Making airline reservations

[roupa]

First time cruising out of a foreign port:    Cruising out of Venice and back home from Rome in the spring.  The cruise line offers to make flight arrangements.  I am looking for opinions / experiences on booking thru the cruise line vs making  arrangements independently.  I get nervous about "missing the boat", and the cruise line assures me that it will be their responsibility to get me on board should there be any sort of flight interruption.

[SFCAcruiser]

There is another forum on Cruise Critic called Cruise Air  where such topics come up frequently, very frequently. You can ask any specific questions you might have about your potential airline arrangements. Many of us have used Flights by Celebrity (aka Choice Air) and have been pleased.

[NantahalaCruiser]

2 hours ago, roupa said:

First time cruising out of a foreign port:    Cruising out of Venice and back home from Rome in the spring.  The cruise line offers to make flight arrangements.  I am looking for opinions / experiences on booking thru the cruise line vs making  arrangements independently.  I get nervous about "missing the boat", and the cruise line assures me that it will be their responsibility to get me on board should there be any sort of flight interruption.

Price it out first with your own arrangements and then check Flights by Celebrity to see if they are cheaper. Also note that you will select your seats with the carrier after booking through F by C. So make sure you check out the seat configurations for the flights you are looking at with your own arrangements. For our next cruise there were three different non-stop options for our outbound flight choice. Two of the flights had 3-3-3 configurations and one had our desired 2-4-2 so that my wife and I could sit together without a stranger next to us in a third seat! Luckily the only one inbound flight option was also a 2-4-2.

[Cruise Junky]

If you’re going to price it out yourself, use the multi city function, not two one ways. 

[waterbug123]

Yes, getting you to the next port if you miss the ship is a big advantage of buying airfare through the cruise line.  The risk of missing the ship though, can be mitigated by planning to fly in a day or two early.   That is generally recommended for a number of reasons.

The other potential advantage is cost savings, just understand that some of the bulk fare tickets sold by cruise lines may have some rules and restrictions attached that don't apply to published fare tickets.  These sometimes become apparent only if and when there are major disruptions on travel day.  Again though, arriving a couple of days early can minimize that potential downside, as you have more time to be re-accommodated and still make the ship.  Arriving early also allows time to explore the city of embarkation, get adjusted to jet lag, allow delayed luggage time to get to you before boarding, etc.

[JohninDC]

I would spend at least 1-2 days pre-cruise in Venice and you may want to tack on a day or two (I've been several times and could easily spend 4-7 days) post cruise to tour Rome.

 

Check the Ital cruise board for suggestions for booking your own transport if you choose not to use the cruise air.  In Venice there are many options, depending upon where your hotel is located, including a water taxi!

[Bruin Steve]

16 hours ago, roupa said:

First time cruising out of a foreign port:    Cruising out of Venice and back home from Rome in the spring.  The cruise line offers to make flight arrangements.  I am looking for opinions / experiences on booking thru the cruise line vs making  arrangements independently.  I get nervous about "missing the boat", and the cruise line assures me that it will be their responsibility to get me on board should there be any sort of flight interruption.

I have now used Celebrity Choice Air several times--including for my upcoming Asia cruise in December and for my back-to-back cruises next June/July out of Amsterdam...

 

First, I price the trip using kayak, travelocity and other websites like that--to get an idea of what is available.  Then I go to the Choice Air page and price it there.

 

Taking, for example, my Amsterdam flights:  One big decision is nonstop versus stopping somewhere.  kayak found me some VERY cheap fares--like under $800 pp (LAX-Amsterdam)--but looking closely, they were all one stop or more in each direction (greater chance for missed connections, lost luggage, etc.) AND many of the connection times were outright screwy--like flying into Heathrow arriving 10:00 pm and departing the next day for Amsterdam at 11:00 am--meaning you're not just changing planes, you're in need of an overnight hotel and ground transportation--adding lots of cost, time and bother to those "low cost" flights  Yet others had a change of airport--like fly into Heathrow, depart from Gatwick--a major pain in the neck, added transportation expense and the chance of missing the connection.  Others had us changing planes in Keflavik, Iceland, then flying into Brussels and taking a train from Brussels into Amsterdam!  When it came to finding one-stop flights with reasonable layover times, the prices went considerably higher.  So, try to only compare with those reasonable flight itineraries.

 

When we looked on those websites for nonstops, the fares jumped all the way over $1500 pp.

 

Then, when we looked on Choice Air, we noticed, first, that they only listed reasonable itineraries.  They had one-stops around $1000 pp...But they were also showing round trip nonstops on KLM for our dates at $1110 pp...We grabbed it!

 

Of course, over time, just like on other booking sites, those prices waver...We were actually smart to book when we did as even on Choice Air, those fares have gone up...and the choice of flight times has diminished as flights fill up.

 

We were also able to plug in dates we wanted, not just the default of embarkation day to disembarkation day...important to us since it's back-to-back...but also VERY important because you should want to, at least, fly in a couple of days (or more) early and spend some time after wards as well (especially since you are doing Venice to Rome).  Know that you will be fatigued, jetlagged and several time zones off your schedule when you arrive...nice to have both time to recover and time to see Venice (or anywhere else you fly into).  Plus, it's a hedge against delays and missed connections--Yes, Celebrity may get you to the ship, but no fun if that's two days later in Dubrovnik!

 

For our Asia trip, we plugged in not only the quasi-round trip (LAX-Hong Kong, Singapore-LAX) but also priced it out as two separate one-ways...Turned out we found better deals going with the two one-ways.  But the website doesn't allow that--so I CALLED Choice Air and the agent was able to set it up that way for us.

 

OTOH, when we did Alaska back in June, we found cheaper flights (nonstop both ways LAX to Anchorage, Vancouver to LAX) booking it on our own--so we did it that way.  Choice Air has limited flights since they tend to buy bulk tickets.  Last year, when we cruised back-to-back cruises out of Rome, we found a much better fare on our own with Air Berlin (LAX-Rome, RT for $745 pp in June/July) but that may have been the worst airline I've ever flown on...and they screwed around with the flight schedules--cancelling flights and putting us on different days, costing us in our hotel and land arrangements--Of course, all the airlines do this a little, but not as wildly different as these guys.  And the legroom in coach was virtually nonexistent.

 

Good luck...