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I used to book cruises and vacations through my local TA. She was very nice, very friendly, very knowledgable...I could drop by her office any time, sift through brochures and talk about ideas...She was especially good at coming up with Air/hotel packages as she knew which resorts were pushing which kinds of deals...
But, when it came to cruises, she was basically able to call the cruise line, get the price and pass it on to me...She couldn't discount her commission since she needed it to pay that high overhead on that convenient Main Street office...and since the volumes she was doing weren't exactly high with just local traffic...
A couple of cruises back, I decided to venture out on the internet to find a deal...I decided that, since I already knew EXACTLY which ship I wanted and which sailing dates, I didn't need to pay for all of the advice...
I E-Mailed or called several web sources...and to my surprise, even found varying quotes on the same cruise...
I ended up using Cruise for Less/Abracadabra Cruises (Hirsch and Marji/800-268-0854) as they seemed very much above board and quoted me the best price...Basically, what they did was to get the best price from the cruise line then discount it by 10% (5% off the air cost)...
I went back to them to book my upcoming cruise as well...But there are several others out there who basically do the same thing, so find one with whom you are comfortable...
The other way to get a reduced rate is to find an agent who has pre-purchased a group block...With these, you have to hope the block purchased is at a time when you are able to go (never seems to work for me)...
I guess the short answer is, yes, if you know what you want, you'll save a few hundred dollars on the net...Even if you don't know, some of the discounters, if you call them directly, will probably help you find a cruise AND discount it for you...
Good luck...
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