We are about to "close' on a Celebrity cruise, Miami to Amsterdam. It would appear to be a repositioning cruise. Although we always find our own air on trips like these, Celebrity has a better air portion of the price than I can find, due largely to the "one way" aspects of the flights.
I want to be in Miami the night before, ONLY because I don't want the tension of worrying about cancelled flights, mechanical problems,weather etc.
Celebrity would charge us $75 each for "international deviation". That's what they call it; I call it a rip off and it has given me a bad taste.
Am I being fair/rational?
Bill

Is $150 more than the difference for you to book the fare yourself? (I'm assuming that there are two of you.)

Think of it this way. You want a standard item offered to all customer to be customized specifically for you. The cruise line should not be expected to eat the cost of that change; the alternative is that everyone on the cruise gets charged a little bit more to make up the difference in the cost that is incurred to make your special arrangements. Yes, maybe $150 spread over the clients on one cruise may not seem like much, but if you are not the only one requesting a deviation, it could add up to a significant chunk of cash.

I do not think it is an outrageous charge.

Nah, I don't think it is outrageous either. After all, the cheaper price is a packaged offer, and any time one deviates from a package, there are extra charges.

Twer me, I'd go for the extra money in order to secure a little peace of mind. And really, I find the the travel biz is all about the extra charges. I just look at it as a sort of you gotta pay to play situation. The more I want, the more it costs.

I don't either. They probably block X number of seats from various airports. You would be outside that so it might cost them more for the seat. If it's still cheaper, go for it.

I've heard wonderful things about those repositioning cruises. 3 different friends of mine here have done it & raved.

Oh, and did you ask on the Cruise forum? They might have some insight on it.

Cruise lines reserve a number of seats from their air-sea departure points and get bulk rates from the contracted airlines.

That deviation charge is not unusual among cruise lines and I would agree that if you add in the deviation charge and the price is still cheaper than anything you can find I would go for it.

I suspect that transfers from the airport to the ship at Dodge Island (Port of Miami) are probably included as well as transfers from the ship to Schiphol in Amsterdam unless you are deviating further on that end.

I would ask celebrity about this...makes things a bit more convenient especially if you aren't familiar with the cruise ship dock location in Amsterdam.

A unanimous decision, all three judges and the referee. Glad I asked. If I were to talk to the cruise line, I might suggest they try to negotiate seats with airlines day of and one day before with some sort of time threshhold (assuming there was an inventory of seats.)I'm cool now.
Thanks!
BW