Booking through Costco and travel insurance questions

[ChanaC]

Apologies for the two questions in one thread, but I thought I might as well kill two birds with one stone.

1. Has anyone booked a cruise through Costco before? I usually prefer to book any trip direct through the airline/hotel/cruise company, but I've heard a lot of good things about Costco. Right now I'm seeing a really insane deal which makes booking a balcony about 25% cheaper through their website, and it looks like they throw in some other travel perks. Looks like they don't have cancellation fees, they just charge whatever the cruise company might charge. Any pros and cons with booking through them?

2. Separately, talk to me about travel insurance. I've never really booked a "big" trip like this before, and with Covid it seems super important to get insurance to cover everything. What insurance companies have you used? And what should I expect in terms of prices?

 

[lanejudy]

If you are looking at a Disney Cruise, no TA is allowed to discount the cruises beyond the same fares offered by booking directly through DCL. What you DO get with Costco is a Costco card valued at approximately 8% of the cruise fare, after your cruise is completed.

We also get trip insurance for cruises. DCL also offers an insurance product, and I believe Costco offers one. I compare prices using one of the online "trip insurance comparison" websites.

 

[TPgal]

We have booked via Costco twice, and an independent TA once. The moderator is correct about pricing but I will add that the service we have received from Costco has been superb. They have re-booked us twice, helped us coordinate these rebookings with our travel partners under their own (costco booked) reservation. They also have their own (3rd party) excursions on some itineraries with guarantees to get you to the ship on time, or to the next port at no extra cost. (This is not available at all ports.) On some cruiselines, C wasn't able to display the suite prices on the website, but had access to them for quotes and booking.

 

[HiStitch626]

That 25% may be a restricted GT rate that is also available directly from Disney. Be aware that if this is the case, you have to pay for the entire cruise when you book it and the fare is non-refundable.

We do not book insurance directly through Disney or Costco, but through a travel insurance comparison site.

 

[Sarahslay]

DCL actually has a 25% off discount going right now so it's probably not Costco give the big discount, but you do get the shop card (and if you are an executive member it applies towards your 2% back, which I always like). I haven't done a DCL cruise with them, but another cruise, and it was much like working with the vendor. That being said, I preferred to work directly with DCL with all the covid stuff since I didn't want a middle man to have to work through with that. It's one thing to have a smaller company with a dedicated TA, but with Costco you don't really get that so it can be a pain if you have to do a big switch. I generally use them when I have zero clue what I'm doing and just want to make it easier on myself, like European trips with tours and stuff that they take care of the little extra details on.

We always get travel insurance when going anywhere outside of the US (this includes cruises, obviously). You never know what could happen and that can get pricey. There are several websites that allow you to compare and contrast, for our coming cruise we just used the insurance through DCL.

 

[lilsonicfan]

I love booking through Costco but it comes with a number of headaches. Well worth it (to me) because of the huge amount that comes back in costco shop cards (this trip we are looking at getting back almost $2,000 cdn). The service is good (can depend who you get at Costco) but don't expect them to know very much specifically about DCL.

Insurance: this coming trip is the first time I've bought insurance. Interestingly I did not buy for trip cancellation. This is because all the big parts of our trip are cancellable if it comes down to Covid, which is the most likely reason for our cancellation anyway (and DCL's policy on cancellation re: covid right now is massively in the customer's favour) - so what I did buy was covid-specific, that also covers medical emergencies - but it specifically covers costs of having to quarantine somewhere due to covid. Incidentally I did buy this through Costco but just through their general website, not their travel site, and it was significantly cheaper than the quote from that same company directly.

 

[unrequited23]

Travel insurance--check out a few comparison sites to get the coverage you want for your entire trip--travel to port, any hotel stays before and after cruise and travel home, in addition to the cruise itself. The insurance offered by DCL doesn't include the 'extras' and can be pricier. We got quotes for around 4% of the total price of the trip.

Comparing prices. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Many times the Costco site will promote a rate that needs to be paid in full, has stricter cancellation policies and lets DCL choose the stateroom. Right now there are very liberal cancellation policies so it is not as scary. When I was pricing out my cruise the price was the same between DCL, Costco and a TA...except Costco and the TA were offering me an additional Costco cash card or onboard credit.

We booked with a TA so we would not feel bad about splurging onboard for a couple of drinks or the day vs. buying dog food and applesauce pouches at Costco.

 

[LeiaOfAlderaan]

We have used Costco to book all 6 of our DCL cruises and I have been mostly ok with their service. After the fiasco of dealing with 2020 cancellations I vowed never to use them again but I just can’t resist that shop card. I will say their phone wait times have REALLY increased since March 2020 but I rarely need to call them so it’s not that big of a deal to me.

The one big negative is if you want to use a placeholder on opening day. You will likely wait on hold for hours with Costco, then wait on hold for more hours while they are on hold with DCL. With a full service TA they would do all this behind the scenes for you.

As for insurance I always use the comparison sites. Costco used to have amazing travel insurance but I find it is no longer competitive. Decide what is important to you when comparing plans…I always look for $1 mil for evacuation and a decent amount of health coverage since our regular health insurance is awful.

 

[sjuncfan]

We have almost always booked through Costco and had good experiences. We like getting the shop card and we also switched a couple years ago to an executive membership which gets us cash back at the end of the year- when we buy enough and book a trip or two, it pays for itself and then some.

My main complaint is when you change anything, you will sit on the phone forever to reach someone at Costco and then again when they try to reach someone at Disney. I could see the benefits of booking a more full-service travel agent where you could just shoot them an email and they'll take care of it without you having to be on the phone for 1-2 hours.

 

[ChanaC]

Thanks everyone!

I should have clarified, I was actually looking at a Royal Caribbean ship. Apologies, I know this is a Disney forum, but the RC thread doesn't seem to be too active, and the Cruise Critic boards seem hard to follow (and honestly kind of nasty sometimes).

Worth noting is that this rate I found is a "Kirkland Signature" rate, which includes a $50 shipboard credit, a spa experience for two, a specialty dining experience for two, and a free soda package. All those benefits plus the initial discount seem like a fantastic deal. I'm going to do more research and see what other deals might be out there, but if Costco isn't too much of a pain to deal with than this seems like a really good offer.

I also really want to research insurance options. I grew up in the Ft. Lauderdale area, so cruising out of Port Everglades or Miami has always been super easy. This time we're looking at an Alaska cruise, which would mean flights and a hotel. If something happens where we can't travel I would really want to get everything covered.

 

[lilsonicfan]

I don't know how it works with RC cruises. The main benefit to Costco when booking a DCL cruise is the costco gift card. It amounts to something like 7-8% of the cruise; which I believe happens because Costco Travel is so huge that they qualify for approx a 16% commission from DCL, of which they then 'rebate' half to the customer. DCL doesn't allow discounting by travel agents so the only 'deal' you can really get is if the TA rebates back the commission either as money or as onboard credit, etc.

With RC it may be that RC allows travel agents to discount, offer other perks, etc. Because of that I am not sure that booking with Costco would offer the same 'deal', proportionately, as booking a Disney Cruise; however, I can say that as a Costco member, whenever I have cruised another line I have always gone to look at Costco first. I've booked Princess before, for example. All smooth.