Help - cruise compete questions

Thanks for all of the help so far. Well its finally time to book. Family of 7, decided on the Royal family Suite on VOS 1/15 sailing. The problem is that my local TA is almost $700 higher than some of the quotes I just got from Cruise Compete. I don't want to over pay, but I don't want problems down the road.

Has anyone used Cruise Compete and booked with Cruise Professionals or Cruise Market Place? Or can anyone recomend a great TA?

Hi, Ccampbell -

We have been going through USAA Cruise Travel for our TA. I don't have the telephone number right off my head but if you call information and ask for the 800 number they can give you that. We are booked for a cruise in October and USAA gave us a much better deal than what was priced out on the RCCL website. Hope this helps! Happy cruising!

Bev

Legend - Panama Canal - 10/17

Where The Ocean Meets The Sky I'll Be Sailing!!!!!

Past Cruises:

Majesty OTS - 06/1999

Splendour OTS - 11/2000

Radiance OTS - 05/2001

Radiance OTS - 09/2001

Infinity (Celebrity) - 10/2002

I used ***** in April to book Feb 20, 2005 Panama Canal cruise. Found the cheapest thru cruisevactionoutlet(from ***** quotes). They have been great to work with and very responsive. If you will notice on each quote you receive there is a link for the BBB showing that they are in good stranding. So be sure and check this out. This company was $650 cheaper than my local TA and make sure with any quote you get from anyone that it is for the category you want and if you want them to quote air.(Some make quote a Q category and some may quote a N category, so be sure you are comparing apples to apples)

02/20/2005

Thanks. Has anyone else used them?

Have you tried a quote with CruiseQuick? they've beaten all the quotes I got through *****. And lots of good write up on them here.

Some Ship, Some Itinerary, Somewhere in the Med.

Mexican Riviera - Rhapsody of the Seas

11 Day Circle the Caribbean - Splendour of the Seas

Alaska - Dawn Princess

Coastal - Island Princess

I just booked our december explorer cruise with them a few weeks ago and so far everything has been great. The agency I booked with provided me with several email addresses, a phone number and a mailing address. they have been quick to respond to all communications. The quote I got for the trip insurance was a little high so I did book that directly with travelguard.com

Diane

Explorer of the Sea 12/5/04

Legend of the Sea 9/12/04

Voyager of the Sea 8/24/03

Sovereign of the Sea 07/01

I personally have found that the prices that were quote a *****, where higher than if I booked it myself at one of the on-line agencies. I would try www.cruisequick.com, e-mail only but there response time is wonderful, wwwbestpricecruises.com, only down side is that if you have to cancel they do charge a fee, also not responsive to price reductions by the cruiselines, wwwvcruiseclubofameirca.com, will to refund portion of cruise with check, even after final payment. Have fun cruising, most local TA just do not do the volume to be able to sell at the discounts a lot of these on-line agencies do

norm

I got quotes from Cruisequick and others for my Nov sailing on Navigator, and found cruisequick among the lowest. BUT, I found that the total cost on Orbitz, after discount coupons etc, was exactly $100 total more than the lowest price from an on-line exclusive agent. Cruisequick doesn't honor face value of coupons, whereas Orbitz does.

For this $100, I get to shop online, instant price quotes AND, I have a live TA on the phone that I can call with issues and concerns. In fact, I didn't actually book online, but I got my price quote from Orbitz online, and called the TA to book over the phone. They honor the web price over the phone.

To me, it is well worth $100 to have a live person to handle my issues (including ensuring that my coupon gets applied for example)

Join our Navigator Nov 13 roll call

We meet in..

I used cruise compete and got vacationvaluecenter.com as the cheapest. The process was quick and we had no problems. If I had taken the time I could have found this price myself. We booked late, so did not use coupons. On a thread here earlier, it mentions to send your coupons in anyway to RCI and they have always been honored. We are sending ours in and we see what happens. If you are new to cruising and really do not understand ports and transfers, a local travel agent can help you there. If you still want to wing it, just post questions on this board. You will get lots of advise.

Jewel of the Sea May 2004

Serenade of the Sea August 2003

Splendour of the Sea August 1999

Legend of the Sea August 1997

Rotterdam May 1989