Woody14

11 hours ago, euroguy said:

It just seems silly to me to spend $2 billion on 1 ship when you could split that in 3rds and have 3 magnificent ships with more and new exciting itineraries. 

I would agree with you that on the sizes just seem to be getting bigger and bigger and it is getting a bit over the top.

Unfortunately I don't think they could build 3 smaller ships for the same price as 1 big one.   it seems that the cost of a small one to build now is close to a billion on its own.         But I do get your point and tend to agree.

every cruise line as a few little differences on what it is allowed to bring on board.   That said gaming consoles are generally allowed.  Your bigger problem generally is that unless they are self contained many ships have the connections to the TV covered up so you can't connect it to your TV.

17 minutes ago, Cruising Caribbean said:

@Woody14 Biking to the cruise terminal is genius! That probably saved you a pretty penny. Are there bike racks near the port? How did you bring your luggage along? I always travel with such large suitcases. I can't imagine how you did it unless you backpacked! 

Sorry we actually walked from the cruise terminal.   We rented bikes in Galveston and used that as our local transportation.   We stayed in Galveston for a few days after our cruise.        We fly in to Houston the day before, took cruise line transport to the ship.  Walked off to our B&B where we dropped our luggage (as it was morning and check in was the afternoon) we rented bikes and used that to expore Galveston for the next few days.    That trip was a carnival cruise which docks right in town, being we passed the new RCL terminal on the ship, we decided when we were exploring to ride up to that area and see what it was like.

We travel carry on for most cruises but even that might be a bit of a challenge on a bicycle.    But you have me thinking.

If you were sailing from the downtown cruise terminal there is lots of cruise parking downtown but the new royal peir is a little bit out of the downtown and is pretty new. I biked by it when we sailed from galveston this past summer, they had a large lot right there but unfortunately I did not pay attention to if there was other parking in that area.   Sorry I can't help hopefully someone will have an answer for you.

also never heard of bans on animal print clothing.  Camouflage banned by some countries.    now if we are talking appropriate the opinions will vary.  for me animal prints are never appropriate, i would not wear them don't own them, don't like them.

In many ways I would be surprised if they go with a brand - unless they get some sort of sponsorship deal.   I am going to bet they do like they do with Celebrity and make all the product in house.

for free (or included) i would say MSC.   

for the kind you pay for Celebrity wins it for me

This may be controversial but I like back/aft or front better than mid-ship, given the choice of anything I would take aft facing.     Mid-ship is 'preferred' in the minds of cruise lines so they charge more for those areas.   But it is really all preference based on what some one wants.

3 hours ago, Cruising Caribbean said:

@Woody14 If you become a TA again, sign me up! You have a great knowledge base of the cruising industry. Speaking of, do you think the Black Friday cruise deals are truly the best of the best? I have seen some great rates, but I still find off-season deals to be even better than those sailings included in the black Friday promotions. The super-publicized sales don't always save the most, but I'm definitely a bargain hunter. I'm not sure if you have recognized the same thing, but the port taxes and fees are always jacked up during those promotions. It feels like you're saving, but once you go to check out the extra fees almost double the base price! 

Traditionally Wave season (January) is the best deals of the year. Some cruise lines offer special sales during that time to make it even better (Princess one day sale comes to mind - although it is usually on for 3 days).

I thought for many cruise lines this year that Black Friday was a let down.  I am sure there were some deals out there but I was looking to book a Royal or Celebrity in Europe and was very disappointed.

13 hours ago, 3Sisters said:

Does that mean all of your previous work was in vain? You can't control what the cruise lines decide to do with their ships and itineraries either. 

Yup, that is one of the challenges.   You can kind of see if from the cruise line point of view as to why would they pay out commissions on a sale if what was sold never happened and they never got the customers money.     It is totally unfair to the commissioned sales people but I guess that is just part of the risk.

As an agent in this situation you really have to take this as a learning experience from the work you did and a sign that you are willing to do what it takes to help your clients out.   But from a cash in the pocket it really hurts.

On 12/7/2023 at 2:46 PM, brian amos said:

WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THIS SHIPS ITINARY FOR APRIL 24 ??????????????

What have you heard?   on the MSC website it is scheduled to be in Mykonos Greece that day.

3 hours ago, Cruising Caribbean said:

I believe the cruise lines that have banned stateroom door decorations are NCL, CCL, and the newer adults-only Virgin Voyages. From what I am seeing, RCL still allows door decor. The reasoning behind not allowing the stateroom door decorations is quite lame if you ask me. Apparently, it's to reduce fire hazards. Obviously, reducing the risk of fire hazards is very important, but how is it really reducing the risk of potential fires? Does anyone have an answer for this? It just seems like a basic excuse to avoid any extra cleanup or odd decor. I have heard some guests will use decorations to signify certain things. 

Carnival still allowed door decorations this past summer .   I had heard that NCL had banned them and Virgin never allowed them to begin with.     Curious to see where this will go in the future.

Did I enjoy my time? - yes, i might even consider doing it again as a bit of a side hustle, but it is a lot of work to make money at.

