuala Lumpur and Penang in Malaysia, Phuket in Thailand and Benoa in Bali, Indonesia.

There are also packages for China, including five days at Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai, before sailing to South Korea, Nagasaki in Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.

Similarly, Highlights of Japan cruises include five days in Kyoto, Tokyo and Yokohama, before heading off to Xiamen in China, Vietnam, Hong Kong and back to Yokohama.

It's possible to take a land tour to see the temples of Machu Picchu in Peru, or Brazil's famous Iguazu Falls, with a South American cruise. This sailing starts from Santiago, Chile, and travels down to the Antarctic Peninsula for scenic cruising and calls at the Falkland Islands, before heading north to Buenos Aires in Argentina.

While in Canada, Maple Explorer cruises can include pre- or post-cruise stays of five days in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. You'll then leave Quebec City to sail down St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic and call on ports including Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia's Sydney and Halifax, and New Brunswick's Saint John in the Bay of Fundy. Finally, you'll be dropped down America's Portland, Boston, Rhode Island and New York. Or, take the reverse route.

You can also get more out of a cruise around Australia or New Zealand with cruise tours that include a six-day visit to Sydney, Cairns and Ayers Rock -- and sometimes Darwin, too -- before or after sailing. Cruises start either in Sydney or Auckland in New Zealand's North Island to ports that might include Australia's island of Tasmania; Dunedin, Akaroa and Picton on New Zealand's South Island and its capital Wellington; and more northerly Tauranga.

Princess also offers an Alaska cruise tour to Denali National Park, traveling by Direct-to-the-Wilderness rail to its Wilderness Lodges near national parks after a seven-day cruise from Vancouver in Canada, or Anchorage, Alaska. The classic itinerary includes calls at Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway, with scenic cruising in Glacier Bay National Park, the largest protected sea and land mass in the world. There's also scenic cruising at College Fjord.

What's included:

Princess's cruise tours include the cruise, hotel accommodation and transfer between the two, and you can either choose to include air fares for an additional fee or arrange your own. There are some complimentary tours during your land stay, depending on how long it is, and hotels include breakfast and sometimes other meals.

What you need to know:

Princess Cruises is a stylish cruise line that steers a course between offering some of the glamour of traditional cruising and keeping things relaxed and more casual on its newer ships. It has Movies Under the Stars and deck parties at night, elaborate musical shows in its theatres plus excellent specialty restaurants. Its superb children's clubs, adult-only spaces and destination-rich itineraries are great for families and couples.

Marella

Marella Explorer (Photo: Marella Cruises)

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

You can extend your holiday by three, four or seven nights at a hotel or apartment before or after your cruise with Marella, which is part of the TUI family. The Mediterranean is one of its strongest programs, and there are cruise-and-stay options in Croatia, Majorca, Italy and Cyprus. You can also stay over in Barbados or Jamaica, or if you want a warmer winter that's closer than the Caribbean, choose from Gran Canaria or Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

Marella's Caribbean cruises are seven-night round trips from either Barbados or Jamaica. The Barbados itineraries go to British Virgin Islands, St. Maarten, Antigua, St. Kitts and St. Vincent, while Jamaican cruises call at Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and the Mexican resort of Costa Maya.

Mediterranean cruises are predominantly round trips from Corfu, Dubrovnik, Majorca and Naples. Corfu cruises call at Turkish and Greek ports, such as Istanbul and Piraeus for Athens, or sticks to the Adriatic with calls in Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and wonderful Venice, in Italy.

In the Canaries, Tenerife round trips include Gran Canaria, La Palma, Madeira, Morocco and Lanzarote, with a similar itinerary for Gran Canaria.

What's included:

Marella's all-inclusive policy means that tips and service charges -- not to mention all food and drink -- are included in the cruise fare. Return flights, plus transfers and an extensive choice of hotel or apartment accommodation, are part of the package, too.

What you need to know:

Marella has cleverly positioned itself as a go-to cruise line for families, thanks to its sunshine destinations and all-inclusive prices, but its adult-only itineraries also make it popular with couples and groups. Find cruise-and-stay holidays on Marella's website, and once you've decided on an itinerary, you can choose a hotel or apartment from Tui Sensatori luxury resorts, Tui Sensimar adults-only accommodation and the less pricy Skytours hotels, which tend to be family-friendly. You can book online, at a Tui holiday store or by calling 0871-230-2800.

