Free air and shore excursions from Deilmann Cruises

Paying for your cruise fare can be a major expense -- but paying for airfare to get to your cruise and for shore excursions once you're onboard can cost even more.

Peter Deilmann Cruises is offering some pretty attractive deals this summer to U.S. travelers on its five-star, 286-cabin ms Deutschland cruises to Norway, Spitzbergen (way above the Arctic Circle), Iceland, the islands of Denmark and Scotland, Greenland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Ireland. During three sailings in June and July, you can get free airfare from 17 eastern U.S. cities and low air supplements from 34 more cities in the rest of the country. The deals also come with free shore excursions up to $600 per passenger.

Deilmann also has free air and shore excursion deals for nearly two dozen other ocean and sea cruises, ranging from Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean, and extending into the early part of 2008.

For more details, call the cruise line at 800-348-8287 or e-mail them at pdcmail@deilmann-cruises.com. You can also go to the Deilmann website at www.deilmann-cruises.com; click on "Our Fleet" and "Ocean Fleet" for details on these deals (though the website isn't particularly easy to navigate).

For information about my money-saving cruise e-Book "Booking the Best Deal," go to www.smartercruising.com.