Can a travel agent get a better deal on a cruise than the internet sites?
I’ve found a specific cruise that I want and every single “discount” travel website offers the same exact fare $ 549.00 as the actual cruise ships website. This seems as though the discount websites aren’t discounts at all. So my question is, can I get a better price than carnival has on their site by going to a brick and mortar travel agent?
Also, we plan to cruise at the end of June or early July of 07
Answer by tech_fanatic Not in every situation, but in many cases they can. Sometimes your rate is going to be the same price, but an agent may offer you some onboard credits, or other specials that may be available to them.
I would definitely book with an agent or directly with Carnival. The discount sites, which as you have seen aren’t really discounted, can cause a lot more problems than they are worth, so if there is no savings, I would definitely avoid them.
There are a lot of travel agencies that you can use online as well. If going to a travel agent office and working on things doesn’t really fit in your schedule, which is what I have found to be true for myself, online works so much better. I can e-mail my agent whenever I need, when I’m no the road, etc. I have actually found my online agent to be a lot o better than my old agent that in my local town, since they seem to be more specialized. So you may consider checking into an online travel agent, which is not to be confused with the online discount sites like Expedia, Oritz, etc.
So anyhow, you can’t always get a lower rate with an agent, but you may be able to get some extra benefits by booking with an agent, such as onboard credit or upgrades. Also, you always get the service from the agent, very rarely, if ever do I find that my agent is higher than Carnival.
Hope this helps!
What are some jobs that have to deal with government profit organization? Also allow you to be able to travel?
I’m struggling w/ my career choices here, I really need some help! I want to graduate and find a job that has to deal w/ government profit organization that allow you to be able to travel from place to place but I don’t know what the job call! As the matter of fact I don’t know what else that job would do other than helping people and help end the struggles. I really need somebody help!!!!
Answer by Puffadder That’s a great question. You’d be perfect for the Guv’nint.
Answer by V.T.V.RAM You can work on the marketing side of such organizations !!
As with everything in life, different people go on cruises for different reasons. Some people will prefer the activities that are prevalent on some cruises, like rock climbing, scuba diving, swimming with dolphins, zip-lining over a tropical rain forest’s canopy or walking along a glacier’s edge. Other people may prefer the camaraderie, the food, the gambling and nightclub scenes, the water, the ports of call, or just being on a huge ship with thousands of people they don’t know, but soon could. And then there is also choosing what type of cruise to take, and what size of cruise liner to take that cruise on.
Whether taking a cruise on the QEII, The Freedom of the Seas, or The Oasis of the Seas, which are among the largest cruise ships on the high seas, or taking a cruise on a container ship bound for Hong Kong, there is plenty to do and see. The major differences between cruises lay in the ship itself, the services provided, and the class of the people around you, as well as the comfort and services that the higher-class ships offer. And, of course, the cost.
The top-ten reasons to cruise include, but in no way are limited to;
1) Camaraderie. Singles cruises have been on a constant incline in business and departures over the past couple of decades, and is still a very active genre of the cruise lines. However, you do not need to go on a singles cruise to meet people, as all cruise ships have people of all stripes on board. With a few thousand people on each cruise, the chances of finding someone that you can get along with great, and do things with (like seeing the ports of call, scuba diving, hiking, etc.) are very good. If you are going on a cruise by yourself, there really is no reason to think that you will be alone for the entire cruise.
2) Ports of Call. A cruise ship is like a string of mini-vacations all jumbled into one vacation. You can visit a bunch of Greek islands, tropical islands, glaciers or rain forests. Again, if you are single or travelling alone, then you should either stick with a guided tour, or make a friend, or a few friends, to go ashore with. It is never advised to go ashore alone, as many ports of call are also centres of major crime rings, as well as nefarious-minded people who prey on unsuspecting tourists and cruisers. Remember, if you are visiting an impoverished country or city, then expect a certain element of crime ashore. That being said, you get a different culture with each stop, and a different economy, wild life and night life.