Holland America Line

Nieuw Statendam

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

Holland America Line's stand-out cruise-and-stay package is its Alaska Land + Sea journey, which you can book online with HAL itself. Other packages, such as a Mediterranean cruise with luxury rail travel on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express or South American cruises with stays at Iguazu Falls in Brazil or Machu Picchu in Peru, have to be booked with online travel agencies, such as Imagine Cruising or Iglu Cruise.

There's also an Alaska cruise with a Rocky Mountaineer train journey that can be booked through a variety of operators, such as Titan Travel, Cosmos, Canadian Affair and Saga Cruises, among others.

If you don't want a fancy holiday extension, you can add on an EXC City Stay & Overland Package, which includes a pre-cruise hotel night, flights and transfers, after you've booked a cruise. You can only add flights and transfers if booking online, however, so it might be best to use the phone number on its website.

As a pioneer cruise operator in Alaska, HAL is something of an expert in the area, and its nine- to 14-day Denali Land + Sea Journey include a stay at its exclusive McKinley Chalet Resort at the entrance to Denali National Park. It's the only cruise line to offer land stays in the Yukon Territory, with nine- to 18-day Yukon and Denali Land + Sea Journey. This includes a ride in McKinley Explorer glass-domed railcars, panning for gold and a Yukon River cruise, while three-night stays in Denali only include a guided Tundra Wilderness Tour. Typical cruise itineraries leave Vancouver or Anchorage and sail the Inside Passage to Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway and Glacier Bay.

Mediterranean cruises from Venice call at Split in Croatia; Greek islands such as Cephalonia, Crete and Rhodes; Kusadasi in Turkey for excursions to the Greek ruins at Ephesus; Malta, Sicily; and the Italian ports of Naples and Civitavecchia.

South America cruises that can be bought with a hotel stay in Iguazu Falls go to Chile's Puerto Montt, Puerto Chacabuco and the Chilean fjords down to Glacier Alley and Ushuaia in Argentina. The ship cruises past Cape Horn and up to the Falkland Islands, before moving on to Montevideo in Uruguay and disembarking in Buenos Aires. The reverse itinerary is in operation when escorted Machu Picchu tours are on offer.

What's included:

Imagine Cruising's Holland America Line cruises around South America can be bought with a hotel stay in Iguazu Falls, or an escorted tour of Machu Picchu with a hotel stay, pre- and post-cruise hotel stays at the departure and disembarkation ports, plus land tours, flights and transfers. There's a holiday booking phone number on the website.

HAL's Denali Land + Sea Journey include a flight to Fairbanks and transport to Denali for up to three nights at McKinley Chalet Resort, a guided tour and a domed rail car ride back to Anchorage for the flight home.

What you need to know:

Holland America Line's newest ships take 2,650 passengers and offer probably the best live music at sea with authentic blues and soul at B.B. King's Blues Club, quality classical music at Lincoln Center Stage and new rock and roll talent in the Rolling Stone Rock Room. Its older ships are smaller, with just over a thousand to just under 2,000 passengers, and renowned for their tasteful decor. All offer something for families, couples and groups, and there's a good mix of ages among passengers.

P&O Cruises

Azura (Photo: P&O Cruise Line)

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

P&O Cruises no longer offers cruise-and-stay holidays on its website, but there online travel agents who do. Iglu Cruise has several options, including cruises from Dubai in the Middle East and longer cruises from Hong Kong through Southeast Asia and the Emirates to Southampton, San Francisco to Sydney, Brisbane to Japan and Hong Kong, and Southampton to Sydney. Both Iglu Cruise and Imagine Cruising offer a tour of India's Golden Triangle cities followed by a cruise from Dubai to Southampton.

Iglu Cruise's Desert Dunes in Dubai itinerary starts with three nights in Dubai, followed by a cruise to Muscat, Khasab, Abu Dhabi before returning to Dubai. Its cruise from Hong Kong to Southampton starts with three nights in Hong Kong before leaving for Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Sri Lanka, Dubai, Muscat, Malta and Lisbon.

