I will be booking a cruise in the next few days. i will be booking the Carnival Victory for 2 people - interior cabin, departure -June 12.

This website seems clogged with travel agents and people claiming that the Internet sucks and you should always use a travel agent.

So, here is my challenge: Can anyone offer me this above cruise for less than $800 per person?

Yes, that is the final price, after taxes, gov't fees, and port charges. I really mean that my credit card will not be charged more than $1600 total for the two of us.

I am interested to see how many travel agents can beat the Internet.

Respond asap because I will be booking shortly.

On 2 recent bookings, one to Cancun and a cruise to Alaska, I found that my travel agent couldn't compete with the internet pricing. The Cancun trip went perfectly and the cruise isn't until August. If you do book through your local trvel agent and a problem comes up, you do have someone local to sort is out and go to bat for you. Travel agents seem to be in short supply since the internet came to being.

Agents should not be advertising themselves to you on this or any forum. Most agents will find the same prices as on the internet. The exception is if you are booking into group space. Group space is contracted in advance and is not subject to price increase/decrease of published rates. I think most agents have the same philosophy as I do ( I work in the travel industry), price is not the main reason you need a travel agent. YOu should of course make sure your agent is in line with internet rates. If you don't think you need travel agent services there is no reason not to continue with your purchase on line, especially if you are travel and cruise savy. But, my experiences have been that travel agents can offer their knowledge in the booking process and eliminate a misunderstanding of exactly what you are booking AND represent you in the case of a problem. YOu may even think you can wiggle out of a problem on your own, but isn't the time saved (especially if you are traveling at the time) worth it? Just a couple thoughts. Good luck to you either way!

Put your cruise info. into cruisecompete.com and several companies will get back to you rather quickly with their lowest quotes. Then you can pick the best price. Some will even offer ship credit or other incentives as part of their quotes. Since this is the weekend, it is possible that quotes might not start coming in to you until Monday.

sadly, travel agents have not been able to reinvent their profession to stay current with the times. they are irrelevent today. while there are still some people who will prefer to book with an agent, those numbers are seriously dwindling.

I am forced to use one for business travel with my company and it costs £30 per booking (over $50!!!). half the time, i look up the cost and times on the internet before i call and just tell them what flight i want to book. a waste of time and money. much prefer to do it myself.

it's seems that as booking fees are driven down by competition from the internet and elsewhere, the quality of the service has gone down. generally, agents are selling you what they are told to sell rather than from their own experience and knowledge of travel.

Walkinaround, I would watch my back if I were you! I have been in the industry for almost 20 years in many different occupations. I can understand your dismay with paying for each business transaction. But, obviously you are not at all interested in what goes on behind the scenes and totally ignorant to it. A travel management company offers various travel management resources to it's clients in exchange for the transaction fee. In some cases there is not a transaction fee, but back-end management fees in accordance with production. The agents have a series of UDIDs as they are called in the industry that produces a number of reports for the company including why the passenger did not get the lowest fare, exactly how much more they paid than the lowest fare, etc. Each transaction is put through a quality control system that will pull from their company profile a number of items including their personal profile with membership numbers and also any contracts with airlines that give them a discount for that travel zone, etc. Most importantly, this system checks for agent errors in the most technically advanced manner. Not even to mention that the agency keeps on file tickets that can be used for exchange and they do this for them automatically. Now, I am not saying that the client always gets the cheapest rate and that the agency that you in particular are using is suberb, but I know there are excellent travel management companies out there that are earning these fees. A large corporation needs the services they offer. I no longer work in corporate travel, so if there are any agents who do out there I am sure they could back me up on this. Lastly, I am really sorry that you have had bad luck with travel agents in general, but there are still some good ones out there who offer service out of the goodness of their hearts. I am talking about the ones who don't make a lot of money, are not paid by commission and therefore do not sell you something specifically related to commission amounts, but who really care about your satisfaction in hopes that they will be able to serve you again in the future. REally, is this what this board is all about? I don't think it is a place where we should have to either bash travel agents or the contrary, make everyone feel they will die without one, but this should be an objective board where both those with an agent or without one, those who are travel agents and those who never use one can all learn. Frankly, CLwhite I don't think ignorance is appreciated here.

My apologies to CLwhite, as I meant to direct my post to walkinaround. By the way snorkeman, I am feeling bad that I had to vent on your turf! I do hope that you find the best price and that whoever you go through offers you good service and the best price!

Snorkelman, would you mind sharing where you found the price? I searched a few internet sights and your price can't be beat from what i've seen, I'd like to know the website so I can price our trips

i'm sorry that you think that the traveling public (like myself) is ignorant because we don't know the inside workings of a travel agency. this sort of arrogance and lack of understanding of what the customer wants and needs might be part of the problem and a reason why the profession is dying. it's not about your internal processes, it's about what you add for the customer. you can talk all you want about your internal processes and esoteric acronyms...i'm just talking from the point of view of the customer and what the travel agency brings to the table for me.

i travel very extensively all over the world both for pleasure and for work. the experiences with business travel bookings are based on 3 different travel companies (household names - very highly respected). still i find little or no value add...this is not a matter of having a "bad" agent. I don't think these agents are bad...just that they add little or nothing at a great cost.

maybe there are some older people who have a regular travel agent who they continue to use. however, in general, a travel agency is the last place I or most of the people i know (who are very frequent travellers) think to go when booking a holiday. sorry but this is the sad truth.

