one way flights

Does the cruise not offer some sort of special offer or rate partnered with an airline?

If the price is advantageous, you could book a round trip (Rome-FL, FL-Rome) and just don't use the "return" part.

Be careful with the "use only one part of a round trip ticket." Many airlines will charge you if they think you "miss" your flight on purpose. And they would have good reason to be suspicious of a US resident buying a roundtrip ticket starting and ending in Rome.

I've read that the way to avoid problems (if you only use half of an RT ticket) is simply to call and cancel the return leg, because that gives the airline the opportunity to re-sell your seat.

I would just go ahead buy the RT ticket and "throw-away" the unused portion, and not worry about it. Technically it's against the terms of the ticket to do that, but there's not much the airline can do about it. I've never heard from anyone who has actually been charged by the airline at a later date. The most they could realistically do is mess around with your frequent flier miles..if you're into that. I've thrown away the the return portion on several domestic flights in Europe, and no harm has come my way:)

Why NOT simply call the airline and cancel the return leg of the roundtrip ticket????? That probably happens hundreds of times a day for assorted reasons and I am sure the airline isn't going to raise an eyebrow over the fact that Penny is a US resident with a RT from Rome. People do live and/or work in Italy for extended periods of time with passports from another country. Simple courtesy to the airline to free up a seat by cancelling, especially if some traveller REALLY needs or wants to get on that flight.

For most airlines, if you cancel or change your flight, the airline will charge you, at minimum, a change fee. Perhaps that is still less than the difference of a one way ticket, but airlines charge you less for roundtrip because they expect you to be on the return flight.

OK - I did a quick search and apparantly it is not uncommon for people to buy roundtrip tickets and not use the return. There didn't seem to be much the airlines would do even though it does violate their terms of use policies. This info comes from reputable travel writers. The key, of course, is to discard the RETURN portion. If you don't use the front end, the airline will cancel your entire ticket.

ok say you get sick and can't make your return flight, how is the airline to know. I would just phone and cancel,, say I was sick and couldn't get back yet.. yes, their is a change fee, but only if you rebook I would think. Seems you could just say you are not ready to rebook yet. Better yet, say someone else is sick( a family member or friend ) and that you don't know how long it will be before you can leave them.

Don't overthink the whole "change fee" thing! Of course, they are only going to charge you when you book a new return flight. And, you are obviously not going to be doing that. Extend the airline the courtesy of cancelling. You don't owe them an explanation other than your circumstances have made it impossible for you to keep the booked flight, nor do you need to fabricate some fantastic lie. They can now sell that seat to someone who really wants it.

I fly weekly. If you throw away half of ticket once a year no airline is going to bother to chase you down IMHO. If you throw away half of ticket every week... all bets are off. Just buy a roundtrip and don't use the other half. I have one sitting in my 'flights' right now. Plans changed and when I called Delta to change it was cheaper to just buy a new ticket... the agent even agreed LOL!