by Ted Sherman

Created on: January 26, 2010

Shame on you! You’ve procrastinated throughout the semester, and just a week or so before spring break, you suddenly get an uncontrollable urge to book reservations for a spring break flight, train, hotel, resort or cruise ship.

Is it too late to do anything now? Will your spring break consist of moping around your room by yourself while everyone else is having a great time and livin’ it up in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Las Vegas, Malibu, Cabo San Lucas, Vail or aboard a swingin’ cruise ship?

1. All may not be lost!. If you can get your lazy self going, start immediately to search for last-minute spring break travel deals. You may just luck out by checking campus bulletin boards. Often, students driving to spring break destinations look for others to go with them to share driving, gas tank fill-ups and costs of hotel rooms, food and other expenses 

2. Check with the campus travel office and your hometown travel agency to see if there are any last-minute spring break offerings available. If everything you’d want has been booked, leave your phone number and email address, so you’d be contacted immediately if there are any last-minute cancellations. Even if they don't contact you, keep calling.

3. Turn on your computer and Google out the top online travel agencies. Many specialize in last minute situations, and you can quickly find them listed separately from other travel promotions. For example, if you’d consider a cruise for your spring break adventure, those ships hate to sail with any unfilled cabins. It costs them lost money if they don't have every cabin booked, so the cruise lines drop prices deeply in the last few days before the actual sailing. Many of those last-minute deals are only posted for a short time, often for just 24 hours, so you should keep going back to the sites often within the deadline, and you may luck out with a good deal.

4. Rev up your search engine: There are many excellent online travel agencies that specialize in promoting last-minute spring break deals. Some of them include www.frommers.com, www.smartertravel.com, www.ehow.com, www.gocurrency.com and travelcuts.wordpress.com. If you have friends and family members who’ve used any online travel agencies for last-minute or regular travel plans, ask them about their experiences with the service and decide accordingly.

It’s understandable if you’ve been too busy studying or otherwise involved with campus activities to make reservations for your spring break travel venture. Maybe you should be highly commended for your serious intent on earning good grades and a meaningful education.

However, spring break is also an important part of your exposure to and participation in the many varieties of education. For example, if you get very lucky during late evening activities at that elegant resort by the sea or during a moonlight aboard on the deck of that romantic cruise ship, your experience there could be much more educational. Therefore, if you don’t want to experience a very lonely spring break, make those last-minute reservations immediately!

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