Hi Sue, must admit I would personally enjoy a T/A but my wife doen't think she would like to be on board any longer than 2 days at a time, and we both enjoy excursions at port which we increasingly do as our "own thing" rather than ship excursions. We do recognise that for St Petersburg in Baltic it will be one of the ship itineries as we would not be comfortable with "own thing" for there.

The Galaxy Med route you are looking at (I think you are) is very good and we did a similar 10 night cruise on HA Noordam last June at an incredible price via USA website!! Including 2 nights in Rome pre-cruise, and flybe flight, bus out to Rome, train to Civitavecchia etc. the total cost was only £750 each. It really was a breeze although, to be honest, less so on your own. From what I have read in Berlitz HA is just slightly below X in terms of quality/service etc. Would certainly recommend the Noordam, maiden sail was less than a year ago, although it is the Westerdam (maiden 2004) that is sailing from Rome in September.

Hi
I had been going to ask you what your opinion was of HAL after you had been on X.
Today I have just sent an email to a travel agent in the US who is used by a lot of people on the Cruise Critic. Of course they are not allowed to say who the TA is.
I had emailed her after I had booked Millennium and asked her about a quote for Century. I am not sure if I was to email her back or not in any case I have done it today.
How did you find your experience of booking through the US. Any problems?

I think it is very wise not to do excursions in St Pete's on your own. I did 2 different excursions on the 2 days we were there and I had absolutely wonderful guides both young teachers who were not afraid to voice their opinion on how they felt politically their country was going. Also the reality of what the changes meant to the man in the street.
A lot of people who had oldler guides were very cagey about what they said.
I am sure that you will enjoy the total cruise as it is cultural scenic and very interesting. Was on to the Bridge for the sail into St Pete's at the Captains invitation and on the Bridge for the sail out of Stockholm at the Staff Captains invitation. Got some great photographic memories.

My experience with booking via USA website was good, no problems whatsoever. The website is vacationstogo.com if you are interested, prices are shown in dollars. Flights are not included, so you book these yourself but that is relatively easy.

Some of the Caribbean prices, within 90 days of sailing are incredible. I did notice that prices go lowest for off-peak i.e. outwith school holidays etc. If you are flexible about booking late, some of the prices are good although not particularly with Celebrity, but definitely HA and Princess.

Yes it will be interesting to compare the X experience with HA, and I will certainly catch up with you then, and probably many times before if the last couple of weeks discussion forums are typical.

vacationstogo do show prices in £s as well

Yes, there is the .co.uk version but this does not include all cruises. We discovered a cruise last year on the .com version that was not shown on the .co.uk one. Best way to get pounds value is to use the .com site and click onto the dollar price which gives an estimate of the equivalent cost in other currencies, including sterling. Also be aware that the price does not include tax so you need to add up to 7.5% onto price quoted.

Hi again,

Thanks for the information. I got a response to the email I sent to a US TA.
The price was the same as on Celebrity Web site so nothing to gain from that as I would get at least 10% from TA here.
The price of this cruise has gone up in cost since I looked at it around 4-5 weeks ago. There is nothing to gain at the moment and if the availibility does not change my friend would want a balcony and there are none at the moment.
I would book an inside on the Century to keep the cost down. I know from experience that often as it comes nearer to the time to pay for crusie those in the US who might be holding several booking will cancel. . This frees up space but it is not guaranteed. Not to worry as there are plenty of ships out there. There will ALWAYS be something I am interested in.

This T/A in March I have booked a CC room. Previously I had booked a 2B balcony but with all the price drops I decided to splash out and treat myself. Why not!

Hope everyone is well.

Sue

Many thanks for the info.

Sue, I took a leaf out of your "advice book" today. We received a further flyer from the TA we booked our Baltic cruise with indicating a further incentive of free wine pack and labelled robe for new bookings. Despite the excellent deal we already have I called and asked for these incentives, which are given by X and not the T/A. The response was an immediate "no problem" so am even happier now.

Well done I am delighted for you. The holiday gets better all the time. I think it is always good to keep your eyes and ears open. Before my time on CC I would not have thought it possible to get these extra deals.

This is why I decided to write something on Holiday Truth as I think we here in the UK are often short changed.

Your holiday is not until June so you never know anything can happen between now and then.

I am just wearing my nice Robe I won in a competition on line last winter. I filled in something or other and got an email to say I had won.
I also have one given on Island Princess when I saw the Hotel Manager about our mini suite which I had been told had a seperate shower and bath. The shower was over the bath and this was not ideal as my Sister has arthritis. Now has 2 new knees!

He said he would have moved us to a suite if he had one but the next thing happened was the arrival of a large bouquet of flowers wine and they filled our mini bar with everything alcohol soft drinks water beer etc.
The door then went and it was 2 robes and 2 pairs of towelling slippers.
Each evening we received canapes or hand made chocolates or strawberries or whatever for the duration of the 16 night Panama cruise.

I am very pleased that you are pleased. It is good also to let others know when something good happens.
By the way what did you think of QM2. I have cruised with Cunard on Caronia about 5 years ago but she was a small ship and I did enjoy it. Today I noticed the messages at the top of page and noticed your message. I have written a short reply to you.

Sue

Thanks sue, I have sent a private message in response to your posting.

This is amazing! The price of our RCI cruise in April has dropped on the RCI website, and I'd ove to claim but cannot find anything in the booking conditions. The TA we used is sold out so has no price to compare. Just wondering how to go about claiming, whether to TA or RCI . Any more tips please

Hi I will try to be of help to you.

