Best way to book a group cruise

[Letmelivehereplease]

Wanna book a group and secure the current rate. Best way?? Thx

[vacruizer]

Either hire a travel agent, or give everyone the pertinent details of the cruise and let them book however they want.

 

It's a ton of work to organize and Carnival's groups department has been awful the couple times I've dealt with them. The only rude Carnival employees I've ever worked with -both booking a group someone else set up and when I tried to book a group.

 

I also found that even though i had 12 cabins of people swearing they would go, once I set up the group and had 30 days to get everyone to book and pay their deposits, everyone suddenly bailed and I ended up with three rooms meaning we lost our group perks. Way more hassle than it was worth to save $20 bucks a room.

 

Our last group we didn't make anything official - everyone booked how they wanted and we linked the dining reservations.

[trvlqueen]

Use a travel agent - a local one that is recommended to you by friends, the Chamber of Commerce, or has a presence in your market - you don't want to deal with an online agency that you have no personal relationship with. Make sure the agent has group experience - you don't need to be some newbie agent's "experimental prototype" (unless its a close friend and you trust them completelyand are willing to forgive any oversights).

[BigDfromTN]

Either hire a travel agent, or give everyone the pertinent details of the cruise and let them book however they want.

 

It's a ton of work to organize and Carnival's groups department has been awful the couple times I've dealt with them. The only rude Carnival employees I've ever worked with -both booking a group someone else set up and when I tried to book a group.

 

I also found that even though i had 12 cabins of people swearing they would go, once I set up the group and had 30 days to get everyone to book and pay their deposits, everyone suddenly bailed and I ended up with three rooms meaning we lost our group perks. Way more hassle than it was worth to save $20 bucks a room.

 

Our last group we didn't make anything official - everyone booked how they wanted and we linked the dining reservations.

 

Very good answer!

 

I have not had the rudeness problem however.

 

You can also use a PVP instead of a Travel Agent.

 

Unless you have a Really large group (100+) Its not worth it!!!

[thshhh]

Let a Travel Agent handle it. The advantage to having a group is amenities like OBC with each stateroom.