Yes, no, and maybe. Cruise lines typically do not release their complete inventory to external agencies/agents. There are some agencies/agents who are “key accounts” with some lines because of their volume of bookings and they may have more access. From a consumer’s view that’s hard to know which agents have full access and who don’t.

Case in point is a cruise we just booked for next year. When our agent looked at the specific cruise there were only three cabins available in the category we wanted. We and friends picked two of those cabins and booked. Agent actually said she could only see one cabin left after we booked. Within hours two more cabins became available in the same category so the cruise line was apparently withholding inventory from the agent and the Internet. Our agent may or may not be a “key account” but she specializes in luxury lines and books a lot of cruises with them. Since it wasn’t an issue for us I didn’t ask how full the cruise was so I don’t know if our agent could have found out or not. One thing I did notice is that for our specific cruise the cruise line has added several incentives like free airfare. Simple logic makes me think the cruise is not full and maybe not selling well thus the incentives.