Experiences letting RCCl make plane reservations

[bobjudy1]

My husband and I have just booked a cruise and are letting RCCL make our air arrangements and transfers with 1 night hotel stay in San Juan precruise. We usually make our own, but the RCCL airfare was only $300 roundtrip from St. Louis compared to $685 via a travel agent..HAVE WE MADE A BIG MISTAKE!! Please tell me you experiences....:confused:

[luvscruising2007]

We booked our air to Alaska through RCL and had no problems. We flew to VanCouver the same day as our cruise was to begin and it made me a little nervous. But we made it in time. It did reinforce the need to always fly in the day before.

[Irishnana]

My husband and I have just booked a cruise and are letting RCCL make our air arrangements and transfers with 1 night hotel stay in San Juan precruise. We usually make our own, but the RCCL airfare was only $300 roundtrip from St. Louis compared to $685 via a travel agent..HAVE WE MADE A BIG MISTAKE!! Please tell me you experiences....:confused:

 

We have only flown once to board a cruise, so my experience is VERY LIMITED on this subject. However, my $0.02's overall opinion; it was great and everything was handled, i.e. flights, pre-hotel, ground transportation. In fact, we have opted for the cruise line to also handle our air arrangements for our 2009 Alaskan cruise because the airfare we were quoted in April was phenomenal :cool: Hope this is somewhat helpful and enjoy your future cruises.

[betsyl]

My husband and I have just booked a cruise and are letting RCCL make our air arrangements and transfers with 1 night hotel stay in San Juan precruise. We usually make our own, but the RCCL airfare was only $300 roundtrip from St. Louis compared to $685 via a travel agent..HAVE WE MADE A BIG MISTAKE!! Please tell me you experiences....:confused:

 

$300 roundtrip can't possibly be a big mistake! That's a great price!:)

[jmf123]

That is an excellent airfare to San Juan, transfers included! Please keep in mind when you air itinerary comes out if you don't like the schedule, you can use Royal Caribbean's Custom Air. ($50 p.p. plus any air differential allows you to choose a more preferred itinerary). Custom Air can be booked within a certain amount of days prior to your departure date.

 

One tip, (and it sounds like you booked direct with RC), you may want to contact the airline to see about your seat assignments once you have an itinerary...as the cruiseline tends to assign the seats in the last row! :)

[silentbob007]

Sometimes RCCL runs airfare promotions and offers cheaper airfare then you can get on your own. That is about the only time that I would buy cruise air ... you got a deal, so you should be alright, though flying in day-of is always a little worrisome.

[Newfy Friend]

If better rates become available for either your flight or hotel, you can cancel that portion of your trip through RCCL before final payment is due. We have done it both ways without any real problems, but on our first cruise we arrived very close to departure--the good side was that the airline bumped us up to first class to get there on time.

[DeepWaterMariner]

The savings on price are probably worth any routing/scheduling issues. We rarely book air from a cruise line due to sometimes awful scheduling but there are exceptions and the price certainly appears to make this one of those cases.

[SDPadreFan]

Only one caution that I can add. RCCL has told my TA (a major online agent - starts with cruc..) that when you book cruise air and it is offered as a promotion, then at that point, the cruise/airfare prices are permanently linked.

 

In my case, our 12 day Med cruise was offered at $1399 (Cat N, inside) and the air promotion was offered at $750 (rt from Los Angeles to Barcelona, incl transfers). Currently the cruise is offered at $999 inside (or a savings of $400 each). Called to ask for an adjustment. Not happening. Cruise air, which they claim is linked, is now @ $400 higher per person. So basically they told me if I got the reduced cruise fare, I would loose the original cruise air price and basically break even. Canceling the cruise air (an option) would still have me paying the same price (@1150.00) to book my own air now. Cruise is less than 100 days out. Plus, since this cruise was booked before fuel supplements and included prepaid gratuities as a bonus, I think I'm better off just leaving things alone. Would have liked to have saved $400 per person though.

[kat144]

On my last cruise in January, I used RCCL for airfare, transfers and a precruise one night hotel stay. It was so easy no worries. I am using RCCL again for airfare, transfers and hotel for my next cruise in January .So don't worry ,enjoy:)

[bobjudy1]

After reading your ideas and responses, I feel a lot better now...We are arriving the day before our cruise, so I don't have to worry about the cruise sailing before the plane lands!--Also, thanks for the tip on checking with the airline to get assigned seats.:)

[Crusinoars]

Only one caution that I can add. RCCL has told my TA (a major online agent - starts with cruc..) that when you book cruise air and it is offered as a promotion, then at that point, the cruise/airfare prices are permanently linked.

