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Create your own travel agency LLC, get with a host agency for all you mentioned plus more and get commissions on your own travel, and write off all your travel expenses. That's what we actually did when it was clear we would be traveling as a life style. So, a bit more to the story, but essentially control is key and TA benefits aren't worth losing that control in our opinion. So, we did as mentioned and get the best of both worlds. We are our own TA.

Control

First cruise 23 years ago I used a TA. Have booked direct since and that is for all our travel unless we get a good deal using points via Chase Sapphire and Chase Travel.

We will be sailing in an ocean view balcony on the Odyssey with our 5 year old in December. We normally sail in a JS or above for the extra space since our son started to join us, but we booked last minute and it seems the ship is sold out. It will be interesting to see how things work out and this thread definitely brings up some good points. We normally tip the stateroom attendant to start the cruise if we need anything out of the ordinary. This is in addition to the standard gratuities and tends to uplevel the service throughout. I wonder if this type of tipping strategy is still valued or if they just pass completely on the opportunity in which case I guess we fold and/or open it ourselves.

I did a quick search and was not able to find a similar Q&A, though it seems it probably has been answered previously. Apologies in advance if I missed it. We finally used our Future Cruise Credits to book the Odyssey on 12/9/23. The original cruise was booked onboard via NextCruise during the Cruise With Confidence days (December 2021). We had a good amount of OBC with that booking because of the NextCruise promotion. My question is - Should the OBC transfer to the cruise we just booked using the FCCs? My assumption is/was the OBC does not transfer (i.e. we gave up the OBC once the cruise was canceled), but I wanted to check if anyone had experience in the same situation.

I've kept all our invoices from cruising since 2014 and interestingly enough there are invoices for the same cabin on the same ship (which of course would've been a newer ship at the time) which are almost the same cost pp/nt. We generally shoot for $100/pp/nt in a balcony stateroom and go up from there if we are sailing in a suite. Occasionally, we would luck out and find one for $50-$75 pp/nt, but those were on much older and smaller ships. Last week we booked an 8nt Odyssey 12/9/23 (44 days out at time of booking) sailing in a large balcony stateroom for $96 pp/nt. In 2014 we booked a 7nt Freedom aft balcony for $118 pp/nt. Go figure. With all that said, the extras/perks/C&A benefits have definitely been reduced. I remember $20 for all you can eat at Chops in the early 2000's. Those were the days!