Booking cruise and air on my own

[HMSDingy]

For our Med cruise with another line, we booked the cruise with a TA but did the rest including air by ourselves. It was a great learning experience as we also did all sightseeing on our own by taking local transport and trains. It also helped that both my wife and I are fluent in both Italian and Spanish.

[pris993]

We generally book our own cruise, air and hotels directly. Primary reason, we like to be in control - not subject to cancellation fees with a TA, if we change our mind. We book with Princess, Holland America, Cunard and NCL primarily. Have done Princess out of Southampton a couple of times.

 

Once we are sure the trip is a go, we buy travel insurance primarily for health and emergency evacuation insurance coverage since we are seniors. We usually purchase based on our air fares so dates are inclusive of our entire trip. We figure we self insure our other trip costs after final payment. Prior to final payment it is easy to cancel the cruise and hotels without any penalty.

 

It is easy to get a cab from the airport to Southampton, have done so on the spot. We have also used a preordered car service to and from the port, called Smithtotheairport which can be ordered on line, excellent and professional service. You can google for info.

 

We generally stay one night at a airport hotel, there is a Marriott we have used several times. We like to have a good night sleep before boarding since we are flying from California. We also stay at least one night on the return from England, so we don't need to worry about making flight connections.

 

We have been traveling internationally for 30 years, so it is just as easy for us to do it all ourself.

 

Reference to air, we look for the most direct flights, avoid codeshare flights, stick to the primary carrier if we need to change planes. So if we are flying American Airlines, we want to be on AA all the way vs a partner airline. Which airline is most direct depends on where you are flying from, i.e., home airport.