Overall Costs for January MSC Mediterranean Cruise

People are always asking me "how do you travel so often?" and "isn't it expensive, though?". Well, I'm here to say that it doesn't have to be expensive. You can travel real well without spending a lot of money.
It's been a while since my last blog post and one of my goals is to write more, and I thought sharing the cost breakdown of our week-long luxury cruise would be a great place to start.
I won't be going into details of the cruise in this post, but rather how much most things cost (leaving out the personal spend while in port, but focusing on the big purchases instead.)

Costs will be broken down as follows, for two:

• Airfare $761.73 
• Cruise $2285.10
• Hotel €6

Total: Approx $3,053.43 or $1,526.72ea for a 7 night Luxury Mediterranean Cruise

Airfare $761.73 - Delta. Here, we got pretty lucky. Flights to Genoa are generally more expensive, so typically check flying into Milan (which is only a 1.5hr train ride away). And when I started pricing out flights, they were showing as $1700/ea. But I was very lucky one day and found airfare for $761.73 - MSP-CDG-GOA. I had a $1000 voucher from Delta from a biz class flight in November, so I applied that. And that was how my husband and I ended up only paying $761.73 for two.
My husband was Delta Diamond Medallion in 2018 and I was Delta Platinum status - both to which those status' were expiring 01/31. My husband had 4 Global Upgrade Certs, to which we applied 2. While we didn't get bumped to Delta One, we ended up using the GUC for Premium Select; which was very comfortable on a 9hr flight.

Cruise $2285.10 We cruised with MSC on the Meraviglia ship. I had booked this 7-night cruise while onboard the same ship in November. Booking on an earlier cruise gave us the credit of $200 OBC for this cruise. We booked a Yacht Club Interior cabin. Having sailed on Meraviglia 3x now, I've got to say that "Once you go Yacht Club, you can't go back." YC was absolutely amazing - private dining, all premium drinks included, butler service, private dedicated concierge, and other perks. As some say - "Affordable Luxury Cruising".

Hotel   6EUR I booked our 1-night stay after the cruise in Genova using my Expedia Rewards points. So our Junior Suite was completely free, only paying the small tax of €6.


Traveling in January when it's "low season" helped to reduce the cruise price.
Getting the flight booked when it was a low price helped greatly.
Applying that Delta credit was significant.
Using the Expedia Rewards points helped continue to save.

One last thing to add, I paid for the airfare & cruise with my Citi American Airlines credit card - so received AA miles that way. BUT... if you follow me on Instagram you may remember that our luggage was delayed for 3 days. Baggage Delay is a benefit w that credit card, so I'll keep you posted on how that all sorts out. And the Expedia Rewards points were accrued from my Citi Expedia Rewards credit card. So be strategic about which credit cards you use to help reduce the costs of travel and keep earning miles & points. Ciao!