Looking for an Eye-Popping Travel Bargain? Scan the Prices for June Mediterranean Sailings

Something on the level of "Believe-It-Or-Not" are the prices charged by ships of Royal Caribbean for seven-night cruises of the Mediterranean in June. Go to Vacations To Go ( www.vacationstogo.com ), insert "June-through-August" into the booking charts, click on Royal Caribbean as the cruiseline and then choose seven-night cruises, and you'll be staggered -- as I recently was -- to see the per person prices for inside cabins for numerous sailings in June.
 
Would you believe $346 per person? $499 per person? $579 per person? I'm not saying that all of Royal Caribbean's seven-night sails of the Med are priced that low, but a great many are (reflecting discounts off brochure prices of 65% to 68%).
 
And if you'll go to the June, Mediterranean, seven-night sailings of MSC Cruises, you'll find numerous departures priced almost as low: $599, $629, $649, $699. Or go to June sailings of Costa Cruises (the unfortunate company that suffered that tragic sinking of its modern, 3,000-passenger Costa Concordia) and you'll also find seven-night sailings going for as little as $529 and $599 in June.
 
Now it's true that you'll usually need to add about $1,300 for the round-trip trans-Atlantic flight bringing you to various Mediterranean ports (Barcelona, Naples, Rome). But even adding that sum to a $600 cruise price brings you a rather glamorous one-week vacation that's virtually all-inclusive for under $2,000 per person. And you can add on a several-day post-cruise stay in Barcelona, Naples or Rome for just a bit more.
 
It's true that the cruise prices currently displayed inch upwards in July, and even more so in August. But I'm assuming that the cruiselines are following a policy of rolling in the sharper discounts as the sailing date approaches (you might call it a policy of "creeping discounts"). A month from now, in mid-May, we'll probably see June's prices ($346, $449, $599) repeated for July.
 
Need a cheap Mediterranean sailing in July? Simply wait to book until mid-May.
 
Indeed, Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas is already offering rates as low as $649 and $749 for a one-week Mediterranean sailing in July. I'm betting they'll come down even more as that month draws near.
 
Prices are even better for sailings of eight-to-ten-nights' duration. That's when the spiffy Celebrity Cruises charges, on occasion, as little as $749 for a ten-night Mediterranean cruise (under $80 a day). Go to to the eight-night sailings of ships belonging to Royal Caribbean, like the Navigator of the Seas, and you'll find sailings going, on occasion, for as little as $749 and $799 in June -- particularly the first half of June.
 
This year's best travel bargains? Summer cruises of the Mediterranean.