Skip it...nothing in life is 'free'.

saNpARIS- Some things in life are free- my sister in law just won her 3rd car in 3 years ( well maybe its not free since you do have to pay taxes) but they were definately legitimate deals .

Anyway, I called Carnival Cruise lines since that is the cruise they would choose if they went and they were not helpful at all in giving me any information.
It turns out that AQUA Resources is a marketing company that is offering this package- havent called them yet to see why they charge so much for processing-
I also called my travel agent who agreed that the processing fee was very high - havent looked yet to see what it would cost just to book a 7 day cruise in Nov - going to do that next.
Anyway- I dont think its a good deal

One of the points nytraveler made is worth repeating:
No matter what you decide, the cruise will not be "available" on any of the dates you choose.
I got one of these, and in the fine print, you had to "request" a date - in writing - 60 days in advance, and then it had to be "confirmed in writing", so you could waste months just going back and forth on the dates. And the fine print on the website was unreadable, so I printed it out. Well, the end of each line was cropped...making the fine print impossible to figure out. Coincidence?

Forget it!

sunbum, I'm glad you are smart enough to check this out for your daughter and her friend. People often get so excited over the idea that they've won something, they might not realize that this prize is actually a purchase in disguise. Good job for checking with us. ((Y))

The other scam I have seen about "free hotel" (never seen it for cruise) is that traveler must book air thru a special number - and airfare is outrageously high.

My friend's son won a Disney Cruise from Disney - the only thing they paid was air and the charges one would normally incur while on cruise (tips, drinks, excursions, etc.) So port charges, processing fee, etc. is certainly not standard.

A sort of related thought. Cruise lines really do make much of their money on board, and they are willing to work with agencies or directly to make sure that every cabin is filled to increase the onboard "sales". Here in Naples, I know several people who LOVE cruises (I'm not one of those) and they are regisered for special notices. Just this week, one of the girls in our show got a notice for a four day Carribean Cruise leaving Ft. Lauderdale next week (apparently very undersold). For $79 each -- yes that is correct -- four of them are sharing two deluxe cabins on the cruise. Several of them do this all the time. Of course, this won't work for everyone who would still have to get flights to the cruise (these four will simply drive over and park the car), or for those who can't take four days off at the last minute.

The phone rings and the caller, or more likely the recorded message, asks you to take a short political survey.

You're ready to hang up, but the voice on the other end of the line says for helping out you'll get a free two-day cruise to the Bahamas.

"And they ask a few questions and then all of a sudden they're getting people's personal information, credit card information," says David Quinlan with the Better Business Bureau of Western Washington.

If you get one of these calls, Quinlan says you need to hold on to your wallet.

"There's the risk of identity theft in a lot of these situations if people are giving their personal and private information over the phone thinking that they're going to sign up for this free cruise."

And keep this in mind, should you be tempted.

"The cruise is not free."

That's right, there are taxes and fees. And you may have to sit through a timeshare sales presentation before you can get on the ship, if there's a cruise at all.

The BBB has already received more than a thousand complaints about this sort of scam.

Fraud experts say you should always be suspicious when you're offered a prize to take a survey. I don't know of any legitimate political poll that does this:

http://www.timesharescam.com/blog/162-timeshare-deals/

And you brought up this 7 year old thread to advertise your lame website -- why? Oh, yea, to get more hits on it.