3) Water. There is no shortage of water on a cruise ship, and the cruises that are in tropical, warm waters usually stop at different locales so people can enjoy the warm, tropical waters. There is scuba diving, with swimming pool lessons before going into the ocean, for safety’s sake. There are usually small boats and other watercraft for rent, or for general use (you have to sign up early for these) on most cruises, as well as shore fishing and beach walking. Most newer, bigger cruise ships have Olympic-sized (or bigger) swimming pools, wave pools, water slides and rides, and surfing simulators. What, you’re on a cruise, did you expect a desert?
4) Food. The better, and larger, cruise ships have internationally renowned chefs working day and night in the galleys (kitchens). Most cruises have 2 or 3 seatings per meal, and range from buffet, pre-determined meal choices or menu choices. On top of that, there are usually restaurants and bars, as well as room service to keep your tummy full of the most delicious and tempting foods. Kraft dinner and hamburger helper can wait until you get back home.
5) Entertainment. From big-name singers and groups performing nightly, to piano men, bar bands and magicians, there is always something to do or see at sea. For the cost of the cruise, you could argue that the number of plays, bands and entertainers that you see more than make up for the charge. And now, casinos with poker tournament are all the rage with many cruise lines. Casinos have always been popular, as the ships, when sailing in international waters, do not have to follow the laws of the land, which explains why some cruise ship’s casinos do not open until they are in international waters.
6) Free Booze. Some people can really pack it in over a 7-day and 7-night cruise. If the drinks are free, then the cost can logically be deducted from the ticket price, making the cost of the cruise even more tantalizing (especially if the food is free, too). However, if it is your first cruise, then maybe taking it easy until you get your sea legs would be a good bit of advice to heed.
7) Variety. No matter what type of cruise you take, the size of the ship or the type (container ship, classy cruise ship, gigantic cruise ship or small cruise ship, etc.), there will be a large variety of things to do, people to talk to, foods to eat and drinks to enjoy. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.
8) Romance. When on a cruise ship, there is a bit more of that “free” feeling that people get when away from home, amongst a large group of good-looking people. Whether it is a singles cruise or any other type, there will be people aboard who are looking for romance on the high seas. Cruises are a great way to propose marriage as well. Unless, of course, the answer is no.
9) Different Cultures. The different ports of call offer different cultures, different climates and different wildlife. On a 7-night cruise, you can see 5 or 6 different islands, each offering a different culture, different ways of making a living and different styles of architecture. Bring extra memory cards, or film if you still use an SLR camera, because you will be taking so many pictures, you may end up with carpel tunnel syndrome.
10) Because You Won It! Cruises are offered as prizes in many charity lotteries. The only cost to the winner is the taxes and possibly the transportation to the cruise’s starting port of call, unless the food, booze and entertainment are not free on the cruise. As well, the cruises that are offered as prizes are usually for two to eight people, and that means treating your friends and loved ones to the trip of a lifetime.
(Honorable Mention) Pirates! Aye, laddy. And a barrel of rum! Who didn’t dream of being a pirate, or played pirates with friends or siblings, using fake swords and bed-covers for capes when they were young? Live out your earliest dreams, and sail the Horn of Africa, or the Gulf of Aden. Somalia’s coast may guarantee a good sighting or two, but these are not the romanticized pirates of days gone by, reflected by the distinguished and gentlemanly acting of Errol Flynn, Maureen O’Hara and Douglas Fairbanks. Johnny Depp, not so much.
Ask a hundred people what the top-ten reasons to take a cruise are, and you will most likely end up with a hundred different lists. The allure of the cruise, the exotic ports of call, the different cultures and climates will almost always be on the lists. If you have not yet taken a cruise, yet love to travel, you really should try one, even on a small cruise ship, just to see if it is, as they say, your cup of tea.
