How does "cruises only" work?

We have twice used the services of one of the online cruise booking sites and were quite pleased with them but we much prefer to do the homework and legwork ourselves now. These sites will sometimes get or reserve blocks of cabins or commit to filling them therefore they will occasionally offer more than what the cruise line offers but not too often. Their cabin rate usually comes out the same but they can sometimes get a few extra perks ... just like the TA that many love to deal with.

Good info - thanks for sharing experience

Good morning! Yes we do offer a choice of an onboard credit or Amazon gift card if you are booking outside of 21 days. Otherwise, you will get a credit back to your original form of payment post travel. The amount you receive is based on the cost of your cruise. If you decide to do the post travel rebate then you must provide proof of spending onboard (your cruise bill).

We offer personalized service, 24/7, and are happy to help you through the process if you would like to call us.

Happy Travels,

Customer Care

Thanks for sharing your experience. Since you asked the question in the first place, it helps when you shared the actual results. Sorry it was an expensive lesson.

I agree I am sorry you got the short end of the stick, but glad you shared your misfortune with us so we don’t make that mistake. I have been lucky to find an excellent TA through interaction on this site. Unfortunately, I think we cannot name TAs here. Let me know if you are interested and we can figure a way to let you know who I use.

Alternatively, you can use Yankees method of booking it yourself. In most cases it is not difficult.

No body should be critical. you had the courage to post about the experience, such as it was, and while there's no way to prove it, you probably saved OTHER peeps from doing the same thing, for the same reason(s) you did. In fact it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see a post from someone who used them and had an absolutely wonderful time...

There ARE reputable TA's "out there", and those like me, do are do-it-yourself types...I wont mention the mistakes I made along the way getting to this exalted position. .If we decided to cruise a line we had never taken b4, it would be almost be like starting over...almost...good luck to you!!

Yes, I was just looking for a "mini" vaycay, a short 4 day cruise. I paid 24.99 for the "hold" of the cruise, and then I needed to cancel. Well they charged 100$, (cancellation fee) plus the 24.99 for absolutely doing nothing. Upon researching the "onboard credit, or amazon $", we would only be getting 12.50 each OBC. If you were going on an "all out 10-14 day cruise AND booking a suite", I GUESS the 750$ OBC would be available to you. Before anyone says "you should have done the research", YES, I do understand that we should have, we just have only dealt with "carnival" itself, and was looking into "a different route" or a "different line".

You'll notice the "UP TO" $1000 or $750. I'm sure that's with a suite and longer cruise. I'm going through Cruises Only right now. I'm going on a 10 day RT Alaska Cruise out of San Francisco with my parents in August. Our OBC will be $750 total. $500 from Princess, another $100 from Princess for my dad's military and $150 from Cruises Only. We are staying in a mini-suite. I was first told we would get $100 back, each, for my mother and I since our birthdays were within 30 days of the sailing. But that was wrong. If you book and sail within 30 days of the booking and your birthday is within that time, you get $100 back. I think the total of the perks is the cruiseline AND whatever perks they add on. Since we have a mini-suite and are only getting $150 from them, I'm assuming to get the higher $$ you need to book a suite.

That's nice...care to share? or is that one of those things that get investigated periodically AFTER they rip people off, and leave other folks wondering how anybody could be that stupid?

I am rather curious too. It sounds like one of those “too good to be true” things.