WHY YOU MUST USE A GREAT CRUISE AGENT

There really is no substitute for the services of a great cruise agent.

Let me explain.

A client of mine booked a Transatlantic crossing some months ago on Cunard’s Queen Mary to New York.

He did not want to spend much money and opted for an inside cabin. As he and his wife were first time cruisers, the choice of cabin was sound as the lower down in the ship, and the more towards the centre, the less they would feel movement, something inevitable on a sailing such as this.

He was happy with his choice and that should have been the end of it. Think again.

A number of weeks after booking, he was contacted by a “friend” on the same sailing who said there was an offer on the cruise.

He approached first Cunard directly who knew instantly of the details of his current booking but because they really do not like to deal with customers directly, he was referred back to me.

As a specialist and very knowledgeable cruise agent, I asked him if Cunard had told him that BEFORE he could book the new offer, he would first have to clear the cancellation charges, now at 50%, on his first booking before then paying for the new offer.

My client is far from stupid and once I went through the process, we both concluded that it made absolutely no financial sense at all to take the new offer. My client told me straight that he was exhausted with all the messing about dealing directly with the cruise line.

More time wasting from a cruise line that should have known better and more time spent by the agent.

Then, just today, same client advised by same “friend” that Cunard had just released an offer on an outside balcony cabin. I investigated the details again, discovered a switch to be very costly for a cabin that gave the client no benefit and in fact, for a first time cruiser would indeed have put them off cruising for the foreseeable future.

There is a message in all this. There is no shortage of travel agents but great cruise agents are few and far between and well worth their weight in gold if judged by all the savings they will make you. Apart from financial savings, they will probably save you on all the messing and misinformation you could get from dealing with a cruise line directly who, let’s face it, really want to push only their line, are not independent at all, and worst of all, see you just as a number.