Well, still shopping around but I think we've made our minds up that the Celebrity cruise is the one we want to do!
We have a hold on a balcony cabin until next Friday -best price we could get from UK agents is £1,554 with $100 on board credit.
Tried an American based website called called cruisecompare.com and have received 3 quotes all about £250 cheaper plus onboard credit but excluding airfare-anybody any experience of booking cruises with non Uk based agents-good idea or not

Scooby, sorry I did not reply, been in NY, my travel agent can get the price if you wish.

What cruise did you decide on?

Gerry

Hi Gerry
The Solstice 25th May 11 night Eastern Med-if you would care to PM me with your agents details I could get in touch with them-thanks.

Scoobyclaret, it is very simple and efficient to book with USA sites and we have done that many times with vacationstogo. Also, it is extremely easy and cheap with budget airlines to fly into Rome, and incredibly simple and cheap to get train Rome to Civitavecchia. Again we have done this more than once.

However, this is your Silver wedding so no risks, the beauty of doing a package (presumably Celebrity's own flight arrangements, rather than a TA one) is they are responsible for getting you onto the ship if delays occur. If you are not sure, I would ask the TA specifically if the flights are arranged by Celebrity. You could also get the TA to arrange a couple of nights in Rome to give Mrs S the 14 night break she desires! Hotels in rome a re very expensive though and not that great for star ratings, compared to other world class cities.

Hamrag, normally I would agree that it is cheaper to do your own thing. In this case though I am not so sure. Vacationstogo.com list a balcony cabin at just over £1,200, so I assume a Concierge would be more like £1,300. Then add air fare and taxis and train fares, I am not sure you can do it cheaper than thorugh a UK travel agent.
As you say, you also have the risk of delays which could mean your holiday is ruined if you are booking it independant of the cruise.

I have found Vacationstogo very good for cruises that are to the west (USA, Caribbean, etc.) but not able to compete as well on European stuff.

Gerry

Scooby, I tried to send you a PM but I get the following message:-
"Sorry but you don't have the facility to compose a new PM"

If you send me an email I will respond to you.

I have typed it in this format so that I don't run the risk of getting spam from certain software. I am sure you will figure out the real email address!

Cheers

Gerry

Regarding best deals, sometimes vacationstogo have been best priced for what we wanted to do, sometimes a particular deal on a TA is better. Vacationstogo are cruise only, and also when using TA we normally do cruise only, and get to embarkation port a day or two early using budget flights. We have done this for both Rome and Amsterdam giving time in these cities before cruise.

At the premium end of the market it is often TA's who offer best deals. For instance there have been really good deals on 2 cruises with the new Cunard Queen Victoria for late May and midish June, one for Baltics and the other Norway. We are sailing on NCL Jade on 30 May, otherwise would have booked one of these QV deals.

Secret is to choose that which is best for the cruise you decide on!

Sorry about that Gerry, but unfortunately we have had to introduce these measures to prevent people joining the site purely to spam our members.

I believe if Scooby PM's you first, assuming they have enough posts, then you should be able to reply.

If the information is not confidential as is just a recommendation of who you used, perhaps it would be better post on the forum for the benefit of other members.

luci

Thanks Gerry-I have sent you an email though have sent it from work and apparantly our mail server is playing up so I will PM you as well!

Hamrag-thanks for the input. It did occur to me that we may be able to save enough booking through an American t/a to possibly afford to book our own flights to Rome and have one or two nights stay before the cruise (it's Mrs S's birthday the day before so that would be great).

If we could get the same deal Gerry has got through a UK t/a however I think we would probably be just as well to go with that rather than risk any transportation 'mishaps' which may result in us missing the cruise.

Thanks Luci, I did not publicise who I used in case it broke any of your rules. Some sites do not allow you to put up 'commercial' type posts.

I now know different and will post a bit about them later.

Thanks

Gerry

No problem Gerry. We don't allow advertising and ban members that come on here purely to spam. However yours is a genuine recommendation and that we have no problem with.

luci

Price drop! I have just had a price drop of £126 pounds on my Millennium cruise to NZ/OZ in November.

Note the drop yesterday.

Sue

Price drop!

Have just spoken to my TA and confirmed that I will pay £114 less for my Millennium cruise (£126 adjusted to take account of the discount already given) and also a price drop of £18 for the cruise I booked on Summit last week.
It all adds up!

Sue

Just returned off the Summit
Nice ship although a bit drab in places
Food not the best but didnt starve...lol
Get a dinner seating on the main floor (deck 4) to avoid the chance of getting probably the worst waiter we have ever had on a cruise
Its the only ship we have been on that didnt offer much in the way of alternative dinning at night you could only get pasta, stir fry or pizza if you didnt like the look of the main dinning room menue

Sorry you didn't have such a good time on Summit. There is alternative dining up stairs in the Ocean Cafe or whatever they call it nowadays.
There it table service with a short menu of food cooked to order and it is set with table cloths etc. There is a cover charge of $2 which is really for the waiters. It is necessary to make a booking for this and it is screened off from the main area.
Also the speciality restaurant not sure what it is called Olympic on Millennium perhaps Normandy but this now has a cover charge of $25 but is an outstanding experience.

Summit has just come out of dry dock and there are I think outstanding issues to be resolved one being new urns for the Cafe.

Sue

Nothing fantastic as been added since dry dock it was mainly engine refurb
We did try the alternative dinning in the Waterfall and that was good but once you had looked at the menu for the eveing and decide if it was to our taste or not more often than not it was fully booked. Out of 12 days we got in once. We ate in the main dinning room about 7 times out of those time I would say 3 were really good the rest passable. Alternative dinning to me should be show up and eat.
Not once did I have an hot meal in the main dinning room without having to first send it back. The steak was rarly cooked how I like it (med/well) it always came back under cooked and bloody
I dont think it helped our dinning experience by have a dull as dish water waiter with the personality of a wet fish and not at all helpful in accomodating and special requests...just a blank NO if we asked for anything extra our anything not on the menu such as the one night I asked for a plain omlete I was told NO it cant be done....poor service
Normandy is now $30 and yes its the best dinning experience on the ship but surely the food and service should be the same all over not just when you pay an extra $30pp when I pay £1500 for a cruise I dont expect to have to pay extra bucks for a decent meal
Most of the lounges were drab and desperatly need an overall the worst being edge of the world/revaltions it just wasnt a pleasent place to stay long in

Maybe its me but I was expecting alot more for what is rated a 5* cruiseline

We did have a good time and made the best of it but it was definalty not 5* in food/ship/service it was no better to me than Thomsons and some areas worse, But I know for future not to listen to others an thier idea of good/bad because we all have our own ideas and know what we like for me its not Celebrity

The Olympic dining is outstanding on the Celebrity/Millennium really well worth the cover charge

Another price drop!! Summit 27th August. Yesterday noted that there was now an over 55 offer. Emailed my TA Ali who has just called me to say that yes they would allow me to benefit from this (thought they might say only for new bookings) so I am now paying another £126 less. Fantastic. Still a lot of availibility. My friend who was in a 2C balcony has no 55 offer but the grade above had so it is now a 2B balcony with a price drop still of £30.

Well done my STAR TA

Sue