Does the TA do anything special for you?

[pyro]

We've only cruised once, and we booked through the ship direct. Now we've booked through a TA and wonder if they will do anything special for us?

[mlymd]

We always have a very nice bottle of wine waiting in our cabin for us. It's one less bottle we have to carry one. Nice gesture!

Marcy

[RvrCrzr]

The best thing my TA does is gets me a great price.

Also, looks for drops in price.

One time, gave us an onboard party complete with an hour worth of free drinks!

[bettyvon]

The four times we have cruised, our TA has done special things for us, but she is also a friend, so that might make a difference. She always books the classic romance package for us which is champagne upon boarding, canapes the first formal night, 8x10 frame with choice of photo, special room service breakfast for two, and a few other things. She has had the room decorated with festive streamers, had a tin of cookies delivered for the kids, had flowers in my mother-in-laws stateroom. She likes to thank us for being loyal clients!

[Toto2Kansas]

Ours doesn't do anything special on the actual cruise. But her prices and service are some of the best around, and for what she saves us, we could buy whatever we want for ourselves.

Gifts are nice and in the past I have gotten them from different TA's but I would much rather get the best price then a bottle of wine.

[bombero]

Our TA gets us great prices and watches for price drops :) .. He always tries to get us ugrades and generally does ;) .. For thank you perks, wine, picture vouchers, or a small cabin credit.. He's great, :) we used him for the last three years.. Bombero

[mlymd]

Forgot to mention, the wine is in addition to the great prices my TA gets for us. Have been using him for over 10 years and he has never let us down yet!

Marcy

[Northender]

We received a nice bottle of wine. TA also gets the best price and then upgrades us a little for minimal charge. Also handles the insurance stuff for us and watches the pricing in case it goes down. This is a part time job for him but very helpful and responsive.

TA checks around for flights and calls when he sees a good price from Boston to Fort Lauderdale on the internet. He also suggested that we take Princess transportation when disembarking and it worked to our satisfaction for $10pp.

plus $7 tip to Porter at airport who also checked us in, got our boarding passes and put our stuff through security. ;) He had three familys stuff on his cart and was very efficient. :)

[Lynda90]

My TA gets us the best (at least imho) prices possible, onboard credits, a bottle of wine and constantly watches for price drops. I believe she is the most used TA by the CC group. At one time we were allowed to share names which is how I learned about her; but we cannot do that anymore. I can't believe the difference since I changed to her.

[roohound]

I've used the same TA for awhile now (it's not a brick and mortar TA, but rather a TA you only have contact with by phone) and while they did always get us great prices, we never got anything else. Until this last cruise with them.....they sent us a bottle of wine, a coupon for a free 8x10, and 2 Princess coupon books....a very nice surprise!

[espmass]

We have booked 4 prior cruises through our TA. Then this past spring we booked one and included 5 other cabins for various relatives. All booked through our TA. She has never done anything for us even with the 6 cabins! We just booked the Star for February and found a new TA who gave us even better prices than our old TA!

[seastar2]

I just changed TAs also..never got anything from the pior one..felt the prices were fair but in 10 years never an upgrade or wine..or anything. Even stayed with her when she opened her own agency.. :mad:

 

Found someone new and hope she is fair, so far seems good but the bottom line in 5 months will be the deciding factor. Price was fair to start but the "we book alot with Pricess so I will see what I can do" line given at booking will be the deceding factor. Any upgrade (I know the fairy has to find me) or wine or coupons..when I get on board will help. :rolleyes:

[Pam in CA]

I used the same TA for several years. Sometimes she'd do something, sometimes she wouldn't. She has given me wine a couple of times even though she knows I don't drink it. The best little "something" she gave us was a coupon for a massage. Loved that. For my 15-day Regal cruise, she gave me a flower arrangement (thank god, no wine!) that lasted the entire cruise. I now use a different TA, probably the same one mentioned above, and haven't sailed with her yet so I don't know if she does anything other than great prices.

[HighRoller]

I am so lucky just to have a TA that gets the best lowest pricing and also sends out documents on time and returns phone calls and is pleasant to deal with...what more could someone ask for?.....the bottles of wine, flowers etc in a cabin are NEVER free you do end up paying for it in there bigger commissions that TA's make on your higher fares paid!

[paljoeysmom]

My TA is the BEST of all the above. I have used him 4 times. He has the BEST PRICING around he BEATS them all hands down.

 

Note: I usually get 10 - 15 bids from on-line agencies, and a few brick & mortar places.

 

He gets us shipboard credits, and free upgrades. On our cruise in 2 weeks we got a shipboard credit, plus a bottle of wine.

 

On our last cruise in May on the Zuiderdam he pushed like the devil and got us upgraded "gratis" from a cheapo balcony to a FULL SUITE! For those that think that your TA has nothing to do with upgrades I do believe this is true in 95% of the cases. However, I know for a fact that my TA has pestered the cruise lines half to death until they finally fold. The man is ASSERTIVE! On that cruise he called me 7 days before sail and told me he was pushing for either of 2 suites and he provided the stateroom #'s so how about that! When we got to the dock we got the "BIG SURPRISE" he had scored us a suite. You have never seen two happier people in your lives than my husband and I on that day. We were absolutely delighted!

 

Then for our upcoming cruise on the Sapphire he called & said they are having a "FLASH Sale" on Mini-Suites and if we wanted one we had to react immediately. No JOKE! Later when I checked various websites I was ecstatic to find out we paid LESS for our mini-suite than some folks paid for an INSIDE CABIN!

 

For our cruise on April, I got 15 bids, and he left everyone of them in the dust. Needless to say I am one HAPPY GIRL!

 

Any ? contact me @ ksiggins@faroudja.com

[lindnet]

On my first cruise, my TA gave us all photo albums with the ship's name on them. The second one, we had a bottle of wine waiting in our room. She also gets us great prices, so we're sticking with this one!