Reflection changed from 1610 to 1599

[gryffin123]

Was this a good move? My travel agent was not happy that I asked for yet another change in our reservation. :(

 

He'd really like it to be the last one I make before we sail.

[koolforkatz]

Great move. Now you have the extra large balcony.

[ariawoman]

Was this a good move? My travel agent was not happy that I asked for yet another change in our reservation. :(

 

He'd really like it to be the last one I make before we sail.

 

Did you ask for a lot out of this TA? Even if you did, it takes literally 30 seconds to swap cabins in the booking engine.

 

If they made a fuss, time to reach out to a new TA, in my opinion. :-) You having the best vacation experience possible, should be their goal.

 

And, since you're not sailing until 12/7 and final payment isn't due til what, October, he should expect to hear from you if any needs arise. Price drops happen, promotions happen, etc.

 

I imagine the ones that get aggitated by servicing their clients are ones that don't really love doing it. Fortunately that's not the case for all TAs. :-)

[miched]

I would switch TA's. I was told by my TA that I was the easiest customer she has because I call and book and don't cancel. She claims many will have her check and check and want the cheapest cabin, cheapest flights, and hotels that she tries to arrange and then want SBC and other perks and then not book because the price is too high or offended because they don't qualify for the promotions.

 

I have changed cabins a few times and never had any mention of it being too much trouble or it being a problem.

 

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[ariawoman]

I would switch TA's. I was told by my TA that I was the easiest customer she has because I call and book and don't cancel. She claims many will have her check and check and want the cheapest cabin, cheapest flights, and hotels that she tries to arrange and then want SBC and other perks and then not book because the price is too high or offended because they don't qualify for the promotions.

 

I have changed cabins a few times and never had any mention of it being too much trouble or it being a problem.

 

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That's because it's truly NOT a problem. The booking engine for agents provided by RCL makes it very easy to change cabins, takes less than a minute if you know what you're doing. And yes, it's the clients that cancel wanting the deal somewhere else instead that kill us, not the clients that want us to actually do our jobs! If someone wants me to change their cabin 10 times over the course of the reservation, so be it. Good agents will also be on the lookout for promotions that might apply to your reservation, or price drops (now of course that's harder depending on the client load at the time).

 

Either way the role of a TA is to provide a service to the client, so if you are getting a hard time getting that service, it's time to reach out to someone who's more than happy to provide that service to you. :-)

[wallie5446]

Was this a good move? My travel agent was not happy that I asked for yet another change in our reservation. :(

 

He'd really like it to be the last one I make before we sail.

 

Ask if he would like you to transfer the booking so as not to bother him anymore. Looks like a great change from the cheap seats! :D

[ariawoman]

Ask if he would like you to transfer the booking so as not to bother him anymore. Looks like a great change from the cheap seats! :D

 

Unfortunately a lot of agencies would charge to do that :( Even with Celebrity you only get 60 days to transfer out. Each agency will differ, but most will penalize if you want to take the booking away from them, because obviously they are losing the commission they were once going to earn.

 

Personally, I'd rather do all I could to keep a client happy, than ever have them think about moving a reservation to someone else. I just dont get when all agents don't feel that way, but I guess it's like every other job - some people are just more into it than others. To some it's a job, to some it's "fun".

[gryffin123]

I probably have asked the travel agent to make too many changes, but I think some of the changes I ended up making were because he wasn't able to provide me with any help making the right decision up front. Maybe my expectations were too high, but aside from "you want a cabin in the middle of the ship", he hasn't really given me any advice.

 

For anyone who wants to sit through the whole story in detail, here it is:

 

We contacted the travel agent because after looking through several possible options on different lines our own, we felt we should get professional advice to pick the best choice, and we wanted to minimize the research we needed to do on our own. I've never cruised. My fiancé has been on one RCL cruise that was selected by his parents using this travel agent. His parents have used this travel agent to book 10 cruises. So we decided to give him a call.

 

We specified a time period in December, that we wanted to cruise the Caribbean for 7-10 days, and that we wanted to splurge a little because it is our honeymoon. We said that we wanted quieter, more "upscale" experience than my fiance had on RCL- don't get me wrong, he enjoyed RCL and he would cruise with them again, we just wanted an experience targeted more towards adults than families for our honeymoon (we are in our mid-late 40s). We also said that we wanted to choose a line that was not mostly targeted at an older age group than us.

 

The travel agent sent us a list of itineraries, one 11-day from Celebrity, one 10-day from Princess, one 10-day from Oceania, one 9-day from NCL and 4-5 options from RCL, ranging from 7-10 days. At first, we thought we would go with the Oceania itinerary, but before we confirmed this with him, I discovered Cruise Critic and found out my own that Oceania probably has a much higher age demographic and less active shore excursions than we were looking for and that we really liked what I read about Celebrity. The travel agent really didn't want to give an opinion about which line or ports we should visit, but when I pressed, he said he preferred RCL and the Oasis or the Allure. We really didn't want to be on that big of a ship, so we picked Celebrity.

 

I was concerned about the Celebrity itinerary which was going to several stops in Central America, and he assured me the ports were safe, so we booked- I asked about AQ, he wasn't familiar with it, but booked us in that class because it looked good to me on paper. He didn't have a specific recommendation on the cabin, except to be as midship as possible. I found out a day or so later that the cabin we picked was one that had fan noise issues on the balcony and asked to be moved to 1552 (which I chose based on Cruise Critic feedback).

 

A few days later, I became aware that there have been travel advisories in some of the ports we were going to visit, and the things we read made my fiancé and I nervous. In hindsight, we definitely overreacted, but we asked the travel agent to change the cruise because of our safety concerns. We switched to the 10-day Princess itinerary, but after doing so, two things happened- one: my dad needed a lot of help because of an injury and I used up a lot of vacation time (we also became concerned about being out of touch from my dad for two weeks) and two: we read lot of negative feedback about Princess. We decided that we needed to select a shorter cruise and that we wanted back on Celebrity. On our own, we found several additional itineraries on Celebrity in December and picked a 7-day cruise. We asked the travel agent to cancel the Princess cruise and book the 7-day Celebrity Reflection cruise. This week I asked him to look into the promotion that starts tomorrow, and he said that next time, I should make sure that the promotion actually improves our situation (our fare went up yesterday, so there is no benefit for us with the promotion) before asking him to investigate. Our fare hadn't yet increased when I had last checked it, which was only a couple of hours before he checked it and found that it had increased. Yesterday I asked for the cabin change from 1610 to 1599 that was the subject of this thread.

 

So yes, I admit, I have asked for more changes than are probably typical. I do feel badly about that and I am willing to pay extra for his time (he didn't give me that option up front, he had told us that everything booked through him was completely refundable if anything came up and we needed to make a change). I do think that he didn't have enough information to guide us, and if he had, we may not have made as many changes as we did. I just didn't like the tone with which he said that if I make another change, I'll have to charge you for it, because it is a big imposition on his time (he says it takes him an hour). I am very willing to pay for his extra time so that my vacation is the best it can be- I just don't like being made to feel guilty about making such changes. In the end, all I have learned is that if we did this on our own, we would have been able to make the changes ourselves, and that we probably should have just done that because we ended up doing all the research on our own anyway. As far as I know, we didn't get any additional incentives for the cruise by booking through a travel agent- he said that if we had picked RCL, he could have offered us some incentives.

 

I also did the research for and picked the flights and hotels myself- he said he couldn't offer us anything more than we could do on our own for this part.

 

At the end of the day, I don't even know if we really did pick the right cruise for our honeymoon, since the one we ended up picking was not on the list he gave us initially. But even if we didn't, I don't dare change it again. There is a part of me that just wants to cancel the whole thing though.

 

Sorry. Rant over.

[just_looking]

You should at least be getting some OBC from the travel agent. I'm surprised that he's complaining to you because it sounds like he's making top dollar on your booking. :(

[miched]

Here are some things to consider about the AQ.

 

Our first cruise on X was on the Soltice that is a S class like the Reflection, in AQ, we had been on at least 20 cruises before that.

 

It was fantastic and it was by far the nicest cruise experience.

 

You get a bottle of Champagne in your cabin.

 

Nice reclining chairs on the balcony and separate foot rests

 

A nice multi spray shower panel that my wife liked so much that one will be installed in our bathroom.

 

The cabins in the middle of the ship have a large overhang that protects you from the direct sun and rain.

 

You get nicer bath products, plusher robes, flip flop disposable slippers to keep, a nicer tote bag along with the cheap one, nice pen and leather paper set, leather cc holder and bottled water. There are other also other perks such as more on the room service menu, a vase with fresh flowers, plus the so called priorities, more pillows, and a daily pitcher of herbal tea.

 

The Persian Gardens is really nice to relax on the heated loungers plus the other areas are interesting.

 

Dining in Blu for breakfast you get fresh OJ and grape fruit juice plus smoothies. There is a charge for those in the buffet or at the Aqua Spa Cafe. Plus it is nice to sit down for breakfast and be served instead of standing line in the buffet.

 

Being in AQ for the fiirst time you may decide on not dining in any of the specialty restuarants as Blu is darn close to one. It is set up for tables for 2 but they are close enough to the others that you can engage in a conversation if you wish.

 

Being your honeymoon I would say go for it and do AQ. If you like clean cuisine you will love Blu and I don't think you could find a better ship for your honeymoon. As soon as you board you will be given a glass of champagne and then look around and go WOW.

 

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[hansolosmom]

Really you shouldn't feel bad or anything about the changes you've made. I think your requests were reasonable.

 

I've used one of the on-line TAs I got off this site. I picked the agency mostly because the actual office is the next state over & I figured I could pick up tickets if anything happened. Yes this was in the days they sent you tickets & luggage tags.

 

When we did our Canada trip 2 years ago, I rebooked that 3 times. It started out as a 7 day to Bermuda in August & ended up as a 9 day to Canada/New England in June because of family things that came up. The TA was nothing but pleasant when I made changes. In fact she was apologetic over perks I lost due to changing the trip. I completely understood & they even waived the cancellation fees they normally charge.

 

Yesterday I was trying to book the Quantum of the Seas & we were looking for a specific room. She actually called Royal to talk to them & then called me back. That's the kind of service which will have me coming back.