RCI Travel agent question?

[CharlaneOT]

Hey y'all! Question for you seasoned RCI travelers... We booked through RCI and were assigned a "travel agent". We recently asked her few questions about upgrade costs and dining issues. She responded that in order to upgrade we'd have to pay X amount of dollars, which we knew ahead of time, but never bothered to check for us or see what availability would be. We asked her about my time dining and if we had to select a time, etc. We had heard that the agent would be able to book dining times for us or shoot an email out to RCI about dining preferences, but she instead gave us the number the RCI dining and instructed us to contact them.

 

Is that the norm? Is it better to have an private travel agent?

 

Thanks!

 

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[Biker19]

The norm can vary with agents, RCI or private.

 

Biker, who would avoid either agent and book MTD times in the Cruise Planner.

[maryred]

Not sure what you mean by 'assigned a "travel agent" ', are you referring to an RC travel planner? Back in 2012, the first time we booked by calling RC's 800 # we were transferred to a vacation travel planner. I swear the person's entire job was to sell me on including airfare (I live in the departure port state 60 minutes from the port), pre and post cruise hotel stays, excursions, and at fee upgrades (not just the cabin but the specialty dining venue). No mention of using the online features for anything other than doing my online docs. As for scheduling MTD reservations, I found that on my own on the website. And as the cruise was going to Bermuda, which we had visited before I knew that using public transport to the attractions and paying at the "door" any admissions was the most affordable and relaxed way to go.

Personally I was so unhappy with that experience, that for this RC cruise I went to a local branch of a national chain travel agency to book. I've been able to access everything like MTD online no differently than going direct w/ RC and the TA was able to get us a bit of on board credit when RC was not running a booking special that included it.