MIAMI (AP) – Travel agent Joe Canino is noticing something among his customers booking cruises that he hasn’t seen in a while: sticker shock. But his clients still seem willing to pay an extra $1,000 for the same trip they took a year or two ago.

“They question why it’s higher, but it doesn’t deter them,” said Canino, a cruise expert at Hebron Travel in Hebron, Conn.

Higher ticket prices and an insatiable demand among vacationers have the cruise lines basking in the smoothest sailing since the heavy discounts and tough times prompted by the 2001 economic recession and that year’s terrorist attacks.

Passengers are inching closer to spending as much on tickets and extras on board as they did in the high-flying days of 1999 and 2000, analysts said. Carnival Corp. & plc, the world’s largest cruise company, just finished it’s most profitable year ever and expects to do better this year. No. 2 Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and smaller players also report strong demand.

Into the second month of the heaviest booking quarter of the year, known as the wave season, cruise lines are racking up reservations even faster than last year. Despite rising oil prices and an increase in gastrointestinal illnesses among passengers, the industry expects the good times to continue.

“I think people are generally feeling optimistic about the economy. It’s been nice and cold across the country, which always encourages people to take a (cruise) vacation. … It’s a great value,” said Andy Stuart, NCL Corp. Ltd.’s executive vice president of marketing, sales and passenger services. NCL operates Norwegian Cruise Line, NCL America and Orient Lines.

A recent search on Cruisequick.com, a no-frills online travel agency, still turned up Caribbean trips on Carnival Cruise Lines ships for as little as $100 a day per person, including a cabin, food and entertainment.

Ray Weiller, an owner of Cruisequick.com, said that while his company has made fewer bookings so far this year, revenues have been about the same because of higher ticket prices.

“We’re now starting to see people booking for 2006 because they can’t get anything this year,” he said.

Cruise.com, one of the largest online cruise travel agencies, has been selling trips at prices averaging about 20 percent higher than last year, managing director Anthony Hamawy said.

After expected increases through the rest of this year, Carnival’s average ticket prices should be about 3 percentage points below the peak levels before the terrorist attacks, said Robin Farley with UBS Investment Research.

Because fewer new ships will be added this year, most vessels sail full and demand is growing, prices will also be driven higher, analysts said.

Net revenue yields are a key gauge of profitability and measure the net income cruise lines get from the average passenger per day. Last year, Carnival’s net yields were $170.32, up from $156.38 in 2003 and $166.44 in 2001. Carnival did not publish those numbers before 2001, a company spokesman said.

Shares of Carnival, which controls nearly half the global cruise market, rose 34 cents, or 0.6 percent, to close at $56.85 Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. That’s off a 52-week high of $58.98.

The major cruise lines have also made it tougher for low-cost Web sites to give passengers discounts. Many travel agents were passing on some of their commissions in the form of lower prices.

The lines didn’t want cheapen their brand value and have consumers booking travel based only on the lowest price, a problem experienced by airlines. So Carnival and Royal Caribbean now require discount Web sites to advertise cruises at list price, although Carnival still lets agencies pass on commissions as long as it isn’t publicized.

“I think the days of cheap cruises that we saw after 9/11 are gone,” Canino said.