Booking a Cruise

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).

Hi Gil,

Thanks for sharing, I definitely take more land (global resort destination) vacations per year than cruises. Based on the number of trips I definitely have personals consultants at all of the premium and luxury cruise lines and they call me serveral times per week. With that said they never make me a better offer. I was hoping cruisers on this forum would share the benefits of booking directly with a cruise line consultant and or other websites that I may be missing out on.

Cheers!

You really seem to have everything already picked out to fulfill your cruse/airline needs.

I am boring. For the most part, I book directly with my cruise line of choice.. A certain class ship. A certain cabin.

Obviously things seem to be working for you. As long as you are happy - status quo is the rule.

Hey Aunt Pinky,

That is great strategy and thanks for sharing

I will share once my cruises are booked on Virgin or NCL (I can see all avaiable rooms for my category on the AA website) they have customer service has always made changes, booked restaurants and etc. when I call before the cruise.

Ciao!

We prefer to book directly with a representative from the cruise line. They can see cabins that are available that are not visible online. There is a point of contact with cruise line to “blame” if the booking is wrong and documentation with that person. A travel agent or outside company or yourself (if you book online) can be held responsible (if the booking is wrong) but the cruise line is off the hook. I research and pick the preferred cabin before I call, but can be persuaded by the representative if they have something different.