Book with an agent or Carnival directly?

[ShakyBeef]

You are more or less correct.

 

If I need to cancel my booking, change cabins or make a payment I have to go directly through my TA. I can deal direct with Carnival for add-ons like booking excursions, specialty dining reservations, pre-purchasing bev packages etc.

 

 

Oh, OK, thanks for the clarification.:)

 

So, if you spot a price drop, can you submit the form to Carnival, or do you need to contact your TA and have him do it? (Not that I submit the form myself - I just call or email my PVP and I get the confirmation email showing the credit within a few minutes.)

[cruzeluver]

If I were to come across a price drop, I would need to contact my TA to get it applied. Mine actually does a better job than I do of looking for price drops. On a few cruises she has contacted us to let us know we can either keep the same cabin and get the price reduction or upgrade to a better room.

[ShakyBeef]

If I were to come across a price drop, I would need to contact my TA to get it applied. Mine actually does a better job than I do of looking for price drops. On a few cruises she has contacted us to let us know we can either keep the same cabin and get the price reduction or upgrade to a better room.

 

 

Thanks for the info. It sounds like you've got a good one. Since I will be cruising with RCI and other lines that don't have PVPs more in the future, I'll eventually be looking for a good TA that gives good perks to use for those cruises. From my (one) experience, Royal seems to be geared towards booking with TAs. So I appreciate the TA education.:)

[Sweet Dutch Girl]

Aren't we ALL glad there are so many ways to book! Make's it EASY for all of us.

[munchkin4]

The responses are interesting to me.

 

Even though we don't cruise as often as most we have been lucky enough to travel the world over a couple times now. Never once have we used a travel agent. I do the planning and booking online. Usually with online travel sites. Never once have we missed as much as a train or plane connection and never have we had an issue at a hotel with our reservations. Not once. I do believe in a former life, I was a travel agent. lol I love to do the planning and I book everything down to the exact nano second. I know where we'll be when we'll be there and who I'll be speaking with when we get there. Doesn't matter if it's across the street or 15 or 20 thousand miles away. I'm in charge.

 

Like you, we don't use a travel agent.....I do it all myself by doing my research and my own booking. I do use a PVP for Carnival mainly because if I have any issues I can just email her and she takes care of it. BEFORE I call my PVP though, I have done my homework on the Carnival site. I know exactly what cabin I want and anything else she might need to know. I just like the assurance that she can help me out if something comes up.

[Sweet Dutch Girl]

Like you, we don't use a travel agent.....I do it all myself by doing my research and my own booking. I do use a PVP for Carnival mainly because if I have any issues I can just email her and she takes care of it. BEFORE I call my PVP though, I have done my homework on the Carnival site. I know exactly what cabin I want and anything else she might need to know. I just like the assurance that she can help me out if something comes up.

 

You do realize that major travel agencies do have access to "more" rooms than those that are available on the web site...at least prior to final payment. They also have "direct" numbers to Carnival that online or phone bookers don't have.

[Rottweiler Puppy]

So, if you're booked through your TA, you can still speak and deal with Carnival directly, yourself? And make all changes / requests? You don't have to have your TA talk to Carnival for you? I was under the impression once you're booked with a TA, the cruise line will only deal with the TA regarding your booking. Am I misunderstanding how it works?:confused: I've never used a TA.

 

I should have said mostly. My TA goes to bat for me and does it all. No different than a PVP in my experience. Added benefit of extra OBC booking through her of course . I was able to change excursions, and such myself. Any price drop, she does it no problem. Finds ones I wasn't aware of, etc.

 

Virtually the same experience, but better. I wish I could give you her information but I think I could get banned for it.

Edited January 28, 2016 by Rottweiler Puppy

[BuckeyeMan]

Just a guess here but I am guessing it depends on age. I would guess that most under the age of say... 55 would book themselves or with Carnival and the older posters would vote for a TA. Younger generations is more used to shopping and using the internet for research. Plus I like doing it myself as no one has more interest in my cruise and my $$$ than me. I watch much closer than any TA would monitor the situation.

 

My last cruise booked through a TA I called them to inform them of a price drop instead of the other way around.

[mel-b]

I'll throw a different option in this mix! We've cruised quite a bit, and other than booking NCL's Epic when she first came out through a TA friend, I've always gone through the cruise lines directly. I prefer to do my own research online, then call in and speak with a live person at the cruise line.

 

However, for our upcoming cruise on the Breeze in March, I ended up booking through American Airlines. Since we fly a lot and like to rack up mileage, we jump at the chance to have additional miles. American has been pushing their vacations department, and at least as of last month, were offering up to 3 times the cost of your cruise in mileage. We paid the same cost for our cove balcony through American as if I'd gone directly through Carnival. The added bonus was earning 3 times the cost of our cruise in miles. At the end of the day, that's not necessarily a lot. Unless you're spending $10k on a cruise, then you're looking at 30k in miles, which can easily cover a domestic round trip ticket.

 

I don't prefer to have a middle man in my vacation transactions, but it was worth it to use American's TA in order to obtain the miles.

[ShakyBeef]

No TA is going to catch any price drops that I don't. And they would have to be very lucky / vigilant to catch one even a few minutes before I do.;):cool: