We're looking for feedback on cruise.com (good, bad or indifferent).

 Thank you

We have always booked our cruises through a rep of CruiseOne in our area.

The good thing about Cruise One is that the rep lives in your area and usually if they are worth their salt they have been cruising a lot themselves so they can give you great information about the stops that you are going to see.

We have been with the CO rep in our are for four years and he has yet to let us down. AND he has managed to meet or beat any cruise price we have found anywhere else on the web. 

Check them out and speak to a rep in your area at www.cruiseone.com

~TBH

NO ONE should purchase a cruise through an online website, due to the lack ofcustomer service. If you can't talk with a person, you are asking for trouble. If you call an online agency and don't get to deal with the same person, then you're asking for trouble.

Online agencies are only good for one thing - RESEARCH. Customer Service requires personalization.

DS -  

DS

You are very right. That is why Cruise One and other local Cruise Specialists are SOOOOOO awesome.  They are local reps to your area, cert travel agents AND they usually can match or in our case beat the cruise that we found online!!  You are able to have a relationship with the person your booking through AND they can give you good advice because they have taken most of the cruises that are popular.

Now would I book off an online site that I have no control over.... heck no.  But that is why Cruise One is so great and why I am thinking about becoming a rep for them sometime in the future when I retire from doing hair.

No one can beat that!!

I always look at the online TA deals... then I call a Carnival PVP.

I like to be able to pick up a phone and get an instant answer anytime. TA's can't always get an instant answer for price drops and OBC's

For an extra $25 OBC, it's not worth the lack of customer service. I'd book Carnival direct anytime.

I always use cruiseshipcenters which you have a personalized travel consultant. They also follow-up afterwards to see if everything was up to par.

 1-905-767-6937 cruiseshipcenters

I have used vacationstogo  and booked direct.  I prefer booking direct.

Happy cruising

 We've been on over 20 cruises and have happily booked cruises with several different online agencies and had no problems.  ALWAYS pay with a credit card.

If you're not familiar with the site, ask for quotes thru cruisecompete.com.  You specify the cruise you want [date and ship] and agencies will email you with quotes.  You then call whichever agent has the best quote.  It helps if you've already checked out prices etc on-line. 

Yes, I booked my first cruise (which I have yet to go on) through cruise.com.  I haven't had any problems so far, but I'm still at 143 to go for my cruise, so I haven't paid for it in full yet.  However, I feel that their reps have been great so far.  A couple of months after I booked my cruise, they called and told me that Carnival had canceled my cruise!  Actually, seems that the problem was that the cruise I booked on should never have been available in the first place because a company had reserved the ship for that time (not sure how I managed to get through).  Anyway, cruise.com reps worked with me and Carnival -- I could choose ANY cruise I wanted and still get the original low price I'd booked at, etc.  I will say that it does make a difference which representative you get; when I called back, I got different answers--just asked to talk to the original rep about my options.  The rep worked hard to make sure I got higher-priced cruise for my original price and since I will be leaving out of a different port (Miami instead of San Juan), I also saved on airfare.

We use cruisecafe.com. We hooked up with them many years ago. Our cruise guy Dennis is the best. Any problems at all, one call does it all!  

I just heard that Cruise Value Center closed its doors last week. Several clients were left without their cruise plans after the agency failed to pay deposits to the cruise lines. They also collected for Travel insurance that was never paid for, so a double whammy for the clients.

This is why you should ALWAYS pay via Credit Card, or if not, you need to verify payments are made within a reasonable amount of time.

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