Its San Francisco to Sydney cruise starts with two nights in hotels and finishes with calls at Honolulu in Hawaii, the South Sea islands of Pago Pago and Nuku'alofa, New Zealand's Tauranga, Auckland and Bay of Island, before arriving in Sydney with an overnight onboard, plus hotel stay.

The Brisbane to Hong Kong cruise includes two hotel nights in Brisbane before sailing to Queensland's Airlie Beach, Manila in the Philippines and an overnight each in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The six-night Golden Triangle Tour in India takes in Delhi, Agra for the Taj Mahal and Jaipur for its Amber Fort. A flight to Dubai to sail to Muscat, Aqaba in Jordan for an excursion to Petra, Malta and Cadiz in Spain follows, before arrival in Southampton.

These holidays can be viewed online where there's a telephone number for advice and bookings.

What's included:

All these packages include flights, transfers, hotel stays and cruises with tours for India's Golden Triangle, a koala and river cruise tour on the Brisbane to Hong King trip, and a tour of Sydney Opera House on the San Francisco to Sydney holiday.

What you need to know:

P&O Cruises is a quintessentially British cruise line with mostly British passengers, except for its Australian and New Zealand cruises where the passengers are also predominantly homegrown. Most of these cruise-and-stay packages are with adults-only Arcadia, with family-friendly Oceania offering some of the Dubai cruises.

Seabourn

Seabourn Ovation (Photo: Seabourn Cruises)

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

Seabourn Journeys offer pre- and post-cruise extensions for iconic sites that can't be seen properly in a one-day cruise excursion. Some of these are overnight stays available mid-cruise or multiday excursions during the cruise. All are fully escorted and can be booked by groups of two to 10 cruisers for a personalized adventure.

These include Cape Town & Kruger Park Safari Lodge packages in South Africa; a South Pole Quest in Antarctica; Alaska's Denali Experience; and The Red Centre & Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Seabourn Journeys also feature Asian itineraries, such as India's Golden Triangle and the Taj Mahal; China's Beijing, Xi'an & Hong Kong; Yangon, Bagan's Temple & Inle Lake in Myanmar (Burma); and Cambodia's Phnom Penh & the Temples of Angkor. And, South America's Rio, Iguazu Falls & Buenos Aires and UNESCO Splendors of Peru: Lima, Cuzco & Machu Picchu provide cruisers with a taste of Latin America.

Seabourn Journeys has also added four new European packages, which include a 10-day pre- or post-cruise UNESCO Imperial Heritage of Europe tour for cruises beginning or ending in Copenhagen. On these sailings, cruisers stay in luxury hotels in some of the continent's grandest cities: Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin and Copenhagen.

Cruises from Copenhagen include a seven-day Baltic trip to Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Helsinki and Stockholm. There's also a 14-day Norwegian fjords cruise that sails up to the North Cape, calling at Tromso, Alesund, Loen, Vik, Stavanger and Skagen. And a 14-day Northern Europe cruise highlights Oslo, Amsterdam, Scrabster on Scotland's north coast, Invergordon, Newhaven for Edinburgh, Newcastle and Great Yarmouth.

Five-day pre- and post-cruise UNESCO Treasures of Tuscany packages -- available on cruises beginning or ending in Civitavecchia -- take cruisers to medieval towns and ancient vineyards. Meanwhile, the six-day Venice Simplon-Orient-Express pre-cruise addition -- for cruises beginning in Venice -- is an overnight journey from London to Venice in an elegant Belle Epoque of the Orient-Express carriage, plus hotel stay.

A new six-day Lakeside Gems of the Swiss Alps pre- or post-cruise package is available for cruises beginning or ending in Venice. This includes a modern version of the European Grand Tour, taking cruisers to Alpine lakes and towns.

Departures from Venice include seven-day Adriatic cruises to Vodice in Croatia, Kotor in Montenegro and the Greek islands of Corfu, Cephalonia, Milos before arriving at Athens. There are also longer cruises with more Greek destinations and Turkish ports such as Cesme and Kusadasi.

What's included:

Seabourn Journeys are booked as an add-on to your cruise but include transfers to or from Seabourn ships to hotels, lodges and other destinations. They are fully escorted and some meals are also part of the package.

