After looking around I received pricing for a cruise from a travel agent, The Cruise Professionals, in Orlando. While they do sound very knowledgeable and legit, is there any way for me to check them out before I give them money? I tried the Orlando BBB but could not find out anything. Thanks for any thoughts on the subject.<BR>

My advice is to check out your cruise price on cruisequick.com with Ray. Based on quite a few recent posts, Fodorites are getting very good deals from Ray. You can email him directly at [email protected]. You won't have to worry about their quality or character.

There are several TA associations.However,that isnt going to guarantee anything except they are members.But for whats its worth,if they are a member of CLIA,you might check them out thru the association.Most cruise lines give the agents an &quot;option&quot; date on every booking.Like 3 or 5 days,it varies.I would want a confirmation in writing,either fax or email from the cruise line stating exactly what you are booking.Call the cruise line directly and make sure the booking number on the confirmation matches what you think it should.Just make the agent spell out dates and obligations and ALL costs.I've never had a problem but I friends have becuz they dont look and ask.

Sue, you will get the best deal from an agent. Ask for 5 or 6 references and call to get their overall opinion of the agency.

Am I in the twilight zone? Did Peter just say you'll get the best deal from an agent? That comment definitely sounded like Paul.

Maybe Paul registered the Peter name, or maybe he (Peter) is finally behaving. Yes, I know I usually only comment on technical issues, but I couldn't resist.

This was as close to my old moniker that I could get. Someone already had &quot;Peter&quot; and he/she is obviously the opposite of me.<BR><BR>So, once again SueZ, don't waste your time with the conventional &quot;brick and mortar&quot; travel agents. They have been proven on this forum to be more expensive than the .coms. I would urge you to check out your specific cruise with Ray at cruisequick.com to see if their price will be hundreds of dollars less than the quote you have from Tampa.

You know for our upcoming cruise I have visited two &quot;brick-and-mortar&quot; travel agents, and they were both so unfriendly and acted like I was wasting their time (guess they didn't believe I was actually going to book a cruise), that I said &quot;forget it, I'll stick with the Internet.&quot; Their prices were higher than what I've found on the cruise websites anyway.<BR>