What's #1 most frustrating part of planning a cruise online?

I like the ease of booking online but there are always questions that you need answered and I end up having to call the cruise lime anyway. It is now easier for me to just let my travel agent do the booking, give her my questions and she gets back to me with answers that she wasn't able to handle herself.

I agree Glomarrone, I have a brilliant agent and also I have a contact at NCL, both prove invaluable to me when we decide to travel.

Just yesterday, after great discussion with both agents, we decided to cancel the upcoming cruise in favour of a later package ( to be determined) once our Canadian Dollar feels a little better. Without the agents working together our budget would have been blown away on exchange rates only. Thank God for honest customer service.

I can't wait to see what the two of them cook up for us later in the year.

We do all our research on line investigating itineraries and pricing. Once we decide on a cruise we call our agent who books it for us. If she finds something less expensive or suggest something different, we consider. Sometimes, she finds us even better pricing or better on board credits. After that, she takes over finding answers for our last minute questions. She sometimess suggests a different stateroom always with a good reason. Although we have been on many cruises, she is still molre knowledgeable about the industry.

I use several,different sites to research cruises. I have not found much frustrating. I book directly with the cruise lines and on the web.

Since I'm relatively inexperienced with this cruising thing, I've tried only two ways to book a cruise: a regular travel agent and online directly with the cruise line. Each cruise line assigns a sales rep to answer questions, take your money and do everything a travel agent would for that particular line. The full-service travel agent of course represents him/herself first while re-selling cruises bought in bulk from numerous lines. I suppose it's easier to deal with only one person as opposed to say, reps from your favorite five cruise lines. I like doing all the research and finding out if the big cruise packagers' rates are the same as what the lines offer if you purchase from them directly. By the time I'm ready to buy, I enjoy the personal service I get from having my own personal "cruise consultant" from the cruise company walk me through the process, which can vary from line to line. I guess the most frustrating thing is how completely artificial and arbitrary the pricing is. One example: cruise lines can add a fuel surcharge when prices for crude oil go above a certain level, yet you sure don't seem them reducing prices at anything like the same rate oil prices have dropped.

Checking the price of a cruise , is a good thing to do online, I do it all the time :)

You answered my biggest questions.

I want my TA to get the credit, but I want the perks as well from booking on board.

I will ask my guy about it before I leave on the next holiday. My cell plan allows me to text from any area with a wifi zone, so I can transmit a text to his cell phone from anywhere.

Thanks for the heads up.

Hi John. We almost always “book on board” for our next cruise. (Actually it’s usually two or three cruises down the line rather than our very next one, but we’re really addicted…) There should be a nice incentive of onboard credit for the cruise you’re booking or for the one you’re on. If you used a travel agent for the cruise you’re currently on, they should automatically be notified that you booked on board; they’ll get credit for the booking and be able to take care of you just like they always do. (It doesn’t hurt to let your agent know when you get home though, just to make sure the cruise line notified them properly.) We always make sure that what we book on board is changeable though. More than once we’ve just quickly booked a cruise on board that we know we won’t be taking so we don’t waste time deciding while we’re on vacation. Then, when we’re back home, we’ll take the time to plan the cruise we really want, our travel agent will make all the changes and we still get any perks from booking on board!

Very good tool. I know I will use it to research cruises for myself and others who ask me about cruising.

Question,

Is it worth discussing with the agents on the ship you are cruising on in choosing the next cruise? I wonder as we are on a cruise with NCL next year and may want to book another while we are cruising.

is there an advantage to this ---cost saving wise?

thanks

Great question and comments. I wanted to see what you all thought of a new "compare cruises" feature we are about to launch that helps the planning process.

Let's say you are planning on doing an Alaska cruise next May and you have narrowed down to 3 options - Coral Princess, HAL Oosterdam and and Royal Caribbean's Radiance. They are all similar (7 nights), but prices, ports and other items are different. There should be an easy way to 'compare' these 3 options.

Well, that's the new feature. You can see each of these options side by side and evaluate them. Take a look at the 3 Alaska cruises I chose here: http://cruiseline.com/cruise/compare/39038-2015-05-20/38489-2015-05-17/39190-2015-05-22

Here is a pic of what it looks like. What do you think? Is this a helpful feature to help plan a cruise?