Enjoy the high seas. And try to avoid those nasty little pirates!
Celebrity Millennium, Spacious, luxurious accommodations consistently place Celebrity Millennium at the top of the rankings among large ships. Resplendent with glass and teak accents and sophisticated amenities, this ship is one of the most technologically advanced of the fleet and features environmentally responsible gas turbine engines. Expansive staterooms, specialty restaurants and the most luxurious spa facilities at sea.
New Years cruises are a great way to celebrate the holidays. You can bring your family and friends with you, or go off by yourself to discover a new part of the world. These cruises tend to fill up because most folks have these days off, so you need to book early as possible to get the best price and accommodations. Always buy travel insurance for your cruises, for a winter cruise can be affected by weather or other difficulties, and you will have fairly big investment in your cruise reservation. Cruise lines decorate for the holidays, offer unique holiday menus and provide the usual New Years parties. Most cruises offer extra special gifts for these sailings.
In general, a cruise line will allow you to book with 25% down, and let you pay the rest off over time. Of course, you must have the cost paid off before you sail. Since it is winter, some cruises are out, including those to Alaska and the northern parts of the world. Also, remember you must get to your sailing port on time to leave with your ship; usually this involves being there several hours before sailing. Your cruise price will include your room and food and many activities on the ship, but not all such as the casino area.
The price of traveling to your port is not included in the cost of your cruise. You will need to pay for and set up your travel separately. If you need to park a car, you can check with the port authority office to find out if parking is available at your port. Parking is not always available. Some local hotels have parking where you can leave your car during your cruise if you stay the night before at that location.
Your transportation will have to coordinate with your sailing; some people prefer to arrive the day before sailing and stay overnight. Others will fly at night and go to the ship from the airport. The more you have to coordinate to make your trip happen, the more benefit a travel agent will be to you. You can also book these things directly on your own, through the cruise lines, hotels and airlines. It is fine to shop around for a best price; I usually pick out a destination and let the cruise lines fight over me. You can negotiate your cruise price by comparing it to other cruise line offers. Cruise lines don’t like to lose customers. You can reach your cruise line on-line or by telephone to answer any questions you might have before sailing.
Here are some example of cruises you can book for New Years. Royal Caribbean is offering cruises leaving from San Diego, California to the Baja Peninsula for four days. You can also sail with them from Los Angeles and spend seven days touring Mexico. They have cruises leaving from Panama and Brazil for the New Years season. You can visit Australia and New Zealand. You can visit the South Pacific area by leaving from Singapore. From Galavston, Texas, or Miami or Fort Lauderdale, Florida you can explore the Caribbean islands for five to seven days. There are also sailings available from New York to the Bahamas. Some sailings are available leaving from Spain. These trips start at about 0 per person with double occupancy in your cabin for the four day cruises.
Disney Cruises has a sailing to the Caribbean to its Castaway Cay island, which is decorated for the season. This cruise starts at about 00 per person and leaves from Florida. Carnival cruises has many New Years opportunities from both coasts of the United States. You can sail to the Eastern Caribbean or to Mexico. Prices start at about 0 for these cruises.
Norwegian Cruise Lines offers cruises to the Caribbean, Mexico, and a round trip cruise around the Hawaiian Island that leaves and returns to Honolulu. Prices here start at about 0 since these are usually seven night cruises. Carnival and Celebrity Cruises offer similar New Year’s cruises, leaving from United States ports and starting at around 0. If you want a longer, more sumptuous cruise, Cunard line is offering holiday cruises that last for 15 and 22 days. These cruises leave from Southampton and sail to the Caribbean area. These cruises start at 00 per double occupancy, but provide a higher level of personal service.
I do not recommend sailing on small cruise lines during the holidays; if there are problems, many support services are closed during this time. But as you can see, there are a variety of places and price options available to please any traveler. All aboard!
What is the difference between free style cruises and not free style?
And also are there any cruises where tips are only recommended and not automatically billed or charged?
