Reserving your next cruse with a Travel Agent

I do the initial research & find which cruise ship, itinerary & sailing I wish to take. Then I call the TA and ask her to book the cruised. If she can find a better deal, she calls me back & we discuss. Sometimes I change the date & cabin selection based on what she tells me. She gives me perks that actually show up on my statement when I arrive on the ship. If there was ever a problem, I can notify her. She is local & I see her socially. I also print out the perks that she gives us & takes it with us when we go on the cruise. Always get everything in writing & bring it with you.

Have done both. I think I am leaning towards booking direct?

When we have to make changes we are told every-time contact travel agent. They are not available as much as the Cruise line.

When we find price reduction travel agent did not contact us? I would think they have tools to help their clients here. We noticed a reduction again had to contact travel agent.

What about upgrades. Almost every time we book direct we get a call just before sail date offering a nice upgrade for pennies. I contacted travel agent and asked if they get the offers. He said they do at times and made a note to contact me. I am afraid the cruise line does not wait to call the next person waiting for my travel agent to call me?

Travel agents are normally pleasant and very helpful with getting better placement on the ship etc, but after a few cruises and my experience I do not think I will continue to use travel agent.

We prefer to do our own research and watch the deals and pricing looks like and when the prices look like something that we are good with we contact the cruise lines direct and book.

We use a site called Vacations To Go and book through the agents there. You may not have the same agent for every cruise, but whoever your booking agent is will stay with you throughout the entire booking process. If you need to rebook, you can call up your agent on Vacations To Go and they will stay with you throughout that process as well. They will also assist with finding hotels and getting you all your paperwork and luggage tags before you leave. If you have any questions, you can always call your Vacations To Go agent and they will take care of everything.

We do the research and call the cruise line direct because they have cabins available that do not show up on line. I wish out loud that a certain cabin was available and after a few click of computer keys, I was told that it was and I got it instead of the one we had settled for. I like to research. Now if we go with one of the lines that have a less than stellar record for dealing directly with the guest, I plan to go with a TA. I have used the services of a TA for other things (I have a cousin in the business), so I am not opposed to doing so.

We’ve travelled enough that I enjoy doing the research and booking all of our own vacations. We used a TA for our first cruise, who was a “cruise expert” according to her credentials, but it was not a good experience. We have since used personal vacationer planners from the cruiselines a couple of times after doing the initial planning, or doing it all myself. We’ve yet to see any benefit to using the services of others when there is so much information available online.

Same here. I actually like doing some of the research but I have an amazing TA that I've used for years. He's great at exploring the many options and does all the booking work.

We always use a TA but we also do the research.

We had a long discussion on this not all that long ago. Seemed evenly split in here at least, among veteran cruisers. We do our own. To us its part of the fun. I don't care if it takes awhile, although to be honest past few years we've been sticking with one line, so it does narrow it down, But it didn't matter when we were spread out over 4 of them. We paid attention, we knew what we wanted, and it made it easier the more cruises we took. I can see where folks don't want to be bothered, and the choices and confusion for newbies can be overwhelming.