If you are planning a cruise trip and are wondering just how to save money on your cruise tickets, then this might be one article you might definitely want to read !

When it comes to discount cruise travel, here's...

The "Million Dollar" Discount Cruise Tip

Buying cruise tickets at a discount is all about buying unsold inventory on cruise ships ... if a cruise liner cannot sell all of the tickets in time for the cruise, then they usually offer huge discounts on their tickets. And if you are the lucky one who happens to be at the right place at the right time, then you most possibly will end up with discounted tickets ...

So the question to ask would be...

When do cruise liners end up with unsold inventory?

If there are more people willing to travel by a cruise liner than what the capacity of the cruise liner is, then chances are that the cruise liner will offer no discounts ... but this is not what happens always. Frequently, cruise liners end up with unsold inventory ... and here is when that usually happens -

Repositioning Cruises:

Knowing about repositioning cruises itself an save you a lot of money and get you tickets at steep discounts. Here is what repositioning cruises are all about...

Cruise lines have to reposition their ships either north (towards Alaska) in the summer or south (towards the Caribbean) in the winter. This is because Alaska is a popular cruise destination in the summer and the Caribbean is a very popular cruise destination in the winter.

And when the cruise lines reposition their ships, they might have to sail without passengers - lots of unsold inventory. And instead of sailing without passengers, many offer huge discounts on the price of cruise tickets.

And here is one question all this raises...

Just how to tell if a cruise ship might feature a repositioning cruise?

Well, all you may have to do is know which ships spend the summer in Alaska. Most of these ships might feature a repositioning cruise to the Caribbean in the winter...

And many cruise ships that spend the winter basking in the warm Caribbean sun might feature repositioning cruises to Alaska in the summer.

Also, if you are interested in repositioning cruises to Europe, then you might want to know that many cruise ships that offer Europe cruises in the summer reposition to sunny Caribbean in the winter, and then reposition to Europe in early summer.

But there's also a downside to repositioning cruises - ships that are repositioning make fewer port visits and spend a lot more days at sea. Now, if what you really want to be doing is to see lots of different places and experience lots of different cultures, then a repositioning cruise may not be right for you.

If you are interested in repositioning cruises in the summer, here are a few:

* The Carnival Liberty crosses the Atlantic from the warm Caribbean sometime in late April 2006, cruise in the sunny Mediterranean in summer, and plans to sail across the Atlantic in the fall.

* The Norwegian cruise line is offering several repositioning cruises on its website.

We will be taking a look at several other ways to avail discounts on your cruise vacations in the next two articles.