Fashion Mode

Booking a cruise is much more complicated than buying a plane ticket or calling a hotel for a room. As with any vacation, there are many decisions you must make. It is important to find a cruise agent professional who has lots of experience in cruising. For first timers, a local cruise agent you can sit down with is personally is best option. However, with the days of Social Marketing you can now easily speak with a travel agent via Skype. If you are unsure how to use video calling it's easy to use with a free download. You simply add the travel agents Skype name and ring them via video conference call. This beats sitting in a travel agents office waiting for them to become available. If you are unsure if they have a Skype account simply send them an email requesting their Skype name and you can be up and speaking with a cruiseagent in a matter of minutes.

CLIA affiliated agencies take advantages of many CLIA programs in order to better serve their cruising customers. CLIA agents receive up to the minute training from CLIA and the cruise line industry. Cruise Lines International Association agents will also have this as part of their affiliations listed on their site.

Cruise agents can serve as advisers, planners, and negotiators with the cruise line to help you get the best deal available. They also tend to purchase large amounts of cruises at certain times of the year and resell them to their customers at a low rate due to their bulk purchase. Groups looking to plan a vacation for a cruise can possibly save thousands when traveling with a cruise agent who has these berths already purchased at last year's price. Therefore sometimes it pays the cruise customer to take the time to speak with a travel agent directly before booking through a search engine online. Also, many of the online travel sites will not take group bookings and you are required to speak with a cruise agent directly to make all the necessary arrangements without a lot of stress and wasted time. When you book in this fashion you also will on many occasions get certain perks that the travel agent is giving their customers who are traveling as part of a group. This could include onboard credits, bottle of wine, and other incentive items not always provided to cruise travelers booking online.