Pricing ?

[Gitmo]

2 hours ago, cruiseej said:

@Gitmo The one thing I'd say about using a travel agent who is familiar with Seabourn (or whatever cruise line you're looking at) is that they can give you valuable advice regarding your booking. Awhile back, we were considering whether to take a suite on Deck 5 of the Odyssey, I wanted to better understand the "part metal veranda railing" on that deck; my travel agent was able to quickly add to that limited description Seabourn provides, as well as send me a few personal pictures from the outside and inside which immediately helped clarify my choice. For another example, on some suites directly under parts of the pool deck on some ships are known to have noise in the morning from cleaning and deck chair moving, so a TA familiar with the ship can advise you of suites you might want to stay away from. You shouldn't need to give up a good price in order to get a TA who can offer that kind of specific knowledge.

 

We just this week booked an Antarctica cruise for next winter. We very much wanted to do it on Seabourn, but after a lot of back-and-forth with our TA, we booked on Silversea. (Not to get sidetracked on that: we wanted a smaller expedition ship and in itinerary which included South Georgia Island, and Seabourn's itineraries on the Venture were unfortunately too long and too expensive for us.) Any TA can read the brochures and online info, as I can, but a TA that has been on the ships and works regularly with the cruise line can provide you more information and sometimes get additional help from the cruise line. Another example: Silversea was offering a 10% early booking discount expiring October 31, but we weren't prepared to pay in full for the discount last week; our TA was able to get Silversea to give us two additional months to make payment and still receive the discount. I don't know if I could have found a bigger rebate from going to a large agency or shopping around on the Internet, but I feel I got a very good discount (rebate plus shipboard credits in excess of $1,000 per person) plus valuable information working with a TA that is deeply knowledgeable about the cruise lines I'm asking questions about. 

Thank you for the advice.  We will be looking for a TA familiar with Seaborne when we get on the ship.  Have fun in Antarctica and we look forward to hearing from you about the trip.

[Gitmo]

2 hours ago, rl787 said:

Gitmo, sounds like you have done well....... I hope you have a Hawker's licence!!

; )