US cruise agents

Dunedin52

I have been reading about people in the UK booking European cruises through US travel agents online where some of the prices are well below the UK price for the same cabin/date/cruise.

I checked on this and one of the US agents say on their site that the cruiselines ban this unless you have a North American address on the card you book with but some must know how to beat the system:D

Does anyone have any info of US agents that take UK bookings that mean you dont get stopped from boarding due to residency rules.

TIA

getmore4less

Use cruisecompete and make sure you have UK resident then some will quote.

NCL have no problem with US bookings so any agent should be able to supply,
to check prices you can use www.ncl.com/login (this will avoid it dropping back to to .co.uk.) then use the drop downs

For pricing I use Vacationstogo thye have a great search tool

remember there are taxes on top of most US prices.

I have booked using http://www.bestpricecruises.com/

But remember with US you need to phone afternoon evening or use email

Double check all pricing sometime UK is cheaper.

also don't forget to check EU pricing sometimes booking through Germany can be cheaper(but you need to speak german or find an englich speaking agent).

travellerboy

Carnival Corp. are the biggest Cruise Line, and they banned US T/A from accepting UK resident bookings a few year ago. The brands affected include P&O, Cunard, Holland America, Princess, Costa and a few others.
The Cruises you definately can book are MSL, NCL, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean. If you have doubts or others say different just EMail [EMAIL="dtauzy@vacationstogo.com"]dtauzy@vacationstogo.com[/EMAIL] he is one of many agents who work for VTG. This a US travel agency operating out of Houston, Texas.
Generally the cost savings are better for Caribbean, Alaska cruises than the Med., but still worth the effort to get comparitive quotes.

Another choice would be to use www.vivavoyage.co.uk This an American company with a UK office. I always get quotes from both, sometimes the UK agent is cheaper.

I have cruised with them all and I can honestly say that Celebrity are the best unless you have the money to travel with Regency Seven Sea or Silverseas. Choose the right boat is critical as 2000 passenger ships are very different from 3500 or 6500 passengers ships.

Hope that helps.

pjran

I have phoned Vacations to go, it's a uk 0800 number for cruise quotes. You need to ask them to include all taxes etc. Their prices can be very competitive but remember the price is in $$$

Dunedin52

Thanks for the helpful and quick replies, a bit of searching to be done to get the best deal.

Gratis wrote: »

What I’d like to add to all this very helpful advice is that if you (can) book with an American agent you’ll be able to get your deposit back in full should you need to cancel, up until a couple of months before departure. In Britain, you’ll lose it. This is an important consideration if if you’re booking up to a year, or more, in advance.

That is the reason I posted, over on Cruise Critic there are posts about North American's getting balcony cabins for $499 plus taxes,for the same date/cabin/ship sailing in Europe, the UK price was about £1K, they also have 'price drops', upgrades and On Board Credits if the price they have paid for their booked cruise falls in price.

I believe these are also available to UK customers if you check prices before Final Instalment is due, usually 90 days.

Thanks again for the advice.

BB

bcl999

Got to say that I have been very disappointed in cruisecompete quotes for a while now. it may be something to do with exchange rate but they were not at all competitive for any of the quotes I have asked for in the past year.

meddlesomematty

I booked my first evr cruise with cruise.com - it was straightforward and email was used for correspondance. Also on their site the available cabins flash - easy to choose a cabin

Mands

Dunedin52 wrote: »

That is the reason I posted, over on Cruise Critic there are posts about North American's getting balcony cabins for $499 plus taxes,for the same date/cabin/ship sailing in Europe, the UK price was about £1K,

Was that the Royal Caribbean Med 7 days out of Barcelona?

If so it might make you feel better to you know that if you had gone to the European version of the website those same balcony cabins were being offered at €9k per person.

$500 vs £1000 vs €9000

That's a strange currency converter that they have
Mands