Have you ever booked your air through RCCL?

[CAG5563]

For the first time, I find myself having to book my air from Boston to San Juan through Royal Caribbean. I don't like the fact that I have to pay for my cruise IN FULL before I find out what my flights are. I tried booking through "custom air" and was told they didn't have anything available either.

 

My question is....Have you ever booked through the cruise line? How were the flights? Did they keep your party together (there are 4 of us)? Did you have terrible times/lots of connections?

 

Any info would be appreciated so that I can hopefully send my mind at ease...

 

Thanks...

[bubbie617]

Yes, I have booked through RCCL in the past and never had a problem. I almost always got non-stop flights if they existed between Philadelphia and my destination. I have also done custom air several times and never had a problem with that or an upcharge (which is always a possibiity).

[bubbie617]

Yes, I have booked through RCCL in the past and never had a problem. I almost always got non-stop flights if they existed between Philadelphia and my destination. I have also done custom air several times and never had a problem with that or an upcharge (which is always a possibiity).

 

At this point, if my flights are round-trip, I do them myself. Occasionally we have to deal with one-way flights - like when we flew from Phila. to Honolulu to start a cruise, but the ship ended up in Vancouver, so we had to fly Vancouver to Phila on the way home. It was WWWAAAYYY cheaper to do it through the cruiseline than any fares I could have gotten on my own.

[CAG5563]

That's what I'm finding now. To book the air on my own, it's either not available or the prices are ridiculous.

 

I will keep looking for a deal on a flight, but I guess if I have to go with the flight from RCCL, I'll just have to take my chaces...

[heartofamerica]

I booked our upcoming Thanksgiving cruise thru RCL. There are 3 of us, and while they didn't give seat assignments after booking, I was able to call the airlines directly and get seats (FWIW, we were all together). From Kansas City to San Juan, you gotta change, but we are on USAir thru Charlotte on the way down and on Delta thru Atlanta on the way back.

[texancruzer]

I did. Booked cruise, air and hotel back in March for Nov. 26th out of San Juan on Serenade.

 

I will make a longggg story short. Won't ever do it again. Ended up cancelling air thru RCL and booking my own. Big mess and we even booked custom where we had dates, flights and even seats assigned. Paid extra and it got all messed up (partly due to Continental and partly due to TA and partly due to RCL). $200.00 of "fees" NOT REFUNDED BY RCL. Lesson learned.

 

Good luck.

[rajacks]

I have booked air thru RCI 3 times, no problems. You do have to call the airlines after you get your flight information and reserve a seat if you want to sit together, but that's no big deal. We have always had one connection, but we fly out of Oklahoma City - we ALWAYS have a connection, with very few exceptions, to go anywhere. One other note - we have always had very early flights on our way to the port, but usually later flights coming home. Works for me, since I want to get there as early as possible anyway! :)

[Cruiser21]

We are sailing on AOS in Feb out of San Juan. We used custon air with RCCL from Bos to SJU. We booked the flight back in May and got a direct flight down and back with no problems. It was the cheapest flight we could get at the time and it was non-stop so we grabed it, I am glad we did the prices from Bos to SJU are sky high now. It is worth the extra money to use custom air so you get the flights you want. Good luck.

[kahneinny]

We are using RCI air this Thanksgiving and used it for our last cruise. Our flight leaves Syracuse at 8:15am so no red-eye! I called US Air and all of our seats are confirmed and together. THere are 4 of us in 2 cabins.

We had no problems last time and anticpate no problems this time.

Just hope the weather cooperates.

the arrangements were actually cheaper than i could have done on my own by about $60.00 pp.

[wrp96]

I've used cruise air 3 times in the past and am using it for 2 of my 3 upcoming cruises.

 

From my area, cruise air is usually the same or less than booking on my own, but I always continue to check to see if I can get a better deal on my own. For my first cruise out of Port Canaveral, they put me on the flights I would've chosen myself, but that is because it was the only option to get us there on time traveling same day. For my 2nd cruise out of Miami, the only issue we had with the air is that they flew us into Ft. Lauderdale and out of Miami, which made our tickets one-ways and automatically marked us for extra security. For my 3rd cruise of of Miami, due to a computer mixup showing an unpaid balance RCI forgot to book my airplane tickets. When they finally did 2 days before the cruise, they put me on the flight I would've chosen going down but coming back they put me on too early a flight because that was all that was available and I missed the flight.

