Booking Cruises with a Travel Agent

Should you book a cruise through a travel agent? The prevailing advice is to use a travel agent to book a cruise vacation to get the best deal. Unfortunately, you also hear many horror stories about dishonest and/or incompetent travel agents. I have personally had to intervene and threaten legal action against a travel agent that tried conning my step-mom. On my first cruise, I also received flat out wrong information from one travel agent and another one kept pushing 14 day cruises without listening to me, the customer!

To be sure, there are many great travel agents but also many terrible ones. I only recommend going through a travel agent if you get a referral from someone you trust. Good travel agents can help a novice cruiser pinpoint the type of cruise that fits their needs, squeeze out extra onboard credits or other perks, and provide valuable advice on maximizing the cruise experience. If you are booking a cruise for a large group, a travel agent can really be helpful in coordinating everything for you. But again I must warn you as a bad travel agent can actually become a nuisance, cost you more money, or even ruin the vacation.

Don't know of a good travel agent to trust your cruise vacation to? Not to worry as all of the major cruise lines make it easy to book your cruise directly through their website or over the phone. In fact, I haven't seen many instances where I would save a ton of money going through a travel agent. Often times, a travel agent is only going to be able to offer a small additional perk like an extra $50 onboard credit but the same listed cruise price. But we want every possible deal right?

If so, here's what I recommend. Narrow down your search to a couple cruise trips that visit places you want to go and meet your vacation dates. Go through the order process on the cruise line's website to see what the total cost will be and what additional packages and onboard credits you'll get. Now visit one of the largest cruise travel agents, VacationsToGo, and compare the offer from the cruise line to VacationsToGo. Since they are one of the largest cruise travel agents (and hence the cruise lines give them more attention), it's doubtful you would find a better deal elsewhere. I find their travel agents to be serviceable—I do my own research, pick out the cruise I want, then call them to get the best possible deal. Perhaps I'll entertain becoming a travel agent myself in the future.