Best Place to book on-line?
 

Where is the best place to book a cruise to get the best prices. I have found that there are so many different prices for the same cruise???? I would like to book a cruise for June 3oth on the Adventure of the Seas.

AMERICAN EXPRESS TRAVEL SERVICES ONLINE. Trust me. You can't go wrong. They have a price guarantee.

Hi Marilyn:<BR><BR>I took a cruise last year in April during Easter. I booked my cruise online through Travelocity.com aproximately 5 weeks before and got a really great deal! The cruiseline couldn't beat the price and I got a better cabin location. The website has all the major cruiselines at great prices log on and have fun. You can take virtual tours of the ships and read other traveler reviews and there are always specials going on. Good Luck!!!

Thank for giving me your input. I will check both options out. Seeing that it is 5 months off. I have a feeling the closer to the time we plan on going (June) they will have better deals? I have read about booking best available? But don't know much about it.

Try cruise.com. We got a great deal on the Grand Princess. You need to call an agent with the telphone # listed on the website.

I've also had great experience with cruise.com. Their prices are often unbelievable.

try buycruises.com (Suzanne). had a good experience with them.

Try www.crusetheseas.com. I worke with an agent named Stan and got a much better deal tan I got at some of the above named websites. Try them all - maybe it varies by cruise

Has anyone used www.cruisequick.com for booking? I booked a cruise with them two weeks ago and found the best price plus at that time the cruiseline was telling me the specific cruise I wanted was sold out. I guess they are probably consolidators who buy up cabins. Everything is done on-line without any phone contact, however, they very promptly asked every question I e-mailed in and gave me prices back in about two hours on every cruise I checked. They were not aggravated that I wanted to check more than one cruiseline and more than one date as many of the TA's are. I hope that this works out because I am pretty fed up with TA's who never get back to you or act like they are doing you a favor to get you a price. One TA I used a couple of years ago on a cruise about a month before Premier went under told me that she never got her commission from them as if that were my fault!

Hi jjudymac,<BR><BR>Customers obviously get annoyed when agents give them the bums rush. But it's a real problem for agents too.<BR><BR>Take this example. A customer calls about a $500 special. If the agent closes the deal, the agency might make $75. Let's say it's a couple so it's $150 which sounds fair. The problem is that this agency has advertised in the Sunday travel section of the local paper and receives twenty calls for each sale. Now let's say that the agent is conscientious and spends 15 minutes with each caller. You get the idea.<BR><BR>I know you think you're special but when you call cold, the agent is thinking another lookie loo who thinks I'm the public library.<BR><BR>If you're new to sailing and don't have a clue, a travel agent, unless they're nuts, isn't going to sit there and answer questions for hours. They can't. What's the answer. Books, forums like this. Once you have some idea of what you want, browse the discount brokers, or websites like Travelocity. They have infinite patience. Thanks to technology, with just a few clicks, you can see exactly what is available in terms of cabin and price.

I just broke a cruise through uniglobe 1-888-886-2010. I talked to the agent name Gail ext. 11816. She is very helpful and patient. She tried different cruise line in order to find me a good price. Although I found out icruise.com price is $8.00 cheaper on the same cruise and $16.00 cheaper on the shipping and handle fee, I still prefer use uniglobe because I like to deal with live agent. <BR><BR>Good Luck!

I booked my cruise through a local agency, he did a great job, his price was good and he showed me by printing the prices from 4 cruise online shops, why book online when you can get better service from an individual I say, also he was good to return calls and emails.<BR>He was [email protected]

Hey [email protected] you've got to get a little more subtle. You just posted in our real persona in the post above. I would hate to use such a dumb agent.<BR>

We had good luck with Mytravelco.com when we booked a cruise last summer. When the prices dropped on our cruise 2ce, each time we got a refund.Its important to find a co. that will do this without hassles, as the price will likely drop as sailing time approaches.

Many of the web cruise brokers and the real biggies, Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz feature specials, some very good, somme bad. But it's like the supermarkets that feature multipage ads describing what's on sale that week. At least, you can look through the ads and save.<BR><BR>I used a local travel agent for years. The problem was that she seemed to have a few favorites that never changed. She really didn't or couldn't tell me about this about weeks blue plate specials. Maybe she didn't have access to them.<BR><BR>We browse the various web sites regularly and jump on greate deals when we find them.

Booked a Christmas cruise through mytravel and got a much better rate than from the TAs-and I checked with a few to see if they could match the price so as to give them the business but they couldn't even come close. We're talking $400 per person difference, and since we're a large party (14), that's quite a savings! Oh, I did my research online then called and booked with an agent who then gave me an even better price than what was on line.

I just booked through MyTravel--CruisesOnly with a great deal.(2 weeks in Caribbean for Oct. 2002). My local travel agent couldn't come close. I used the #800 to call CruisesOnly and the final deal was even less than the online quote. So don't give up--try different sources.

No matter who you book with, make sure your agent babysits your booking by calling the cruise regularly to see if the price has dropped. Princess, for example, will give you the better price only if you call, not automatically. Prices fall for many reasons: low bookings, regional promotions, etc. On our last cruise, they had a Canadian promotion which saved me 18% of the exchange rate. Not bad, eh?<BR><BR>It's best to book early to get the cabin you want, especially if you're looking a quad.