I’m a solo traveler with a limited budget. 
I can’t pay the typical single supplement to get a regular cabin to myself. 
I know that many cruise lines now have solo cabins, but I haven’t found a way to “see” them online. Instead, I’ve had to call NCL or whoever and ask the sales rep, and then they try to sell me on all kinds of rooms and cruises that I don’t want, 
and continue calling for weeks. 
Is there no way to find these solo cabins in an Internet search?
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Solos aren’t always much less expensive than purchasing a single supplement.
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NCL - solo rooms on every ship in Interior, Oceanview, and Balcony categories as well as the traditional studios.
Celebrity - Silhouette has four interior solos, Edge class has between 16-32 obstructed view Infinite Balconies.
Virgin Voyages - a handful of Interior and Oceanview studios on all ships.
Royal Caribbean - most (not all) Quantum class ships have a handful of studio balconies and interiors; other ships typically have a couple of solo interiors and there are a couple of ships with a few Oceanview solos.
MSC - a few solo balconies and interiors on Meraviglia and Meraviglia+ classes; World class has a few Interiors and Oceanviews.
Holland America - solo Oceanview rooms on Pinnacle class ships.
Princess - four interior solo rooms on Sphere class.
Disney and Carnival do not have solo occupancy rooms.
Those are all the lines I sell, and it’s much easier for me to see solo rooms through the agent booking portals than if I just search them on the consumer sites.
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When traveling with NCL, staying in a normal cabin might sometimes be less expensive if there isn’t a solo surcharge. This is how my December TA looks. Paid slightly over a thousand dollars for a balcony solo.
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Good lord, never call an NCL rep or any cruise line rep, because they don’t know how to search for solo cabins, just get you in the most expensive room they can, with the most add-ons. Solo or studio or double cabins don’t matter, just how much you’ll pay for one person. Fares are easily searched by number of passengers on NCL, Carnival, Royal, and Celebrity websites. For every other line, or to do a comprehensive comparison, use cruiseplum and do a search by number of passengers, input whatever criteria you want, and then rank them according to cost per cabin per night (they’re a little confusing now, because they add gratuities to the overall cost). I cut my search down to 10 nights and under, because otherwise you’ll see transatlantic ones at the top of the cost-per-night list, which I couldn’t tolerate. I cruise from the West coast, and I see plenty of $100-150/nt solo fares on Princess, HAL, NCL, and Royal to Mexico. Prices fluctuate, so if you monitor them, you’ll find good deals, depending on demand. Right now there are plenty of cheap deals to the Caribbean as well. Cruiseplum also has sections for Hot Deals, which you can narrow by geographic area, as well as Last-Minute Deals and Solo Discounts (the solo discounts are often just discounts from overpriced cruises, so I don’t bother with them, just as I don’t look for solo/studio cabins on NCL, because inside cabins are often cheaper). If you see a good solo price for a cruise, then you can use that knowledge to see if a travel agent can beat it, or offer OBC or advice/assistance. Right now cruise demand is through the roof, but there will be deals out there, but you have to consistently do searches–I have cruise searches bookmarked on cruiseplum, Expedia, and Royal. I’m also flexible enough to take advantage of the HAL standby program, so this year I’ve had cruises to Mexico, Alaska, and Pacific coast for $100/nt, and have four more booked for 2025 so far (it took me 4 standby tries to get a spot on an Alaska cruise). So ignore the cabin, and definitely ignore all the sales and promotions the lines are constantly using–just search for one person on the cruise line website, cruiseplum, or Expedia, and search throughout the year, because there will be great deals at some time (another good aspect of cruiseplum is that it will track a cruise’s price over time).
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@Adele Most beneficial comment thus far. I’m grateful.
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Cruising alone and a tight budget don’t really mix.
I recently returned from a cruise on the Majestic Princess, which cost $1400 for a single balcony cabin with insurance and an additional $400 for onboard expenses without any Princess excursions.
All you can ask for, unless you’re fine with ANY stateroom on the ship, are last-minute ones like the ones I book. Although I didn’t use the balcony very often, it was still a pleasant choice.
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Make use of vacationstogo.com. It is more to my liking than Cruiseplum.
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We refer to them as studios. Simply set the number of guests to 1 on the NCL website to view them.
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@Gordon There aren’t many lines that have studios. Numerous other airlines will also provide discounts on the lone supplement for “regular” seats.
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@Grande As someone who always goes it alone, I feel like you’re overstating a lot of things. Apart from studios, the only line I frequently see offering standard rooms for less than 200% is msc, and ncl offers a slight discount for their solitary cabins. The emphasis is on random; all other lines may have a few sporadic sailings with less than 200%. It’s been years since I’ve heard of a cruise line offering a zero or reduced fleet-wide extra.
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@Gordon Correct. You aren’t going to see line-wide supplement discounts. But for a given destination, there will typically be options on multiple lines. I’m pricing several cruises right now on RCL, NCL, and Holland right now with supplements in the 20-80% range.
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@Grande Sure, it can be lower, but unless you’re fully flexible on time, length, itinerary, and ship, whether or not a sailing has a discount is entirely up to chance.
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@Gordon Yes. However, many people approach the procedure as “I want to go on vacation in roughly this date range.”
If your approach is “I want to go to Alaska on Royal Caribbean in June 2025 and get a great solo deal,” the answer is no. That is unlikely to work well for you.
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According to this report, at least a half-dozen cruise lines offer “no supplement” single cabins. I’m simply trying to find out how to view them online without having to phone in for the sales pitch. I’m not sure if the aggregator sites can’t filter for this, or if the cruise lines intentionally hide them. Frommer’s piece
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The problem is most of them only have a handful of those cabins on one or two ships so they’re hard to find because they’re booked quickly usually.
Celebrity only has them on Edge class and only 16 a ship and all balcony so might be more expensive than a regular interior. Royal has them on some ships, with most having 8 or less. Though the quantum class has the most, but they’re mostly balcony so cost more. Msc has some on some ships. Hal has 12 on their newest class. I don’t believe carnival or princess have any.
Ncl is the only line that has committed to not only having studios, but having a lot on any new ship. Then went beyond that to declassified some regular cabins as solo. From Epic the only ship without studios is Joy and that’s only because it was built for China and I guess they don’t travel solo.
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Celebrity Silhouette features four Interior Solo rooms (I believe they were installed in the former game room). It is the only vessel in the fleet that does. I’ve booked one for March.
Edge has 16 Solo Balconies, Apex has 24, while Beyond, Ascent, and Xcel each have 32. Naturally, there is still a limit.
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EASY you know your schedule. Figure out roughly the dates for the cruises you could make it work with. Find a date range that has multiple ships sailing at around the same time. Then you book paying in full the week before sailing
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@Hudson Good that they increased it, but I’ve looked into cruises and either 1) they were sold out or 2) an interior was substantially cheaper.
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I’m a solo traveler here. Some cruise lines provide staterooms built for single occupancy. As another redditor mentioned, they are frequently referred to as Studios. This incurs no penalty for using a stateroom alone.
I know Norwegian has ships with studios (my last and upcoming voyages are with NCL), and I recall Royal Caribbean having them as well.
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