How does going through a Travel Agent work?

[gshoemate]

I have never used one. But the other night I called a "Florida Travel Agent" to get a price on a cruise. So I tell them how many people and what I want to spend and he says "hold on while I call DCL to see what they have" So i'm on hold thinking I could of done the same thing. The he comes back with a price and it is the exact price that I could of gotton on disneycruise.com. So why would you go through a travel agent and get a 3rd party involved for the same price. Am I missing something?

 

[Cruisin]

I always use my travel agent to book my Disney Cruises. I check the prices myself on the DCL site on the internet and she gets me the exact same prices as the internet site offers.
The advantage to me is that she does all the work of actually booking my vacation. The advantage to her is she gets the commission from Disney for booking my vacation. I like my travel agent and I like to give her my business whenever I can.

 

[my3kids]

When I have called some of the Florida based internet dominant cruise sellers, I just tell them I want the very best price. They get the exact price from Disney, then discount it....something like $100 per person off, or a certain percentage of the price discount, like 10% less than DCL. Just ask!

 

[Dreamer04]

My first DCL cruise, I booked through travelocity. I will not do that again. Here's why. This year I booked through allseastravel.com
and have experienced EXCELLENT service. Knowledgeable, patient, personable, customer oriented-it goes on and on.

The price was less than DCL. But it was ther service that kept me there and has made me a customer for the future. I plan to rebook onboard and then transfer to All Seasons Travel when I return home.

That said, I had no trouble with travelocity, but allseasons is cheaper and I feel that they care. I have not been an easy customer. Traveling with my elderly mom and DH, DS and DD had presented challenges, as far as cabin location, dinner seating and travel insurance. Chuck and his team have be STELLAR! I can't say enough about them.

That's why I use allseastravel.com

 

[alexandrew]

check out www.allseastravel.com....pricing for all cruises, especially with FL res discount applied, is always lower than DCL direct....

 

[CGC33A]

Advantages to using a TA can be many (if you have a good one). Having one is more important if you have any sort of complicated trip planning to do. Their services (used to be) are generally free. They work on commisson. Now some charge fees for airplane tickets or really complicated travel plans (i.e. custom tours etc). For more simple trips (cruises), a TA can answer questions, help you plan your excursions, tell you about the ships (maybe biased) to help you get the right one for your wants/desires, get the right cabin etc. If you have any problems on the trip, most have 24 hour 800 # to call to help you. Some give discounts or gifts on the crusies (some of this is up to cruise line-bigger discounts, deals, upgrades for heavy bookers in some cases). On the other hand, if you have a bad TA, dealing with DCL might be better. The TA could mislead you (not usually intentional-just clueless), mess up on your ressie (have heard of this on this board) or be generally useless. Then it is time to find another one. Lots of good suggestions on this board of internet ones etc.