Royal Caribbean has (3) ships sailing out of San Juan. I always call the cruise line and they will tell me what the different rates are. I think you will find those rates are the best. If you have a travel agent they can get the credit for your booking. The price is the same. The date you go will have a lot to do with the price. Good luck

I do have a few questions/comments about CruiseQuick. I booked through them last year around this time for a Royal Caribbean cruise in May - great prices (the best I could find), great follow-up with questions (via email, which is what I prefer for doc purposes), and we had a great time.

So now this year, I go to use them again to price a cruise for this year, and apparently they have a new way of doing things on their website - you can now get an immediate quote depending on your specs. Well, I still went with the old style send-your-request-and-they-email-back, but the rates were no better than if I had booked through the cruise line itself (I would NEVER do this by the way). What gives? Any CruiseQuick supporters who know what happened? Did they "sell out" to make the extra bucks?

Alternatively, I booked with a travel agent through Cruise Compete, who gave me a GREAT rate for a Pride of Aloha sailing. HOWEVER, beware of some of their agents they use - one in particular would quote me a great rate, yet when I emailed her to book, I received a "oops, typo, it's really ____ (hundreds of dollars more)."

Good luck!

Royal Caribbean is no longer allwong travel agents to discount cruises. Some online travel agencies are getting around this by sending their clients american express or visa gift cards.

We used cruisevaluecenter last month. Their service was excellent-as were their prices. Some of the on lines charge a cancellation fee if you cancel outside of the cruise line's cancellation policies-others do not. We knew what ship, what itinerary etc so did not need a TA.

RCL/Celeb is now stopping the gift cards. Prices will still vary with group space (though they're limiting this as well).

Extras like hotel stays & free insurance are still OK though.

I finally decided to book w/7blueseas.com. They have an "A" Better Business Bureau rating (www.bbb.org). I usually don't deal w/companies that I find on the internet, but it appears that they are a reliable company (at least based on the BBB site). The rates on selected cabins were much less than any other agency I could find for a NCL cruise. The agent I worked with said this is due to the relationship they have w/NCL.

Triathlete, that is ridiculous! I'm boycotting RCCL