Personal Cruise Consultant ?? New Thing!

[sparks1093]

Here's some advice. Don't book directly with most airlines on one way Trans Atlantic fares.

 

Air2Sea is awesome.

 

Still surprised you don't think free tips are valuable. $25 a day = $175

 

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I can certainly see value in many of the perks mentioned and if I found a TA that was offering to cover the tips I'd have to seriously consider giving them a shot, but I've never seen one offering that for the category of cabin that I was booking. (And all of our airfare to Europe so far has been roundtrip since we only do land vacations there at this point in our lives.)

[John&LaLa]

I can certainly see value in many of the perks mentioned and if I found a TA that was offering to cover the tips I'd have to seriously consider giving them a shot, but I've never seen one offering that for the category of cabin that I was booking. (And all of our airfare to Europe so far has been roundtrip since we only do land vacations there at this point in our lives.)

 

Oh yea, free tips usually require a balcony cabin.

 

Pretty sure round trip is cheaper as well.

 

We have round trip Orlando to Copenhagen for 2 grand in Delta One. Delta direct was 8 grand.

 

Coach fares are remarkably inexpensive as well

 

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[sparks1093]

Oh yea, free tips usually require a balcony cabin.

 

Pretty sure round trip is cheaper as well.

 

We have round trip Orlando to Copenhagen for 2 grand in Delta One. Delta direct was 8 grand.

 

Coach fares are remarkably inexpensive as well

 

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We always book a balcony, guess I just haven't looked at the right time.

[John&LaLa]

We always book a balcony, guess I just haven't looked at the right time.

Truly a shame we aren't allowed to give recognition for our hard working TA's

 

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[sparks1093]

Truly a shame we aren't allowed to give recognition for our hard working TA's

 

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One other thing that I just thought of- it is quite possible that TA's for CCL and NCL don't offer as many perks as TA's do for Royal. Next time I book a Royal cruise I'll have to take a look.

[John&LaLa]

One other thing that I just thought of- it is quite possible that TA's for CCL and NCL don't offer as many perks as TA's do for Royal. Next time I book a Royal cruise I'll have to take a look.

Good luck

 

I haven't done CCL or NCL in 10 years

 

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[travellovers2]

Just a follow up to this post. We went on the cruise last month. The TA said she was sending us a bottle of wine "on her" since we were celebrating  our anniversary on that cruise. Never happened. During our cruise she sent an email asking us to book our next cruise onboard and give her name. Well that never happened either. 🙂 🙂 When we got home, I emailed her back letting her know that we were not interested in booking with her again. I should have asked about the wine. 

 

A few weeks ago, we were able to book a cruise online with Celebrity and one with RCI by calling C&A since we become diamond on that one cruise in a couple of months and had a question about it. He says he is sending us a bottle of wine to celebrate our becoming diamond. We'll see.  

 

So it must have been a glitch that asked us to book with a consutant. Good TA's are out there, this was not one of them. We do have one on HAL that has been excellent every single time we book with her. I noticed that after I logged in to Princess to look for a cruise to Asia, I got a call from a guy saying he would be our cruise consultant and now I receive promotional emails from him. Looks like all the cruise lines are doing this now. So we will keep our fingers crossed if ever dealing with a TA again, just not this person on RCI.  

Edited November 24, 2018 by travellovers2

[Iamcruzin]

On 6/22/2018 at 6:55 AM, sparks1093 said:

 

Exactly, and not relying on someone else to do it for me. I don't have to wait until they are open, I don't have to wonder if what they are telling me is what the cruise line really said, I don't have to worry about them going out of business, I don't have to worry about my payments making it to the cruise line, I don't have to deal with them making a mistake in my booking details or anything along those lines. I have read of people having each of those issues with TA's in my time on CC and I choose to deal with the company itself rather than a third party.

I'm with you with what you stated. I usually book direct. However this time I actually used a my big box warehouse club for the first time. The only reason I am using them is at the time I didn't have the money for the deposit and they were offering to cover it. I knew if I waited that the price would go up. I researched other travel agents who were offering the same thing. The only difference was that this agency was offering an additional $250 OBC. I have never been offered anything close to that for a low end balcony room. On every board there is someone spouting that their TA saved them thousands of dollars but they never tell you that it was for a 30 day cruise in a Grande Suite. My offers usually are $50 obc for a 7-9 day cruise in an OV or Balcony. Not worth it to lose control of the booking.  I have tried all of the big online TA's as well as the one that bids for you business and the offers are all the same. I'm curious to see how this plays out. If everything goes as promised I will consider using them again.

Edited November 24, 2018 by Iamcruzin

[sparks1093]

7 minutes ago, Iamcruzin said:

I'm with you with what you stated. I usually book direct. However this time I actually used a my big box warehouse club for the first time. The only reason I am using them is at the time I didn't have the money for the deposit and they were offering to cover it. I knew if I waited that the price would go up. I researched other travel agents who were offering the same thing. The only difference was that this agency was offering an additional $250 OBC. I have never been offered anything close to that for a low end balcony room. On every board there is someone spouting that their TA saved them thousands of dollars but they never tell you that it was for a 30 day cruise in a Grande Suite. My offers usually are $50 obc for a 7-9 day cruise in an OV or Balcony. Not worth it to lose control of the booking.  I have tried all of the big online TA's as well as the one that bids for you business and the offers are all the same. I'm curious to see how this plays out. If everything goes as promised I will consider using them again.

I recently checked the offerings for the big box warehouse club and they now offer cruises on more mainstream lines. When I first checked them this wasn't the case (or they just weren't offering them at the time I checked) and for a balcony cabin with either Royal or Carnival they were offering a gift card of up to $160 to use in the warehouse. Coupled with the fact that I also get 2% of the booking cost back at the end of the year it's very tempting. I also recently did a google search for TA's specializing in cruises that had some tantalizing offers (such as covering the deposit, which can be helpful), so the next time we book a cruise I'll be expanding my search to see what I can find.