Booking onboard - C & A person

[Mickeefan]

How much help finding a cruise should we expect from C & A person when we book onboard? Is it customary to have a cruise picked out and just have it booked on the ship? Or, can we request some assistance with finding what we want when we go for an appointment?

[Clarea]

How much help finding a cruise should we expect from C & A person when we book onboard? Is it customary to have a cruise picked out and just have it booked on the ship? Or, can we request some assistance with finding what we want when we go for an appointment?

They are there to help you pick out a cruise.

[phoenix1181]

They seem to have a pretty tight schedule & don't [generally] allow much time for each appointment so you should probably at least have an idea of what you're looking for.

[hipster1]

Also, if you go to the computer room, you can view the RCI or Celebrity websites for free to see which cruises interest you. That way, you can have an idea on where you want to go before you set a time up with the C&A person.

 

Ali

[JasonV1]

If you know you want to book, check the first day as they sometimes do an early-bird raffle (for those that book then). I won the one on Explorer during my last cruise and it was for $300 OBC. My cruise was an 8 day, so I can't say if they do it on every cruise regardless of length.

 

I didn't even know about it until an extra $300 credit showed on my account the second day. I didn't say anything, but the second to last night I got a certificate in my cabin stating that I had one. Certificate said it would be applied the last full day of the cruise, but it had already been applied several days before.

 

The nice thing is they never seem to be busy if you show up that first day, which is probably why they do the raffle.

[Ourusualbeach]

If you know you want to book, check the first day as they sometimes do an early-bird raffle (for those that book then). I won the one on Explorer during my last cruise and it was for $300 OBC. My cruise was an 8 day, so I can't say if they do it on every cruise regardless of length.

 

I didn't even know about it until an extra $300 credit showed on my account the second day. I didn't say anything, but the second to last night I got a certificate in my cabin stating that I had one. Certificate said it would be applied the last full day of the cruise, but it had already been applied several days before.

 

The nice thing is they never seem to be busy if you show up that first day, which is probably why they do the raffle.

 

That had the same raffle on the Freedom over Christmas. I won that one, a great Christmas present. I was wondering if they were doing this on different ships now. I found put on 2'nd last day of cruise and the OBC that they gave me was refundable OBC.

 

OP I would agree with others that yu should have an idea of what you want to book. Appointment lengths are 30 minutes and it goes by quick. Others are waiting.

Edited January 21, 2015 by Ourusualbeach

[goodycruising]

Our first time we got handed a cruise book that was very out of date price wise, and even the cruise we were actually on was different in the port configuration to what the book said! Don't know if they still print those things?

 

We have been told that they have limited access to internet due to the satellite situation (this was in Australia/New Zealand waters), and when we recently went, with a printed out deck plan, the C&A consultant said our plan was bigger than what he could see on the screen.

 

We have also looked at the internet café, and it was very slow, just like if you pay for a package. It is certainly worth a quick look there though, before you go to your appointment, as even if you researched before the price may have changed.

 

It depends a lot on the ship and the amount of staff they have on. We found on Voyager (approx. 3,000 pax) we had one consultant and there were people waiting that hadn't booked a time slot, which put the pressure on. On Radiance (approx. 2,000 pax) there were two consultants and they were much more relaxed, but still pretty well booked after the first couple of days.

[marci22]

I would just ask all of your questions here. You have lots of time and can ask anything you want and will get lots of opinions.

 

At least narrow down your choices.

 

Even when you know what you want, it takes 15-20 minutes to get it all done by the loyalty person.