Booking Online vs. Travel Agent

[Stephanie]

I've sailed w/ RCL 4 times with #5 coming up in April.  Each time, I've either booked by calling RCL or booked online.  I notice in the forums a lot of you use travel agents.  What is the advantage / disadvantage of using an agent?

[JLMoran]

Targeted to first-time cruisers, but I think it sums up a lot of the reasons that keep getting cited here on the boards: Why first-time cruisers should use a Royal Caribbean travel agent

 

Main advantage is that the agent does the work of tracking new promotions, figuring out if they'll actually save you any money over prior booking, and then waiting on hold to re-book and get you those savings.

 

They're also great for when something goes wrong, and now they get to sit on hold and rail at the customer support people over their mistake instead of you losing work time or weekend time or whatever. That happened to me right when I booked through my TA -- she was told by RCI that they reserved two connecting cabins as requested, she relayed the cabin numbers to me, and when I checked online I saw they weren't connecting at all! Emailed her, and she took care of straightening it out while I continued to work on my current project.

[UkuleleCruiser]

I may be showing my ignorance here: We like to make payments over time, and I always thought it was pretty much cash up front if you are using a travel agent. So I assume that's an advantage for booking online, but I really have no idea. I have also heard that sometimes travel agents can get little extras for you like a bottle of wine in the room or something like that. Again, no idea. Maybe I need to drop in on my friendly neighborhood travel agent and ask them?

[JLMoran]

I may be showing my ignorance here: We like to make payments over time, and I always thought it was pretty much cash up front if you are using a travel agent. So I assume that's an advantage for booking online, but I really have no idea. I have also heard that sometimes travel agents can get little extras for you like a bottle of wine in the room or something like that. Again, no idea. Maybe I need to drop in on my friendly neighborhood travel agent and ask them?

 

I can say for a fact that TA's are fine with you making just the deposit up front, and then making payments over time. I'm doing that right now through my agent Heather at MEI Travel. Just put $400 towards our cruise this week, and she said just email her whenever I want to make another payment.

 

Don't know about the "little extras" (yet), but Heather did make a point of putting notes in all caps on our reservations that my wife and I are celebrating our 20th anniversary, and that our older daughter is graduating high school (plus a comment that all of us are first-time cruisers). Will see if that brings us anything after we're on board. ;)

[FloatMe]

For us, the two biggest advantages of using a travel agent are;

 

1) having an advocate when something g goes wrong. Thankfully we have never needed our TA in an emergency but my parents have several times. Although we have never personally needed it, you can't put a price on piece of mind.

 

2) extra booking incentives! Our TA always gives us additional OBC or some other booking incentive above and beyond what royal Caribbean in offering. Literally free money.

 

Additionally, there is no downside.

[JLMoran]

Also should note that Heather will be taking care of our flight and hotel booking as we get closer to the cruise date and flights become available. Said she has a good hotel for the FLL / Port Everglades area that she uses all the time, so saves us trying to find that as well.

[RestingBird]

My wife used a TA for our 2nd cruise, and yes, she got us some OBC which was definitely nice, but overall my wife didn't like the process with a TA, so I just booked our following 3 by myself. However, a friend of ours has recently become a TA, and my wife just gave birth to our baby boy, so I'll go through our friend to add our son to our 2018 cruise. Hopefully it'll go well and we can book through her down the road.

Definitely nice to read good TA experiences on here.

[firegal2539]

I have used a TA for over 10 years. I wouldn't know what to do without her. As Floatme said, peace of mind is so important. I know that all of the little details as well as the big ones are taken care of. Yes, sometimes I get an incentive but I wouldn't care if I didn't. My TA has traveled extensively so she knows of what she speaks. She has guided me when I was making a bad decision because she knows my likes and dislikes and will actually tells me that the trip or the cabin might not be right for me.

 

When I had to cancel 4 cruises because of emergency surgery, she handled all of it. I had great travel insurance, recommended by her, and I ended up losing about $100, including airline tickets. All I had to do was sign the paperwork she brought to me.

 

Candie

[JLMoran]

My wife used a TA for our 2nd cruise, and yes, she got us some OBC which was definitely nice, but overall my wife didn't like the process with a TA, so I just booked our following 3 by myself. However, a friend of ours has recently become a TA, and my wife just gave birth to our baby boy, so I'll go through our friend to add our son to our 2018 cruise. Hopefully it'll go well and we can book through her down the road.

Definitely nice to read good TA experiences on here.

 

There's definitely a case of "fit" when it comes to working with a TA, so don't be discouraged by the earlier experience.

 

Also, was the TA you worked with the first time a dedicated cruise agent, or a general TA? Cruise agents have a LOT more training in and experience around the nuances of cruising vs. "regular" travel, especially the ones with a CLIA certification. They've also typically gone on several cruises across several lines so they can recommend particular ones over others based on your circumstances and preferences.

 

If the recommendations of the folks here for MEI don't float your boat, you can search for cruise agents in your area on CLIA's web site: https://www.cruising.org/cruise-vacationer/cruise-travel-guide/clia-agent-finder

[DocLC]

 

When I had to cancel 4 cruises because of emergency surgery, she handled all of it. I had great travel insurance, recommended by her, and I ended up losing about $100, including airline tickets. All I had to do was sign the paperwork she brought to me.

 

Candie

Good point. I had to have my appendix removed about 10 hours before a flight to my cruise. My TA handled everything. And although I had travel insurance, she was able to get Disney to wave cancellation fees as we were staying at WDW before the cruise. The same was true with the airline, too. Did have to pay change fees for both, but that was minimal and the increased airfare to make the cruise was only about $75 each even though it was booked within 48 hours of departure.

