T/A vs Direct for UK cruisers

Hello all

I keep reading people's advice about making sure you have a good T/A that can get you discounted fares, OBC and do price watch for you.

Could you let me know if applies to UK cruisers also and, if so, does anyone want to recommend a 'cruise specialist' T/A that can get these things for you?

Ta

does anyone want to recommend a 'cruise specialist' T/A that can get these things for you?

Sorry, it's against Cruise Critic rules to recommend travel agents.

Best thing is to do a Google search for them and then get email quotes to compare.

Thanks Ray66

Can you at least confirm that these types of offers are open to UK cruisers also?

I do know of a couple of online T/A's that give lower fares than the cruise line. Have you tried clicking on the Deals tab at the top of this page? ;)

As for OBC, when I've been offered it, it has always been the same as what the cruise line offers.

We always book through a TA. Our TA always seeks out the best price and very often fights our case with regard to price drops. As a general rule, UK cruisers will not get any money back (either by reducing the cost of the cruise or as OBC) if companies drop the price of the cruise after your booking. That said, if you have a TA who is willing to keep "nagging" at the UK representative, they may do something as a "gesture of goodwill" just to get the TA off their back. I am speaking from experience here.

My first cruise (out of Florida) was booked through a UK TA, just because it seemed easiest. There were no perks and they were pretty useless - taking 3 days to answer an email and having a really long wait if you tried to phone. After that I switched to an online TA based in the USA who specialised in the cruise line and got a really great service, a good OBC and a lovely gift to welcome us in our state room. We did have to book the cruise in U.S. $, but by paying when the exchange rate was good this wasn't a problem. By naming the same TA when we booked a further cruise while onboard the ship we were able to get all the onboard booking perks, plus those from the TA for the same cruise. The cruise price was the same booked through the TA as booking direct. They would also pass on any price drops where relevant. The fact that they were in the U.S. And we were from the UK was irrelevant.

I agree, we've had fabulous service from USA online TA but we do compare and often get much better deals when we book onboard.

Look around for cruise specialists there are loads of them.

as others have said also look at the US and EU for suitable TA's.

There are also a few UK focused travel forums a couple are cruise related some more general travel good for deals and flights they are not TA's but point at the deals out there.

Pricing is a mess at the moment with all the packaging deconstructing to find the best option is not as easy as US,UK,EU have different deals.

Thank you all for your help on this. Now the search is on for a US/Europe based Princess Cruise Line specialist... Hummmm

You cannot book a Princess cruise through a U.S. TA you have to book with a UK one sadly. Princess are far cheaper in the main in the U.S. too, so it's really annoying.

You can book RCL, NCL, DCL Celebrity and Carnival with US TA's.

Booked a princess through Germany no problem.

My last princess UK price was 1/2 US price and I got my gratuities and OBC @ 1.66 $£.