Answer by missanglgrl Free-style means you come and go to dinner when you like. non-freestyle you would have an assigned table and time. There are other restaurant on the ships that have non-freestlye where you can eat.
Holland America Line charges the tipping on your account, but it is removable whe you settle your bill at the end.
Answer by rick d Free Style Cruises are great. They do not require you to get all dressed up just to sit down and eat. They offer many different styles of food plus an excellent buffet. Tips are required. They usually are $ 10.00 aday which is for the crew.
Answer by TINKERTOY ….. the one, the only, the original There is actually not a big difference and it actually only refers to the dining arrangement for dinner. Before NCL started the Freestyle Cruising a few years ago all of the cruise lines gave you the option of having dinner at 6:00PM or 8:00PM and then they assigned you to a table. You got to know your waiter and all of the people at the table with you.
Freestyle Cruising means that you do not have to specify a dinner dining option when you book your cruise and thus don’t have a table and waiter assigned to you. “FREESTYLE” means you can go to dinner in the main dining room, or any other alternative restaurant, any time of the evening after 6:00 PM.. But you will have to reserve a time in the alternate restaurants. It also means that you don’t have to “dress up” for dinner, but just go “sports casual”. But it also means that you may be standing in line awaiting a table on some days (like we had to do a couple times); not what you want on a cruise. Since you go when you want, you rarely get the same waiter and so never really get to know your waiter and he/she never learns what you prefer as is done on “traditional” cruise lines.
I have been on many Norwegian ships and at one time NCL was my favorite cruise line. However, after NCL was bought by Star Cruises and they instituted the “Freestyle Cruising”, I do not care for their cruises and do not recommend them, especially for people who have been on a number of cruises and prefer traditional cruising.
The option to traditional dining being pushed on NCL is their optional dining restaurants. However, these dining options can cost $ 10 to $ 20 a person for dinner each night. The cost is called a gratuity or service charge. This is not what you want after paying for a cruise which is supposed to be all inclusive.
The optional restaurants are very nice, including French, Chinese/Sushi, Tex-Mex, Italian, and steak house restaurants. But who wants to go pay $ 20 to $ 40 each day to eat on a cruise ship where all the meals are supposed to be included. The last time wewere on an NCL ship we always skipped the optional restaurants and just got to the main dining early. That worked fine, except on “at sea” days when everyone wanted to go eat early. We later found that we could reserve a time in the main dining room, but we still got a different table and waiter for dinner each night.
NCL is just like all of the other cruise lines except on this one point. All cruise lines, including NCL, have an optional leisure dress dining option, usually a buffet area where you can go in shorts and “T” shirts. However, NCL and all of the others also have a requirement that you cannot go into public areas like show rooms, the casino, and the formal dining hall in shorts and swim wear after 6:00PM in the evenings.
Princess also has an optional dining format that they call “PERSONAL CHOICE” CRUISING. This means that you can select traditional dining or opt for unscheduled dining in any of their restaurants.
Cruise line tips are not really optional and most lines will automatically add them to your ship’s tab. You should not skip the tips because they are the majority of the salary for the people cleaning your room and waiting your table. The high end cruise lines may have tip included in the price of the cruise.
Answer by tbugs The answer preceeding mine described the differences perfectly. I would never go on NCL with the Free-Style. I think there would be too many people in shorts, flipflops, and tshirts at dinner and this would take the elegance away.
You would not go to a nice restaurant in your city wearing shorts, would you?
As for tips, NCL and some others automatically charge you for tips on your bill that you will pay at the end of the cruise. Celebrity does not. However, most people do pay the recommended tips since this is the main salary of the service staff. Do not go on a cruise and say you are not going to tip any of the service staff. That is just plain cheap and is not right.
What are the best cruises and cruise lines from NY?
Hello,
I am looking for recommendations for the best cruises that are based from New York. I am looking for 14 day cruises that go to the bahamas, or a tropical environment. Does anyone know the best cruises that start from New York?
