“Hey, Travel Professor, many thanks for sharing your cruise thoughts with us. It’s been insightful. What’s the best Web site to go to for discounted cruises?” Bob and Carol S. of Catlettsburg Ky., ask.

I haven’t found that “Holy Grail,” the all inclusive and comprehensive “mother” of all sites. Because of the vast amount of product information available currently I don’t believe one site can capture all of it.

I do have a systematic way of checking for specials. First I visit the product producers’ Web sites such as carnival.com, royalcaribbean.com or ncl.com. A good index/information site is www.cruising.com which is sponsored by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).

Step two for me is to sort through all of the cruise line faxes and e-mail notices that travel agents receive. Next I’ll browse the agents-only sections of the respective cruise lines Web site. My last step is once I’ve narrowed in on a date and cruise itinerary is to pick up the phone and call the cruise lines that I’m interested in. Using this process I’ve frequently discovered unadvertised rates that offered tremendous savings.

The last step is to search some of the mega discounted travel products web sites like www.travelzoo.com or www.hotwire.com. These are easy to browse sites that offer plenty of “on sale” discounted travel products. You can also subscribe to their newsletters and receive e-mail notices of their sales and specials.

Steps 1 and 3 you can easily perform yourself.

The upsides here are that you control your search and data collection.

Downsides are that this process is time consuming, it can be difficult to navigate back to the site where you found the information and, lastly, it is hard to be sure you got the best deal. Also if you botch your travel planning whose feet do you to hold to the fire? Yours.

Step 2 involves forging a good relationship with a cruise sales specialist/travel agent and let them become your personal shopper.

Chances are that they can perform these tasks in a more efficient manner while saving you time and hopefully money. Provide your agent with a range of dates, desired itinerary and budget then sit back and wait for them to work their magic.

This year continues to shape up as the year of extra ordinary travel bargains especially cruises.

The cruise lines have new ships coming into the market and there is an excessive supply of cabins. To fill these berths the prices and incentives are incredible. This is the year that you cannot not afford to travel.

Steve Call is the Travel & Tourism program director at Ohio University Southern. Call can be reached at (740) 533-4559 or by e-mail at call@ohio.edu.