 

For my next cruise out of Galveston, I managed to get a good deal on Southwest so I booked my air separately. For the two cruises after that out of San Juan, one of them I requested custom air but of course the airline has already changed the flight times once so I may be no better off. The other I am currently allowing RCI to pick but may try to change to custom air with those flights as well.

[heartofamerica]

We are using RCI air this Thanksgiving and used it for our last cruise. Our flight leaves Syracuse at 8:15am so no red-eye! I called US Air and all of our seats are confirmed and together. THere are 4 of us in 2 cabins.

We had no problems last time and anticpate no problems this time.

Just hope the weather cooperates.

the arrangements were actually cheaper than i could have done on my own by about $60.00 pp.

Kahneinny...which ship are you on? We are going on Serenade of the Seas out of San Juan...also booked via USAir.

[CAG5563]

Thanks again for all of the replies....Unfortunately, I waited too long and I can't even get custom air, so I guess I'll just hope for the best with the flights RCCL assigns to me.

 

Another thing, we are flying down the day before the cruise. That shouldn't matter, right? I told RCCL that when I booked the cruise....hmmmm.....I may want to call them. I just checked my e-mail reservation confirmation and it doesn't mention that I'm going the day before.....

 

Lastly, we, too, are on the Serenade. We are on the 02/18/06 departure. Anyone else?

[Grumpy8]

We first wanted a certain flight. So a minor fee of like $3.16 was add to our flight total. But later the flight we picked was cancelled due to the reorganization of the Airlines. So our new flights were then picked by us and our TA. RCCL ok it and we were off and refunded our $3.16. We were able to pick our seats so we sat togehter too.

It all worked out fine using RCCL. They were even cheaper than if I did the flights without them. Now of course we had to wait till our cruise was closer to pick our flights. But it all worked out.:D

[awm]

Glad these other folks had no problems. We just got back from Boston on the Jewel.

We didn't have 'problems' per say but we did have this;

1. Flight was not non-stop. We flew to Atlanta first which was in the wrong direction.

2. 6 hours of layovers

3. Small tiny plane

 

You are correct, you pay in full, then wait until 2-3 weeks out to get your flight schedule. RCI will find the cheapest flights, you better believe it.

I'm not bitter. I got to my destinations fine with no lost luggage and in plenty of time.

That said, I won't book thru RCI again.

[Airb330]

San Juan prices have been pretty cheap outta Philly, it's $300 on US now. Usually it's over $500 or so. Some people got some cheap fares outta Boston for out 1/21 cruise on Seranade. Hopefully something will come up!

[kahneinny]

Kahneinny...which ship are you on? We are going on Serenade of the Seas out of San Juan...also booked via USAir.

 

I am on the Navigator of the Seas out of Miami. We fly into Fort Lauderdale and out of Miami. So I guess I can expect extra security. Oh well, Syracuse isn't too bad.

[CAG5563]

Unfortunately, our cruise is school vacation week, so the price doubles at least. I admit, I passed up a few good deals early on thinking that I could do better. That was a mistake. I check the flights constantly. I guess if I can't do better than what I'm paying through RCCL, I'll just have to make the best out of whatever flights I get.

[Lightsluvr]

We have been asking this question as well in another thread. We are sailing on the Empress out of San Juan in April 2006. We got an incredible deal from RCL for the airfare. We fly out of OKC, which has pretty poor connections to anywhere (except Dallas).

The last time we used RCL for our air arrangements, they actually flew us to Orlando a day early to sail on the Sovereign out of Cape Canaveral!

We are hoping that RCL will also fly us to San Juan the day before our departure.

You do have to call the airline to request your seat assignments.

 

LL

[MiniMom57]

We used RCI (via a travel agent) to book our flights once, but never again. The price was almost double what I could have gotten booking on my own, we had 5 reservations (2 adults and 3 kids) and our seats were scattered all over the plane, AND we didn't get our flight info until about 10 days before the cruise (I like to have all my ducks in a row early and this lack of crucial information drove me batty!)

 

The one plus was that when our connecting flight in Washington DC was delayed by a couple of hours, I knew that we would be taken care of by RCI if we got into the port city late. As it was, we boarded the ship at about 3:30....too close for comfort in my book!