Are you booking flights for your next cruise?

[Roz]

Yesterday I had my TA book my flights for December 6 river cruise.  Last week I received an email from Tauck saying the cruise is a go.  Otherwise I would have waited another month to book.  I was disappointed that the fares Tauck quoted me were the same as what I found on the UA website, but I booked with them anyway in case the cruise gets cancelled.  If Covid continues to spike things could change.  

 

Today I received an email from Tauck updating the info from last week.  Now everyone needs to be vaccinated and can't substitute a PCR test.  

[iancal]

No.   Expect to fly to Greece in late Sept/early Oct.

 

Plan to buy our tickets 7-10 days prior to departure.  Covid situation is always changing so we will wait until we know for certain that it is a go.

[CalgaryMac]

We always book our own flights as I have found that the flights offered through the cruise line are not always the best priced and sometimes the route suggested is a milk run across North America. We like to travel business class and find it easier to book ourselves. I normally Strat with a site like Kayak to see which airlines might be offering sales and then check the specific site of the air line that we think suits us best. We have found some really good deals over the years.

[islandwoman]

Our next cruise (I hope) will be in June 2022 on Azamara from Greece.  We booked our own flights with frequent flier miles because currently those are easier to cancel and re-book than paid flights.  We did check Azamara's "Choice Air" and found those flights to be the same price as those we could book ourselves and the itineraries less convenient. Not only that, but they would have charged us a cancellation fee if we had to change.

Next month it will be time to book flights to London for our Princess cruise in October 2022.  I hope that, as in the past, the Princess EZAir flights will be less expensive and just as convenient as anything we could book ourselves.  In addition, we'll book Princess transfers.  The Princess air/transfer should serve as insurance against missing the ship.