What you need to do is look at the Celebrity Cruise web site. Take a note of the basic price ie the cost of the room only. Leave the tax and the flights out at this stage.
Next go to your invoice and everything should be detailed.
1 The cost of the cruise
2 The cost of the flights
3 The tax.

If you have paid more for the actual cruise then you need to ask your TA to ask Celebrity to reduce this price for you. They must do it and you may need to be persistant as the TA will lose a bit of commission. It was my TA who told me in the first place. This may also reduce the discount the TA has given you but in the end this is only very marginal.

I have 3 seperate reductions over about 8-10 days.
First £80
next day another £40
a few days later another £60
I then found out that there was a +55 reduction on this cruise also. This was £230!
What I did here was email Celebrity myself and asked whether this could be applied to me. They told me YES in a return email
My TA was told that this did not apply to my booking. I forwarded the email to Ali and she called Celebrity and my booking was adjusted.
I then upgraded from a 2B to a CC room,

If you refer your TA to the booking conditions Look at the conditions page 100 in my brochure.
WILL THE PRICE CHANGE 1.9
Price can be reduced or increased only if the amount is 2% they will pay a refund.
Bring this to the attention of the TA and make sure that they make that contact with Celebrity for you.
If they won't then I would personally contact Celebrity and tell them that your TA is refusing to do this for you.
Let me know how you get on. I only found out about the refund situation through Cruise Critic. Very good web site if you dont already know about them
I think here we often get a poor deal but now many others in the UK have also had a refund.

Sue

Sorry but the conditions of booking with RCI will be exactly the same. Follow the same instructions.
Your TA saying that he is sold out is of no importance as all he has to do is look what the price would be now on the web site!

Just be persistant but polite and don't let them put you off. Just tell them maybe they are not aware of the situation and then quote that you have learned about this from someone on a forum. Quote me if you like.
Just want to make sure that as many as possible benifit from this.

Sue

Many thanks keelaleva,

Sorry it's taken so long, mega computer probs.

we'e off on Friday.

best wishes

Chrissie

Here's a good way to save money on a Transatlantic cruise. Celebrity sell transatlantic cruises cheaper through travel agents in certain countries around 4 - 5 months before the sail date. Last year we had booked a sky suite on Galaxy through a travel agent in the US, when checking prices I seen an unbeleivably cheap rate for a royal suite on the Celebrity website. My computer for some reason thought I was in France. I cancelled the booking I had made with the US agent and rebooked the Royal Suite and still saved over £300. You can check the prices available in France on the Celebrity US website. On the bottom of the home page you'll see the option 'Not from the UK', click on this and select France, then seach prices. The discounted prices are will be available from August / September. The agent Celebrity uses in France is the one I booked with, the agent could email in English, however the documents come in French, this however is fine for people who have cruised before and know what to do. Overall the prices were around 35 - 40% cheaper. Prices are in Euro and my parents got a balcony cabin on the 14 night Century TA for €620, less than £450, flights back from the US cost less than £200. This is well worth trying if you are used to cruising.

Thanks for the advice. Yet another way of finding a good deal. I have just this week booked Century for 11 nights in the Med. October 22nd. I was holding an option for the Millennium 4th Nov. I sorted this out whilst on the Mill. T/A Last week I noted that the prices for the Century had dropped. My friend was on holiday in Dubai and was not home until the 16th April. I needed to discuss this with her. We needed to go away in October at the earliest as she had other committments.

I asked my T/A to hold 2 rooms on this cruise and we then booked Century transferring the Ref No for the option on the Millennium. This way we retain the OBC that you get if making a booking on board. They have reduced the OBC and this now depends on how much your cruise has cost rather than the length of the cruise. It was unusual but they allowed me to hold an option for her although she was not on the cruise. This way she also got the OBC but I was surprised by this as I have read of others who have been refused this.
I confirmed the booking on Wednesday evening and then noted that the price of insides had increased followed by an increase yesterday on the balconies. Just in time for us. I would now think that they have sold considerably more rooms and there may be no further reductions. I will be keeping an eye on prices however. Always important but particularly if you are paying a single supplement. I booked an inside grade 9 for this cruise and have paid just over £1100 for the cruise including tax and flights. Fairly good I think. The 2A balcony was £2009 also a pretty good deal.

Sue

tidewatching- all you have to do is call RCCL and they quickly deduct the price drop. They will not call and notify you when this happens,you have to monitor prices yourself but if you see one,then call,or if you booked via a TA then have them call. I got a price drop of $230 each for first two pax and $50 for the third on my Freedom of the SEas cruise coming up in June,before I made final payment. Then last week I was checking the Promowave list ( comes out every Tuesday) and they had a SR special rate (over 55) for my sailing,so I called and got that- saved another $200 so I keep a close eye on prices. Celebrity has the same policy and so do Princess.

Just to say that equally price increases do occur. The cruise I booked just a week ago has had another price increase yesterday. Obviously the price drop generated a lot of bookings and now that they have reached a certain level they are once more selling at a higher price.
I had been going to book the Ist October sailing on the Century but my friend had some difficulty with the date at the time (late January). Now that cruise has gone up by so much that the price is just too high. Price increase of about 60% from what it was then.

Sue

We go on the Century to Russia & Scandinavia on 27 June and booked via a T/A in January. We have an inside on Promenade deck and I noticed today that the guarantee inside price quoted on the site had dropped from £1125ish on Monday to £868 today Wednesday, excluding taxes. Glad to say the price we paid was still less than this for an upgraded inside, but this is a very good deal for anyone looking for inside cabin. Sails from Amsterdam which is much easier, and cheaper, to fly to than Copenhagen which is the more common sailing port with Princess and HAL.