[RestingBird]

Also, was the TA you worked with the first time a dedicated cruise agent, or a general TA? Cruise agents have a LOT more training in and experience around the nuances of cruising vs. "regular" travel, especially the ones with a CLIA certification. They've also typically gone on several cruises across several lines so they can recommend particular ones over others based on your circumstances and preferences.

 

That's a good question, I honestly have no idea, and something to keep in mind. Our friend who just became a TA is a big Disney cruiser (one reason she became an agent herself), but has never pushed it on us whenever we all start talk cruising, so it should go better with her (she's also a no bs kinda gal, which could possibly help at some point). MEI will definitely be my future go-to if she doesn't work out.

[cruise-y]

I know I'm in the vast minority here, but I don't use a TA and never have any problems.  I use the cruise line's website to research online and book online and I'm done.   If I have any issues or questions, I contact the cruise line directly (usually through an online chat option) and all is answered or fixed.  I just can't see adding another middle man to the equation.  I know what I want; I don't need somebody else to guess what I want.   Like I said, I know the majority here, who love their personal travel agents, disagree with me.  

 

But I will say this, back in the pre-Internet old days, when you had to use a TA, I had many more issues with really bad airline flights, miscommunications, lost tickets and general screw-ups than I do now.

[Matt]

I know I'm in the vast minority here, but I don't use a TA and never have any problems.

My response to this is not using a TA isn't necessarily a problem.  Rather, you only stand to benefit by using a TA.  So imagine getting back extra time you used to spend on the phone/online with RC.  I have found using a TA frees me up to something else.  So from my perspective, it's nothing but added benefit.

 

Definitely nothing wrong doing it yourself, but I enjoy the added service of a TA.

[DocLC]

You don't realize you need a TA until you actually need a TA.  Very similar to trip insurance.  Most of the time you don't need it, but when you do it's nice to have.

 

Royal change my cabin on Christmas Eve on a January 2nd sailing.  It was my TA that was able to handle this and get us switched back to a more acceptable cabin so that I could enjoy my holidays and precruise travels.  We also ended up with some additional OBC as a result of Royal's decision to move us without informing us first.  Would have been a nice upgrade, however, if my wife could have handled being that far forward.

[bcarney]

You don't realize you need a TA until you actually need a TA.  Very similar to trip insurance.  Most of the time you don't need it, but when you do it's nice to have.

 

No kidding.  Royal inexplicably cancelled my reservation for my April cruise on Rhapsody - TWICE - and it took 26 days to get the mess straightened out.  Fortunately Michelle @ MEI took care of it for me (and listened to me vent about it for hours).  If it was me dealing with it, I would have told Royal "where to go" somewhere around day 5....

 

Use a TA.

[jticarruthers]

Knock on wood I haven't had any serious issues that I needed a TA to get involved in.

 

For me it's the OBC back on every cruise and the fact that I have an expert to bounce questions off of that keep me coming back to the same TA. Figure at this point the OBC back has bought me at least one additional cruise so that part alone has been good.

 

Personally I would love to see the cruiseline discount their direct fare by the TA commission so I could book direct and save the money but I don't see that happening ;)

[islandgrandma]

Over the years, we have used a TA sometimes and other times booked directly with RC. Next year we would like to go on a Transpacific cruise, a cruise around the southern part of Australia, and up to New Zealand. The TA we used in the past was not pro-active and after reading several threads in this blog about the great agents some have used, we decided we needed a new and great travel agent. Plus we are firmly entrenched in the Senior Citizen population and know there is probably more we don't know than we do know. Called Michele at MEI and waited three days without a call back. Called MEI's main number and a day later my husband received a call back from a TA. He explained what we wanted to do and asked for her help. It's been two weeks now and no more contact from the agent. Either we are cursed when it comes to travel agents or many of you are very blessed. We will go back to doing it ourselves.

[DocLC]

Over the years, we have used a TA sometimes and other times booked directly with RC. Next year we would like to go on a Transpacific cruise, a cruise around the southern part of Australia, and up to New Zealand. The TA we used in the past was not pro-active and after reading several threads in this blog about the great agents some have used, we decided we needed a new and great travel agent. Plus we are firmly entrenched in the Senior Citizen population and know there is probably more we don't know than we do know. Called Michele at MEI and waited three days without a call back. Called MEI's main number and a day later my husband received a call back from a TA. He explained what we wanted to do and asked for her help. It's been two weeks now and no more contact from the agent. Either we are cursed when it comes to travel agents or many of you are very blessed. We will go back to doing it ourselves.

This is disappointing to hear as I haven't experienced such issues. Did you call or email? If you called, could it be possible that they wrote you phone number down wrong?

[islandgrandma]

This is disappointing to hear as I haven't experienced such issues. Did you call or email? If you called, could it be possible that they wrote you phone number down wrong?

I wish it was a matter of an incorrect phone number, DocLC. But my husband did receive a call the following day from a MEI agent after he called the main number and requested to have an agent call him. She called, he explained what we would like to do and we haven't heard anything for two weeks

[DocLC]

I wish it was a matter of an incorrect phone number, DocLC. But my husband did receive a call the following day from a MEI agent after he called the main number and requested to have an agent call him. She called, he explained what we would like to do and we haven't heard anything for two weeks

Sorry to hear this, especially as they are a sponsor and an unusual experience given what many of us have otherwise experienced.