Was it lucrative in any way? on a part time basis it was not.   as a part time person you are strictly commission, generally the commission doesn't come until the ship sails so you can do a lot of work and not see the benefits for a while.     You will have start up costs and marketing costs et all, so it takes a number of sales to make any money.    The amount of commission generally is a straight %  of the dollar value of the sale.  The amount of work involved in selling an inside cabin vs a suite is not much but the amount of commission can be significant (an inside sale for $1,500 vs $10,000 for a suite).  To make a living at it I figured I pretty much needed pretty much needed about 10 sales a month.  The ones that did well in the agency I worked with worked at it as full time jobs or had large established client basis.   The rest of us were one of 4 groups: 

1. new or trying to get established
2. those who have been doing it part time for a long period of time - many in this group made enough money to pay for there personal cruising several times a year. 
3. those that were doing specialty work.  they specialized in either specific brand (maybe upto 3 brands), or types of cruises and only sold those.   This would allow other agents to forward there clients who are looking for their specialty to them.  Internally there was some sort of commission sharing for this to incentivise this.   It was a bit tricky as people don't want to give over their clients as it takes a lot to build the client base
4. they worked on doing hosted group cruising - one little known fact is that if you book 10 cabins most cruiselines will give you the 11th for free.   In doing group work you can take a couple of approaches give everyone a discount or special bonuses once you get to the 11th booking or use the 11th to travel yourself for free (well you still have to pay taxes and port fees but the commission on the 10 bookings more than covers that).       How much hosting done did vary as some took care of everything for people including helping onboard with excursions, reservations et all and some just sold them the cruise and said hi to them in passing on the ship, as well as everything in between.

This 4th group was a growing way of doing things and is likley the best way I can see doing it part time.  it deals with the need to be connected to deal with other clients as many of your clients will be on the same cruises you are on, how much service you give would depend on you.  I am an introvert and not enjoy being the host besides I would love to relax on vacation, but getting them on board and letting them know my plans and research would be totally my thing.   As noted above I may do things that way in the future.

On 12/7/2023 at 12:30 PM, 3Sisters said:

 I wonder if you pushed a bit harder, if the line would change your account information to reflect all of the correct details about your cruise history with the line. 

good question, it has never bugged me enough to worry about it but it might be worth trying.

On 11/30/2023 at 5:17 AM, 3Sisters said:

 There are many perks to being a travel agent too. I think you would be able to get cheaper cruise rates for yourself! If anything, that could be reason enough to give it a shot. 

I did a little bit of cruise planning (TA work) as a side business for a few years.   While there are some perks and once in a while you can qualify for what they call a FAM deal (familiarization deal) mostly you are paying the same price as everyone else.   That said it works out a bit cheaper as you pay yourself the commission (which is not a big as you think).   Where you see the big savings is if you are flexible in time to travel you see the really good deals that come along from time to time (less so now than even 5 years ago).

1 minute ago, 3Sisters said:

@Woody14 That's so strange you encountered this so similarly to @Yvette Ealy! At least you were given points for that cruise. It would be even nicer if it was someone evident in your account. The application process mimics what @FJB shared.

Totally agree, it has never shown up in my past cruises part.   Even weirder is that it shows the number of past cruises in my cruise history but the original sailing on the Mercury does not get counted.  But as I noted I did get some sort of points for it.

On 12/3/2023 at 12:21 AM, brian amos said:

thank you yes through a third party in AUSTRALIA  MSC canceled two ships? from mid NOV 23 to 15TH April 24 and we were booked to leave on the 5/04/2024

I was booked on one of those cruises, directly with MSC and not through a third party or a TA and received full refund for what I had already paid and a $200 obc for a future cruise booked on MSC in the next 2 years.    I have now booked a different cruise on Royal but I had good communication from MSC.   I would check back with your third party as generally MSC only communicates with the person who booked (so your third party or TA) and not to the end client.

I don't think there is anything more than meets the eye.  MSC still has several ships sailing including in the med.   I would not be surprised to see them announce new sailings for this time period for the 2 ships they cancelled.   Many people would have booked those specific cruises for Isreal or other similar ports and are canceling so out of an abundance of caution.   We got our refund already for ours we had booked.   I had booked direct with MSC so it was easy.    if you booked with a TA you would need to contact them as MSC would have sent the info to them and not to you directly.

Had a similar experience with my first cruise on the Mercury.   to date it still does not show but they gave me some points for it.   They said it was because under the old system you had to apply to captains club where now it automatically tracks those things.

On 11/24/2023 at 4:49 PM, euroguy said:

@Cruising Caribbean you have to keep in mind that cruise ships fall under federal regulations. Despite some states approving Marijuana the feds have not. 

And many countries where the ships sail have not legalized either.

While for me a cruise to no where would not be my thing, I have met many people on board various ships that don't get off in any ports so essentially a cruise to no where by choice.  So there is a market for this.

What happened your post does not really say?

Usually when a port is missed you will get back at least the port charges for that stop.  it will usually hit your account as onboard credit which is refundable.

I have been on 2 Disney cruises one out of LA - Christmas cruise to the Mexican Riviera and the other out of Port Canaveral to the Caribbean.      There were definitely things I loved about the Disney cruise but would I pay more to go on one now - no, if I had 2 options and they were comparable would I choose the Disney one, even now that my kids are grown, yes I probably would.

For ships I actually enjoyed the older Wonder (Magic is basically the same) to the newer Fantasy (Dream is basically the same).  But I am more about service and quality than the fancy features and bilng.

the Treasure is not sailing yet (end of 2024)  so it should not be on the list as no-one can really say if it will be worth it or not, and you forgot the Wonder.   But if you are including ships not yet sailing you could add the adventure with will come out at some point in 2025

On 10/14/2023 at 9:51 AM, Bob L said:

Why does Oceania cruise company need my DOB to use the unsecured Wi-Fi in order to us it ? No airport & hotels ask for DOB. 

sounds like they are verifying user identity with who they have registered in the state room.    Not saying I agree or like it.