Priceline Cruises Kicks Off Wave Season With Exclusive Hotel Bonus Cash Coupons, Stateroom Upgrades, Onboard Credits and More

NORWALK, Conn., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- They call it "wave season" – that time, in the dead of winter, when house-bound travelers start dreaming about a deck chair in the sun, pina coladas by the pool, midnight buffets and visiting exciting (and warm) ports of call.  Priceline.com (Nasdaq: PCLN) knows the feeling and is celebrating the 2010 wave season with hotel bonus cash coupons, stateroom upgrades, onboard credits and cruise prices as low as $45 a day.

Priceline Cruises already has handed out thousands of these exclusive hotel bonus cash coupons to qualifying customers who typically use them to relax in port before or after their cruise, or take a second vacation getaway at a different time.  Priceline Cruises says it expects to give away thousands more of the exclusive hotel coupons this wave season.

Priceline Cruises' hotel stay offer works like this: Book an oceanview or higher stateroom on any 5-6 night cruise and receive a bonus cash coupon valid toward a 1-night Name Your Own Price® hotel stay.  Book an oceanview or higher stateroom on any 7 nights or longer cruise and receive a bonus cash coupon valid toward a 2-night Name Your Own Price® hotel stay.  For full details and restrictions, visit cruises.priceline.com and click the hotel stay link.

In addition, Priceline Cruises' major cruise line partners are offering many other extras, including:

http://cruises.priceline.com/promotion/priceline/royal-caribbean/royal-caribbean-cruises.asp

http://cruises.priceline.com/promotion/priceline/cha_ten/default.asp

http://cruises.priceline.com/promotion/priceline/ncl/norwegian-cruises.asp

http://cruises.priceline.com/promotion/priceline/hal_ten/default.asp

http://cruises.priceline.com/promotion/priceline/carnival/carnival-cruises.asp

See cruises.priceline.com for full details, terms and restrictions associated with Cruise promotions.  Call 1-800-735-8000 to speak to a Priceline Cruise consultant.  For tips on planning a cruise, check out The Travel Ekspert, priceline.com's exclusive travel tips blog www.priceline.com/travelblog/.  

"This is an excellent time to book a cruise," said Tom Trotta, priceline.com's Senior Vice President, Vacation Packages & Cruises.  "With new ships coming online, the cruise 'pipeline' is very full with available staterooms to all the traditional cruise destinations.  Increased capacity means more competition for cruisers and prices as low as $45 a day per person.  Considering that this includes the room, meals and entertainment, a cruise may be the best vacation value out there today.  Priceline Cruises is making that value unbeatable with our exclusive hotel stay coupons."  

Priceline Cruise customers can choose from a broad range of cruises at great prices covering the Bahamas, the Caribbean, coastal Canada, Europe, Mexico, the South Pacific, South and Central America, Hawaii and Alaska.  Cruise lengths can be 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, or 12 nights or more.

Priceline Cruise customers can research their ideal cruise according to several criteria.  They can browse the featured best-deal cruises offered on that day.  They can enter a particular month and see all the available cruises and destinations for that time frame.  They can pick a departure port or destination and see all the cruises being offered.  Or they can pick their favorite cruise line and see its offerings and prices.  For each cruise line, customers can see individual ship statistics, deck plans, cabin layouts and descriptions of the ship's public areas and attractions.  For each cruise, customers can view sailing times, itineraries, off-ship activities and sightseeing suggestions and maps of the cruise.  

Trotta offered some advice for travelers looking for especially good cruise deals, "Onboard costs for things like drinks, spa treatments and specialty restaurants can amount to as much as 50% of your total vacation cost, so look for large onboard credit offers that are just as valuable to your wallet as an upfront discount."

Trotta also said that the launch of new cruise ships should create some deals for savvy consumers.  "When a new ship like the 5,400 passenger Oasis of the Seas enters the market, it's often sold out for the first few months, drawing demand away from other ships sailing the same itinerary.  From January through April, Oasis will sail the Eastern Caribbean out of South Florida.  In May, it will alternate sailings between Eastern and Western Caribbean.  By July, NLC's Epic will sail a similar itinerary. For European travelers, Celebrity's Eclipse will launch in April and cruise European cities along the Baltic, Atlantic Coast, and Mediterranean out of Southhampton, England during this spring and summer. Especially with the weak dollar, taking a cruise with your accommodations, meals and transportation included is a value-packed way to see Europe."

About Priceline.com® Incorporated

Priceline.com Incorporated (Nasdaq: PCLN) www.priceline.com provides online travel services in 29 languages in over 78 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Included in the priceline.com family of companies is Booking.com, a leading international online hotel reservation service, priceline.com, a leading U.S. online travel service for value-conscious leisure travelers, and Agoda.com, an Asian online hotel reservation service.  

Priceline.com believes that Booking.com is Europe's largest and fastest growing hotel reservation service, with a network of affiliated Web sites. Booking.com operates in over 70 countries in 24 languages and offers its customers access to over 71,000 participating hotels worldwide.  In the U.S., priceline.com gives customers more ways to save on their airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises than any other Internet travel service.  In addition to getting great published prices, leisure travelers can narrow their searches using priceline.com's TripFilter advanced search technology, customize their search activity through priceline.com's Inside Track features, create packages to save even more money, and take advantage of priceline.com's famous Name Your Own Price® service, which can deliver the lowest prices available.  Priceline.com also operates the following travel websites: Travelweb.com, Lowestfare.com, RentalCars.com and BreezeNet.com.  Priceline.com also licenses its business model to certain independent and international licensees.

SOURCE Priceline.com