What you need to know:

Seabourn is an all-inclusive cruise line with five luxury ships. Its newest ships, Seabourn Ovation and Seabourn Encore, take just 600 passengers; Seabourn Quest, Sojourn and Odyssey take around 450 passengers. The line offers gourmet dining with complimentary drinks throughout the ship, and all its staterooms have sea views and most have balconies.

Seabourn is also an official cruise partner of UNESCO World Heritage. They are working together to promote sustainable tourism, which gives you a good idea of the focus of excursions and itineraries.

Celebrity Cruises

Exterior on Celebrity Silhouette

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

From time to time, Celebrity has special offers that it labels as either Cruise & Stay, Cruise & Relax or Cruise & Explore packages. These are bespoke holidays with additional components that are sold "as is" on an occasional basis.

However, anybody who has booked with Celebrity can buy a three-day Celebrity City Tour to add on to the start of a cruise in almost every port the cruise line sails from, although these add-on packages are all provided by independent contractors.

Sydney City Tours start with a transfer from the airport to the hotel. Tours include Sydney Harbour, where you can see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge; a trip to Bondi Beach and shopping at The Rocks. You'll also visit a wildlife park to see kangaroos, koalas and more; stroll through the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney and the Domain; and finish with a three-hour farewell dinner cruise past mansions, beaches and national parks.

You can cruise from Sydney to the South Pacific, calling at Noumea and the Loyalty Islands in New Caledonia, and the islands of Noumea and Vanuatu.

You can also sail from Sydney to New Zealand, stopping at Melbourne before crossing the Tasman Sea for scenic cruises in Milford, Doubtful and Dusky Sounds at the bottom of South Island. Then, you'll travel up to Dunedin, Picton, and North Island's Wellington, Tauranga and Auckland.

Celebrity also does a cruise tour of Alaska. It starts with a pre-cruise tour from Fairbanks, which includes cruising the Chena River for a day and visiting the Museum of the North, before taking the glass-domed Wilderness Express train for a night at Denali Park Village and a Tundra Wilderness Tour the next day. Another night in Denali is followed by a train ride to Talkeetna for hiking and an overnight at Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge before transferring to Anchorage late afternoon the next day. A hotel stay in Anchorage means there's time to visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center before boarding the ship in Seward for a seven-night cruise to Vancouver. This includes scenic cruising past Hubbard Glacier and calls at Juneau, Skagway, Icy Strait Point, Ketchikan and the Inside Passage.

There are also combined Alaska and Canada cruise tours, featuring an Alaska sailing, a stay in Denali and another land tour from Vancouver to Jasper, Lake Louise, Banff and Calgary. The land tour features stays at hotels and lodges, guided tours and transportation, including rail journeys through the Rockies.

Finally, Galapagos Expedition Cruises come with all-inclusive land tours in Ecuador before or after your cruise. Choose from either a seven-night Northern Loop or Southern Loop -- both return trips are from Baltra Island.

What's included:

City Tours are available in several destinations and include three nights in a four-star hotel with breakfasts, a full-day guided City Highlights Tour (with lunch), a half-day guided Evening City Tour (with a farewell dinner) and transfers. City Tours can be arranged through phone after booking your cruise.

Alaska Expedition cruise tours include six days on land with hotel and lodge accommodation, guided tours, rail tickets and transfers. This can be booked online.

Galapagos Expedition land tours are all-inclusive: hotels, tours, meals, gratuities and round trip flight to Quito.

What you need to know:

Celebrity Cruises offers modern luxury aimed at a younger clientele than more traditional cruise lines. It's an aspirational brand, with interiors designed by Kelly Hoppen, Instagram-friendly public spaces, exceptional restaurants and technologically advanced entertainment that was launched with 2019's Celebrity Edge. Older ships are being refitted with Kelly Hoppen staterooms and more to give cruisers the Edge experience, although the cruise line's expedition ships have an ambiance all their own.

Celebrity is also the cruise industry's biggest champion of the LGBTQ community and has LGBTQ cruises that feature same-sex weddings at sea.

