Originally Posted by
deant
As for pricing, Vacationstogo is OK for close in reservations - but beware of their customer service. One time I booked with vacationstogo and had horrible customer service. It was a situation where there was a taxi strike in Athens so I needed to, at the last minute, book the cruise port transfer. Basically vacationstogo made promises to contact the cruise line but never did. Wound up having daughter call the cruise line directly and took care of the situation in 5 minutes.
The site I tend to find the best prices at is cruisecompete.com . You get quotes from numerous cruise agencies and you can book with whichever one you feel most comfortable with. Savings tend to be substantial over what you get booking directly with the cruise line.
I had bad one experience in the past from a provider I picked in a cruisecompete bids. The agent who took my business left the company and the company refused to honor the additional OBC the cruise line announced and the previous agent agreed. That was 2005. I also had one good experience. It is uneven depending on your luck.
Luckily we have now a cruise agent who we have booked over 12 cruises since 2006 once I found her thru some word of mouth recommendation. We did 3 cruises this year. I do use online site to look for the cruises we want, and just ask our agent to quote me the prices. We are very low maintenance customers - all we need is the booking conduit and some personal services. She fits the needs and often provide above and beyond services. We are very happy with her and glad to see her business has grown a lot in the past years especially after she became widow so then fully concentrating on her business. Top 10 producers in AMEX Consortium.
Our families in Canada use vacation to go to check prices but always take it to their agent who always matches. I think for cruises it is still better to book thru a human agent, even thru cruise directly. It really depends on your own knowledge base to get the most out of it.