Do you see an advantage to using a travel agency for booking an Alaskan cruise vs. booking with the cruise line or an online site?

What cruise line are you looking at?

If you can do your own research to choose a cruise, go with the agency with the best deal.

Try http://www.CruiseCompete.com

You pick your cruise, then agents compete to offer you the best deal.

Happy cruising!

NCL or Royal Caribbean. Thanks for your input!

RCCL does not allow agents to discount the price - so the price most likely will be the same from agent to agent. Though, they do allow agents to offer incentives such as free insurance, etc....

I am not sure if NCL allows agents to discount. Holland America, Princess and Carnival still allow agents to give you a discount.

I would probably recommend Cruise Compete to give you a good range of prices for the lines that discount. Before you pick an agency, do some research on the internet to see if there have been any problems.

I went on an Alaska cruise this past August with Holland America Line. Once I narrowed down our dates, I priced the cruise with every method I could think of online, direct to cruise line and with travel agency (AAA). VacationsToGo.com had everyone beat. We got an outside suite for the price others were charging for a standard cabin. Had a wonderful cruise - would recommend both HAL and Vacations To Go!

NCL allows travel agents to discount their prices so you'll be better off booking with good TA. And Vacations to Go sells at full cruise lines price.

RCL and Celebrity do allow their top agencies to offer onboard credits up to 10% of the commissionable amount of the cruise. As this is as good as cash, it can make a big difference where you book--shop around.