Thanks so much.
Answer by Johan from Sweden If its still around I would recomend ncl cruises to florida and bahamas. Other than that RCCL has a great service package and you can always go on a back to back transatlanic crossing with Cunard.
And as I always says: There is no such things as the best cruise and cruise line but there is the best cruise for you. Johan.
Carnival Cruise ship video from cruisecompare.co.uk
What are the catagory upgrades on cruises mean?
What are the catagory upgrades on cruises mean? Example: Get a free 4 catagory upgrade with this cruise.
Answer by Penny B Pay for a 1A get a 6C for the same price. so to speak. Or pay for a 6B get a 9A
get an ocean view for an interior price
get a balcony for an ocean view price.
Answer by Time travler It means the same size room, but closer to the middle of the ship. You see, most people prefer the middle of the ship because you feel less movement in the middle. So, these upgrades do not mean a whole lot. A good upgrade is like from a balcony to a mini suite, something like that.
Answer by Tivogal cruises have different categories in the same level. it has to do with the accessability of the rooms the and the bigger rooms. if you re upgraded sometimes you get a bigger room, or a better location
(cc)
Answer by stepmiller2 Typically the upgrades are within the same category but higher up on the ship, so for instance you book and oceanview cabin on deck one and they bump you up to an oceanview on deck three. I have never heard of an upgrade on the same deck as everyone in the same type of room on the same deck pays the same price, so if you want to move just ask. Sometimes you can get a category upgrade but that is rare because of the financial costs. If you are a past guest your chances for a decent upgrade greatly imporove. I generally purchase the category I want with the cabin to be determined. As a past guest I have always ended up in better than the lowest priced location for the category I purchased, which is what I paid.
Answer by Barkley Hound Cabins are priced based on location and view. An upgrade is done not as a favor to you but to sell more rooms. By moving you to a better room they can resell the lower price ones. I booked a room on the Golden Princess to Hawaii in January. I paid for a guarantee in class HH which is the lowest price outside cabin with an obstructed view. A couple of days later they assigned a room to me in class DD which is 8 categories up. It is now unobstructed and I probably saved about $ 800.
theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com ——————————— partyvan.info EDIT: ANONYMOUS HAT SCIENTOLOGY DEN KRIEG ERKLÄRET! Seid dieser Kriegerklärung sind fast alle Webseiten von Scientology die meiste Zeit down. Scientology fängt bereits an zurückzuschlagen, sie haben Kopfgelder ausgesetzt und Attackieren ihrerseits gezielt alle Webseiten die über die Hacker informieren. Hier Links zur Kriegserklärung an Scientology de.youtube.com de.youtube.com Links zur Webpräsenz der von Anonymous www.encyclopediadramatica.com www.encyclopediadramatica.com —————————————————— Frankfurt am Main – Die umstrittenen Äußerungen des US-Schauspielers auf einem Video seien “schändlich fehlinterpretiert” worden, erklärte Scientology in Los Angeles am Montag in einer Pressemitteilung. Jeder, der Cruise kenne, wisse, dass dieser frei von Vorurteilen sei und Angehörige anderer Religionen oder Hautfarben nicht diskriminiere. Mit ihrer Stellungnahme reagierte die Organisation auf harsche Kritik aus Deutschland. Der ZDF-Historiker Guido Knopp und der Sekten-Experte Thomas Gandow hatten Cruise in der “Bild am Sonntag” auf der Grundlage einer Rede des bekennenden Scientologen, die in einem im Internet veröffentlichten Video zu sehen ist, mit Hitlers Propaganda-Minister Joseph Goebbels verglichen. Ihr Urteil: Die Rede erinnere an Goebbels’ berüchtigte Sportpalast-Rede. Cruise ruft in dem Film vor Scientology-Mitgliedern: “Should we clean this place up …