Just a follow up to my original post. I have now booked my cruise. Nobody could beat the price that I was looking to beat. I used buycruises.com. They were the best price on 2 our of 4 cruises that I researched.

By the way, I had used the cruise compete website and found it to be a waste for rock-bottom prices. The quotes that I received from that website were consistently $50-100 more than what I found myself.

This is the second time that I ended up booking with buycruises.com. I always price out at least 5 websites/travel agents and go with the cheapest.

For anyone who cares, I booked with Jan Lewis (800)510-1786 ext 2303.

I have seen numerous recommendations for cruisecompete.com. I am so interested I am going to start doing comparisons and maybe start another post to see who is running cheaper. Stay tuned!

Walkinaround, I never meant to say the general traveling public was ignorant. It is impossible for someone outside the industry to understand what goes on behind the scenes. It really touches a nerve with me when someone slams travel agents and has nothing or incorrect information to back it up. Believe me your frustration is exactly why I got out of that business. It was very stressful to try to keep the corps happy, especially with the all the airline restrictions, etc. Explaining this to the client was sometimes impossible (too complex) and often we would have to go beyond the call of duty to keep peace even when our hands were tied by airline restrictions. I think brain surgery is less complicated! But, the services provided to the corporation that you work for (as mentioned above) are the reason for the fees. They truly are "managing" your company travel expenses whether you believe it or not. If they aren't doing a good job at it there are plenty of other agencies that would be happy to do the job right. I hope you will try real hard to have a little compassion in the future for your corporate agents- they work like dogs I tell ya!

The thing that you need to remember about booking travel on the internet is this: yes, you can spend hours on the internet checking all the sites looking for the best prices, the best itineraries, and then destination information, and hope that you got the best price and that you are really ready for your trip and that you get the best possible experience. Do it yourself everything is a growing trend. When you try to make over a room in your house and it doesn't turn out right, you can try again and what have you really lost? Maybe a hundred or two dollars and you try again. If you spend a couple of thousand $ on your familly vacation and it turns out to be a fiasco what do you lose? Your vacation time, hard-earned money it took you all year to save, probably your family's trust, and then your stuck with a life-time of crummy vacation memories and you have noone to blame but yourself. When you book with a travel professional they take the time to tailor your needs and wishes to the appropriate vacation package. What looks good on the internet doesn't necessarily look good in person. Travel professionals are like any other profession, there are excellent agents and then there are some that are not. Travel professionals invest time and money to keep up with the latest from travel suppliers so they can keep their clients happy and satisfied. When I sit down with a client( in their home or office, at the time that is most convenient for them) price is usually the last thing we talk about. I deal with people that are professionals themselves who understand that exceptional service and expertise are worth a couple extra dollars. When my clients return from their vacation I get to hear how it far exceeded their expectations and we start planning their next vacation. They know my services are not irrelevant and that I continue my travel education as required to keep my certifications. I don't waste my time trying to compete with the internet. From the sounds of it some of the people on this forum should stick to the internet because no matter what the price, they wouldn't appreciate a true professional anyway.

Not all travel agents are about price wars and it is a shame that you have that impression. The good ones are about customer service and matching the client with the right cruise for them. There are many options available to cruisers and good TAs have personally experienced most of the major lines and are able to provide more than the best price.

If it is only prive you are looking for, stick to the internet. You get what you pay for, IMHO.

As a newbie cruiser, who has land traveled extensively and does not use travel agents much (maybe only 3 times in the last 15 years)- I must say that I was totally on booking by internet myself. And then through a recommendation I did it with a cruise specialist in the end. Was I glad I did!
She had combined with a large "group" purchase and got us all a further $100 shipboard credit added to our pkg. (and it was on the account immediately upon embarking). And there were all certificates for free photos onboard, and also any bottle of wine to our stateroom that we choose up to $25.

You are going to spend some money on board, and if you get these kind of perks etc. than you can't just judge dollar to dollar on the booking.

I think most travelers already know what they are looking for when they buy a cruise. Most online travel agencies provide all the information you will need about a ship such as professional reviews as well as reader reviews, cabin size, pictures, etc. To me it's who will give us the lowest price. I'll search extensively to save a few hundred tollars, to me it's worth it. It adds up significantly after a while. Also cruise message boards are extremely helpful when searching for a ship.

Thank you travelinwifey, couldn't have said it better myself. I always get a kick out of the TA's on this sight talking about personalization and professional guidance - This is a message board designed specifically to help newbie cruisers get answers to their questions so that they can add some additional research and make good choices for their cruise - and then book it the cheapest they can!! So, yes TA's, it isn't about price; but we cruisers can get better advice from these message boards than we can from one of you - so why would anyone asking questions and visiting this site be a potential customer of yours? Its obvious everyone here is doing research!

Peter

Well shucks Peter, I am honored that you agree with me. I have been following your posts for years, from back in the day of the famous Perer/Paul arguments. Happy sailings

trivera: I agree with you completely. I hope all of these folks have a rude awakening when they are stuck on a ship that is not at all like all the "research" claims.

travelinwifey - thanks for the thoughts; sometimes I miss the old guy.

kfusto - that's an interesting wish! Name a ship that you are intimately familiar with and there will be hundreds of non_TA's with more accumulated knowledge of that ship than you have reading this message. So whose the expert? - you or the accumulated knowledge on this board.

Peter

Peter: I just came off my 102nd cruise, worked for 2 cruise lines, and have been in the business for 30 years. I will put my actual knowledge up against any internet surfers.

I have sailed on RCI 45 times and know most of the ships pretty well.