The Cruise - Prologue

Once upon a time there were three women (actually, there were more than that but for the purposes of this story, there are just three main ones), a mother, a daughter, and a friend. One day the friend visited the mother and daughter and said, “Lets take a cruise. I can get us a great deal on a cruise to the Bahamas if you book it through me. And my cost for the cruise is only going to be $175” The mother and daughter thought about it and decided to go ahead. They each paid the $419 for the cruise.

A few weeks later the friend said that they all had to make their airline reservations since the cruise was out of Miami. The mother and daughter started thinking it over and decided to see what was available leaving from the Port of Baltimore since that was only 30 minutes away. Considering the cost of airfare was an additional $300 on top of the cruise price, the mother and daughter started looking into cruises in the $700 range. The friend said that she didn’t like any of the cruises out of Baltimore and that she was happy with the one out of Miami. So the mother and daughter paid an additional $300 for airfare…in coach. The friend used her frequent flier miles to book her ticket…in first class.

After another few weeks, it was time to book the shore excursions for the days that the ship was going to be in port. The friend wanted to hang out on the beach and do some shopping, the mother and daughter wanted to do some adventures. The mother and daughter booked their shore excursions separately and decided to see what the friend was going to do. Meanwhile, the friend booked their shuttle to and from the ship…at an additional cost of $30.

While the mother and daughter were looking at the website for the cruise they checked out the fares to see how much of a great deal they were getting by booking through their friend. Turns out there was no benefit since the fares the general public got was the same as the fares were the same. Turns out, the only person who got a deal was the friend…who booked her cruise at $175 and paid absolutely nothing to fly there and back in first class. However, if the friend had listened to the mother and daughter and caught a cruise out of Baltimore it would have cost her $700 – the same amount as the mother and daughter…no wonder she was happy with the cruise out of Miami.

The mother and daughter said nothing about it to the friend at this point.