Originally Posted by
gooselee
I've found VTG to be a very good way to search across all "major" cruise lines for the current, publicly available rates at once. Haven't really paid attention to the "brochure" prices as I don't intent to pay them.
I have never actually booked via VTG, though. Every rate and promo I find there I can usually get by just going to the cruise line website or booking via any TA (some of whom will give me an additional discount out of their own commission). And having seen the agency booking mechanisms, when I go the TA route due to not finding what I want directly with the cruise line, all it is is some promo only available via agency bookings.
TL;DR - VTG is a great search engine but IME they do not really offer any particularly special rates.
Might be when you book. I tend to book my late (within final payment window). I also use cruisecompete to verify if the deals are that good. I booked a Ponant cruise (sitting in BOB waiting to get to PPT to board the ship for a 27 day sailing in 6 days) before final payment and the price couldn't be beat.
VTG was offering various Ponant cruises for >50% off last October, including the cruise I booked for a ridiculously low ~$3,300 while the Ponant site (and most other TAs) wanted $7k+. We were going to just sail the Honolulu-Japan leg (offered at $1,500 while price at that time was over $3k). If we booked the PPT-HNL leg, the 2nd TPAC leg would be free, just $250 in taxes & fees, + a new customer discount of $600 p.p.. This would have brought the 2 cruises down to ~$7k for a window cabin. With the VTG deal, we had to buy both cruises separately but the total cost was $5k, and the first leg from PPT-HNL was booked in a balcony cabin ($400 pp more)..
Cruise reductions disappeared after a few weeks so maybe it was a one-time deal to test waters.