Is it possible to negotiate some perks like discount on drinks packages or gratuitie

Has this been done before for an already discounted cabin? what would be the best way to go about it, by phone, I guess??

Again, if those with more negotiating expertise have any advice, I'd love to read about it :D

Kat

You might be able get some extra perks from your travel agent - it wouldn't hurt to call and ask for what you would like. Your TA may offer some or most of what you want, though if your fare was deeply discounted to begin with, you need to understand that your TA's commission is smaller because of the discount. (They generally have to buy perks from their commission.)

If you are dealing directly with Royal, you could possibly cancel and rebook your cruise before final payment if a sale with the perks you want comes along and the net result is favorable.

Good luck - hope you get the perks you want!

Judy

Has this been done before for an already discounted cabin? what would be the best way to go about it, by phone, I guess??

 

Again, if those with more negotiating expertise have any advice, I'd love to read about it :D

 

Kat

Perhaps with a travel agent, but I don't think you would have any success with RC direct. You just need to look at sales and book when you are happy with the price, if booking direct.

Thanks, guys! That makes sense. I didn't know about the travel agent / buying perks thing; I guess it wouldn't hurt to ring around a bit ;p

I called rc the other day to try for a discount on the drink package, no dice. However the travel agent was able to negotiate room rates for unique rooms that weren't book yet, like the different types of family suites .

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I’m a little confused by the title of this thread. Are you saying you want to negotiate the gratuities?

I’m a little confused by the title of this thread. Are you saying you want to negotiate the gratuities?

I think the OP wants to negotiate perks with a travel agent, one of which might be the travel agent paying gratuities for the guest.

Start by keeping an eye on cruise prices. It's hard to figure out whats going on @ Royal because it is always a sale with fluctuating prices. When they have their "Biggest Sale Ever" and you check the prices of the cabins that you want it doesn't always = savings$. Do a mock booking online and use that as a base line. Then just keep an eye on the price for your cabin category.

My approach may be a little different than others here as we have a constantly changing schedule and its hard for us to plan a vacation more than 6 months out. The best way is to just put a refundable deposit down as far out as you can and change the booking to the cheapest bidder. But with non-refundable deposits on the rise that seems to be getting more difficult to do. We would end up canceling and rescheduling alot.

Once the prices have dropped to what I am willing to pay then the fun begins.

You can't really negotiate the perks but you can shop around. I'll contact no less than 3 agents by email or phone and get a quote from them including the perks.

Then I'll take the one I like best and give the other 2 a chance to compete (usually they don't). You need to look at the conditions of the contracts too though.

It would be very expensive to cancel/change sail dates for us with the company we went with (They charge 100$pp to do this and there are 6 of us) but we knew that we would definitely be going on this cruise and it was under 90 days so we would lose more than that if we canceled anyways.

The company we chose offered us the best price for two balcony cabins (over 600$ cheaper than the next closest bidder and they were not BX) on top of that they gave us 400$ OBC. The next closest bidder couldn't change the price (600 more) but offered us free grats (for 2 of us) and 150$ OBC.

So spend some time shopping around and pricing things out. I think its one of the things most of us on this board enjoy doing. Shopping for the best price. After you get a great deal you shop for another... then another... then another. Before you know it your are 5 cruises in with 2 more booked. It can certainly be addictive. :D

-Sean

I’m a little confused by the title of this thread. Are you saying you want to negotiate the gratuities?

Well I often see offers for prepaid gratuities or gratuities included. Something like that.

At the end of the day, it's all money saved - whether it's gratuities, drinks package deals or on-board credit.

I kind of assumed that but wasn’t sure since he did not mention a travel agen until his second post after it was mentioned to him so just from the title it looked like, at least to me, that he wanted to know if he could negotiate with the cruise line.

He is a she and no, I wasn't going to negotiate on that with RC LOL. I know I could just decline to pay them altogether.