Booking a Cruise

My eyes hurt

Hi radiationman

Thanks makes perfect sense, thanks for sharing.

we use a travel agent to book all our trips. We have worked with her for > 20 years and she knows our likes and dislikes. We like the concierge type service and knowing that someone is available 24/7 when something goes awry! Obviously not a bargain hunting type process. May not work for all.

Very interesting, I for go arraanging group trip and family trips way too much drama and stress. I never share a cabin and I simply share the information with folks I would like to travel with if they book wonderful; if they don't kay sera sera. I'm a social butterful and I am going to have a great time.

Thanks for sharing.

Very interesting, I for go arraanging group trip and family trips way too much drama and stress. I never share a cabin and I simply share the information with folks I would like to travel with if they book wonderful; if they don't kay sera sera. I'm a social butterful and I am going to have a great time.

Thanks for sharing.

That is very cool working with someone who knows your family

I agree this is the way to go for a group cruise. 10 years ago you call the cruise line directly block a 10 rooms at a low rate for your group. Share with a code with your family and friends and meet on the ship.

Those days are over it is so much more complicated now

I love the idea of divding and conquering. Glad this works for your and your family.

We use a TA that we've had for about 10 years. He's great at what he does, knows my family well and what our needs are. Sometimes he'll even send us gifts in the cabin. We let him handle the logistics with the cruise line...apart from check-in....that falls on me.

Dad handles the booking of hotels and flights (if needed). He also handles booking the shore excursions, but Mom and I have a say.

I handle all the onboard booking, such as shows or other activities that need booking.

Honestly there are so many folks offering the cruise deals, I say find whatever works best and go for it. For my individual cruises, we still tend to book directly with the cruise line, but that's also out of a kind of sheer convenience since we generally rebook on the ship every cruise. But we've considered going through either our AMEX travel service, or through folks like Delta or Marriott. I also have friends who are cruise agents who have offered to help.

The one exception I would say is if you ever are organizing a group, then find an agency to help support you. My experiences booking directly as an individual versus booking directly as a group leader are significantly different, and after the first couple of group cruises where we had increasingly greater issues, we recruited a travel agent to help support us and throw a bit of extra weight around.

One other element I would say is sometimes helpful is when an agent is able to automatically monitor fares for you and rebook you to lower fares as soon as they're available. Not everyone does, but we especially like that for our group (and especially when we have first timers sailing in the group who may not know all the ins and outs of fare monitoring/rebooking).