Book with ecruises.com or Travelocity
 

I am booking a 7 day western carib cruise on Voyager of the seas. I have very close pricing from Travelocity and Ecruises.com. I don't have any experience with either, does anyone have any advice with who I should book it though? thanks!

Both are excellent, and so is cruisequick.com. Try calling both and see if you can get a lower price, you usually can. Also try cruisequick.com. <BR>The rule is shop around, no one always has the lowest price!!!!

Lots of people on this board have been recommending CruiseQuick.com lately, so I got a quote from them and bingo....it was $300 cheaper than the next closest quote for exactly the same cabin/ship/date. In the past I've also had real good luck with both BestPriceCruises.com and MyTravelCo.com.....but CruiseQuick beat them both this time. Just make sure your quotes include EVERYTHING, and are for the same cabin category. By the way CruiseQuick is strictly internet and e-mail based so there's no calling. I guess that's how they keep hteir costs down.

Try buycruises.com. You can get a price on this site by selecting booking on line.

I would never buy a cruise from an internet site. My travel agent gets me the best prices, and she is there for me after she's made the sale. For example, we had to postpone our cruise, and she was able to get them to transfer all our money to another cruise, with no penalties. I don't think you will get that kind of service from the internet. With the world situation being what it is, I feel better knowing that there's somebody behind me.

I have had worse luck with the local TA's. Service was terrible and prices are sky high. <BR>No problems with the one I found through the internet. She has transferred a cruise for me with no problems. Just because the TA is from an internet site does not make them bad. <BR>There are good and bad TA's all over. The internet has nothing to do with it.<BR><BR>

Athena try this cruise with your TA. Norwegian Dawn on May 3, 2003 out of Miami 14 days to New York, with airfare from New York, all charges, air, and insurance included cat J stateroom for 2 $2615.00 total price. When your TA comes in at about $3500.00 let me know. Then try either ecruises.com or cruisequick.com as see how bad your TA really is.

Couldn't resist the challange. I priced that cruise w/air for 2315.00. Plus 100.00pp ship board credit, to bad I don't have anyone to sell it to.

Hannah - be careful what you wish for - someone might actually call you on that bogus price. You travel agents are so unethical! Its so easy to &quot;beat&quot; someones price that they already posted. How about a real challenge? <BR><BR>Peter

Sorry to say Peter it's a real price. I booked into a group for the discount and got the shipboard credits from my consortium. I am not and never have been unethical, and I resent your saying so, but am getting used to your nay saying. Your highly regarded dotcoms can no doubt get the same rate. Ask them.

This guy on cruisecritic-HAL board did an extensive search and compared apples to apples.<BR><BR>The overall winner was cruisequick.<BR><BR>I've never used an internet agency nor do I work for them.<BR><BR>Check it out for yourself, you might have to look for it as it's a busier board than this one.

I find this board to be , for the most part, very unhelpful but I keep trying. People seem more concerned with sneaking booze on ships and one up manship on prices and who knows the most. I personally use a travel agent for 90% of my travel bookings and am quite happy with her. Maybe you all can spend hours looking and comparing but I can't. I am doing the Dawn cruise myself after rave reviews from friends but not the same dates or price as the above. I booked with my agent and am very happy with the service, advice and price. Isn't that what it's all about? Being happy? My question though is what is Peter's problem? I don't think he is happy unless he has a travel agent to trample.

Athena that Dawn cruise is a 14 day cruise. Unless your group comes out of NY, you would never match the price. As for beating it by $300.00 with air, let me know the TA, I'll book it today. As for Peter bashing TAs, it stands to reason that the dot.coms can block out more cabins and thus be able to offer better prices, bigger advertising range.

To me, bashing is attacking someone out of the blue, for no good reason.<BR><BR>My negative comments about TA's almost always comes AFTER a TA (or TA lover)posts some gloating remark like Hannah did. For some strange reason, the &quot;brick and mortar&quot; agents can't accept that they can't match the prices of the .coms and that brings out the worst in them.<BR><BR>So, I don't bash them as much as I &quot;point them back in the right direction&quot;.<BR><BR>Peter

My consortium consists of over 5000 agencies. big, small and cruise only. We purchased these cabins for resale, much like a consolidator does for air. I can either take a larger commission, or reduce the price to match my competition. I chose the latter for this exercise. I used bulk air. Hopefully, the prepurchase idea will work, or you will see sales at below cost prior to departure. Bon Voyage everyone! I'm moving to friendlier pastures.

I'm not saying that Hannah is stretching the truth, but there seems to be a big hole in her theory. Even if there are 5000 agencies (cruise only mind you) and they did pre-purchase (what does that mean anyway - buy them before they go on sale or what???) them; they still have to go to the cruise line for a price. Why would NCL sell a few cabins to this consortium for anything less? What would be their economic gain? And back to these 5000 agencies - do they buy cabins on all ships for all sailings around the world (yeah, right)? If not, was it just coincidence that they had cabins for the Dawn in May for the exact same sailing that Peter S posted?? <BR><BR>Yes, Hannah, maybe you should move on.<BR><BR>Peter

We bought x ammount of cabins in all classes for all sailings of the Dawn. We own them. If we don't sell them, we lose. This is a not an uncommon practice and NCL gave us rock bottom pricing for up front $$. No one, even the dot.coms (who mostly rebate the commissions to lower the price) will have prices like ours, as you can see from my quote. The risk is ours. Hope some of you can take advantage of the good deals this summer and fall. Best to you all!

Hannah the per diem that I booked is $54. If you have that cruise price beat by $300 then you can book a per diem of $33. Like I said early, let me know where I can book the price you gave me. Anyone can verify my quoted price with ecruises.com. Where can I book the price you gave, I want to book it.

PeterS - I'm with you. I don't know if we'll hear from Hannah again, but you'd think they'd be happy to get you to take a few of those &quot;paid for&quot; cabins off their hands.<BR><BR>This whole &quot;story&quot; has more questions than answers - how does a consortium &quot;buy&quot; cabins and then resell them? Don't the cruise lines require names for cabins and then require a fee to put different names to them? I don't think I could &quot;resell&quot; a cabin that I booked and paid for - could I?<BR><BR>Peter

Hi again folks, I tried that cruisequick site for the may 3 sailing of the dawn. I got $2674.00 for j , no air, no insurance and no transfers. Did I do something wrong?