All my cruise quotes are the same?

[HazyDavey]

You are definitely a half-full type of person and that's great. You raise some valid points. I guess what has me steamed at RCCL is that the pricing is artificially fixed. The agents are now prohibited from offering discounts and thus, we the consumer are incurring higher costs.

 

Hmmmmm. RCCL may be committing anti-trust violations. I think I'll contact some friends who practice in that area of the law and see what they think.

[tinsel57]

To some degree that's not true.

 

If you have an agency who has enough clout to belong to a consolidator, for lack of a better term, they can and do offer lower pricing but understand, that's not straight across the board for every cruise and all plus unlimited number of cabins. They have large groups of cabins they secure at group rates. You do not have to belong to any particular group to get them, and if your TA pulls up lowest available fare that's the pricing that automatically comes up.

 

Which is what I am suspect happened to you last year! Because believe me, you got a heck of a deal on a D1 for 4 for a week in August! I just booked 3 in a D1 for the third week in July Caribbean tour at just over $4,000.

 

If your sail was sale-ed last year, naturally, this year, they're not going to offer that same deal for the same week and ship, they spread it around as someone else with interest on another ship on another week and departing from another port was cursing your last year's fare out because they couldn't get the deal you did last year!! This year maybe it's their turn!

 

Fares do change all the time, They are not indefinetly set in stone.

 

The price 'fixing' was meant as a way to level the playing field so that the large cyber conglomerates did not dominate, they do anyway, but it was an attempted to allow even the home based TA to get 'in the game' and be able to service their local community and not penalize that local community for supporting their local businesses.

 

Keep in mind, cruise companies are hugely costumer service oriented, though you may not think so at this writing, but they feel this is to everyone's advantage. Besides, what was really happening in the broadest sense was the large companies cut their employees' commissions and make up the difference in volumn. Something a local travel agency has no way of doing. It was really not a difference in cabin pricing in many cases, RCC was charging exactly the same fee whether it was to large agency or the individual. They only made you think you were getting a lower price, which is where so many problems occurred.

 

I really am glad to help you reseach, no charge, if you are interested. Email me if you want further discussion tinsel57@hotmail.com

[MTM]

Nobody had mentioned the auction website which we have used for 2 yrs now, and have paid considerably less for our last 3 cruises...even on their cruises this year, the bidding is higher than previously, but we still got a great deal for Sept...We are now looking at one for May which will be a little more difficult since the prices on ALL cruises are higher starting in May..but for you folks who are flexible with dates, that is the place to get a bargain.