Disney Cruise Line

Disney Magic (Photo: Disney Cruise Line)

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

A cruise-and-stay package with Disney Cruise Line is a dream come true for children -- young and old. It combines a cruise to the Bahamas or Caribbean with a stay at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

The seven-day pre-cruise stay gives you unlimited access to all six Disney Parks: Magic Kingdom Park with six enchanted lands; Epcot's 11 diverse cultures; Disney's Hollywood Studios -- bringing Disney stories to life; Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park; Disney's Typhoon Lagoon Water Park; and Disney's Blizzard Beach Water Park. There's also Disney Springs, a mix of boutiques, restaurants, entertainment and nightlife.

Follow this with a three-night cruise to the Bahamas and Caribbean, including a day at Disney's private island, Castaway Cay, for swimming, snorkeling and chilling.

You can book this on Disney Cruise Line's website, but Virgin Holidays Cruises packages the same Disney cruises and resorts together with return flights from the UK.

Several online travel agents also have Orlando accommodation and Disney Cruise Line packages. For instance, Iglu Cruise offers three-night stays in Orlando with five-night cruises from Port Canaveral to Disney's Castaway Cay and the Mexican island resort of Cozumel, with two full sea days to enjoy the ship's shows and entertainment.

Planet Cruise bundles three-night Orlando stays with five-night Disney Cruise Line cruises to Caribbean itineraries: Tortola, St. Thomas and Disney's Castaway Cay, plus a sea day.

What's included:

Disney Cruise Line's packages include a Quick-Service Dining Plan at Walt Disney World, Disney's 7-Day Ultimate Ticket, free Memory Maker, FastPass+ and unlimited access to all six parks. Onboard the cruise ships, specialty dining and entertainment, as well as transfers from your hotel to Port Canaveral, are included.

Virgin Holidays Cruises includes flights, seven nights in Disney's Port Orleans Resort, car hire and a Disney cruise, while Iglu Cruise and Planet Cruise offer return flights and three nights in Orlando International Drive Hotel, plus a Disney cruise.

What you need to know:

Disney Cruise Line has four ships, two that take around 2,500 passengers and two that can take up to 4,000 passengers if there are more than two people in every cabin. The ships provide nonstop Disney fun, with original Disney musicals in the theatre; top-deck water parks; a beauty salon to create little princesses, pirates and knights; exceptional children's clubs; and clever dining options, including sophisticated adult-only areas, bars and restaurants.

Norwegian Cruise Line

Ship Exterior on Pride of America

Popular Cruise & Stay Destinations:

Book a fly-cruise holiday with Norwegian Cruise Line and you'll get a night in a hotel before you embark, but for more elaborate packages, you need to look at online travel agencies.

Iglu Cruise has packages that include two nights in places like New Orleans, Miami Beach, Rome or Barcelona. Meanwhile, Planet Cruise has fly-stay-cruise deals. The latter features a two-night pre-cruise stay at Niagara Falls, an Amtrak rail journey to New York, two nights in Manhattan and a seven-night New England cruise on a classic itinerary with stops at Portland, Bar Harbor, St. John in Canada's Bay of Fundy and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Jetline Cruise also has similar offers. Its Hawaii cruises on NCL's Pride of America starts with three nights in a Waikiki Beach hotel in Honolulu and finishes with a flight to Las Vegas for a three-night stay there before flying home.

What's included:

With an NCL fly-cruise, transfers from the hotel are also included, but if you book early enough, you may also get a Free At Sea upgrade, which includes a premium beverage package, shore excursions credit, specialty dining package or free Wi-Fi.

Online packages also have some of these giveaways, too. Jetline's Hawaii cruise-and-stay package includes a premium all-inclusive drinks bundle and bonus three-night specialty dining onboard. Iglu Cruise sometimes includes an upgrade to Free At Sea, and beverage and dining packages.

What you need to know:

Norwegian Cruise Line ships are floating resorts with some of the best entertainment at sea, featuring theatrical dining experiences and West End shows like "Rock of Ages" and "Priscilla Queen of the Desert." Live music in The Cavern Club and Howl at the Move and Fat Cats Jazz & Blues Club are also available on several ships. NCL was the first cruise line to give passengers the option of free dining – anywhere, anytime -- and there are restaurants for all tastes. The ships are family-friendly but are very much aimed at families with older children, or groups and couples.

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