Originally Posted by
lkar
Good stuff, Happy. I think for a frequent cruiser like you who is high revenue for your TA, you'll get great service and the TA will bend over backwards for you to put you in their block bookings or otherwise get you discounts. For the rest of us -- the one-offs or the every other year or even every year cruisers -- it's hard to find a TA that will do that for you. I've had a few people who are heavy cruisers refer me to their full service TAs, and while they will help me out to keep my friends happy or if they view me as a potential future relationship, it's not the same.
For the family trying their first cruise, or the infrequent cruiser, I actually think it's hard to beat costco. Their discounts are really good, and they actually work pretty hard to help you out. I think they have good enough contacts with the lines that getting you out of a deposit after final payment and other stuff is sometimes possible depending on the situation. And they have folks there who concentrate on cruises, so they can give you a little bit of TA style service, though not nearly what a knowledgeable TA can give you.
Not true. While we sail often, we book cheapo cabins. On rare occasions we would book a balcony when the price differential was very low - but we, especially my husband, do not even enjoy balcony. On a 10 days Caribbean cruise, he went out the balcony in a total of less than 1 hour during the whole cruise. I think last time on a 14 days TATL, he went out about the same. He did not like the sticky surface of the outdoor furniture and it is inevitable because of sea breeze. So why waste $$$ on something we dont even use? Most of our cabins are inside / obstructed view - they do not carry high $ so my agent does not really get much of the $ revenue. She and I get along well though largely I am not a high maintenance client - I know what I want and 90% of the time I booked what I asked her to quote. So she can count me among the most reliable client but definitely not high revenue client.