 

In my case, our 12 day Med cruise was offered at $1399 (Cat N, inside) and the air promotion was offered at $750 (rt from Los Angeles to Barcelona, incl transfers). Currently the cruise is offered at $999 inside (or a savings of $400 each). Called to ask for an adjustment. Not happening. Cruise air, which they claim is linked, is now @ $400 higher per person. So basically they told me if I got the reduced cruise fare, I would loose the original cruise air price and basically break even. Canceling the cruise air (an option) would still have me paying the same price (@1150.00) to book my own air now. Cruise is less than 100 days out. Plus, since this cruise was booked before fuel supplements and included prepaid gratuities as a bonus, I think I'm better off just leaving things alone. Would have liked to have saved $400 per person though.

 

We were told the exact same thing from the sister ship line. We bought the air package on a cruise from Hawaii to New Zealand. The inside cabin pricing is now 500.00/pp cheaper. I believe that we even used the same TA that you referred to. After an email chain long enough to reach from FL to HI, we were not given any discounts or OBC's. Leaves a bit of a bad taste in one's mouth, but certainly not enough to let it spoil the cruise. I have lost a bit of loyalty to the cruise line and for the first time in 6 years we are now looking at other options for future cruises.

 

Appears that you might be retired USN. So is DH.

[truffles2]

We almost always book air with RCI because their rate is better than what we can do here. We have never failed to get a price reduction when the price has dropped. Don't lose loyalty to the cruise line:confused:--look for another travel agency or book directly with RCI.

[Bette And Bill]

We have booked our air with RCCL three times. The first time I ended up canceling the cruise air portion and doing it on my own saving almost $700.00. Last year we were doing a land-sea tour of Alaska and I could not get the air fare anywhere near what RCCl was charging. I have checked several times for our cruise next month and again I can not touch the cruise lines pricing. So far I have been happy with the services. I will say, I pick the flights I want from the very beginning, so I know the prices I am looking at and can make a fair comparison. As soon as I have the confirmation from RCCL, I contact the airlines and change the seat assignments. I have found the airlines will put you all the way in the back. I also keep checking the flights to see if they are still valid flights and work with the airline when one has been canceled or changed to see when I need to be at the airport (next months orig air flight was canceled and the new one leaves 45 minutes earlier than orig scheduled.

 

The only downside I have noticed is in the hotel bookings through the cruise line, and that is all parties are charged for the hotel room. If you have three people flying and staying in one hotel room each is charged for the room.

[SDPadreFan]

We were told the exact same thing from the sister ship line. We bought the air package on a cruise from Hawaii to New Zealand. The inside cabin pricing is now 500.00/pp cheaper. I believe that we even used the same TA that you referred to. After an email chain long enough to reach from FL to HI' date=' we were not given any discounts or OBC's. Leaves a bit of a bad taste in one's mouth, but certainly not enough to let it spoil the cruise. I have lost a bit of loyalty to the cruise line and for the first time in 6 years we are now looking at other options for future cruises.

 

Appears that you might be retired USN. So is DH.[/quote']

 

Yes, 24 years, retired Navy Chief, airdale.

 

I didn't spend a lot of time playing e-mail tag. I wrote one - long - very thorough - well thought out - grammatically correct - COMPLAINT letter. My biggest problem was that when I originally booked the cruise, I had a list of very specific questions that I asked the agent. One dealt specifically with price reductions. The answer I received at the time of booking was that I would receive price reductions as long as the price did not fall below their "minimum cabin cost". If that occurred, then I would loose the "Pre-paid Gratuities" bonus. I understood that completely. At no time however, did the agent mention the airfare cost being tied to the cabin cost. So I made an economic decision based upon the information they provided. When I did call (last week) requesting credit for the price reduction that had occurred, only then did they mention the tie in with the airfare. In other words, while the cabin cost had gone down $400 per person, the airfare had gone up $400 per person. They mentioned; that because the airfare was offered as a promotion at the time of booking, that is why the two costs were linked together. So that was the gist of my e-mail.

 

That afternoon, I received a call from the customer relations manager to try and smooth over my ruffled feathers. We had a rather lengthy conversation (about 45 min). She tried to use their standard "canned" explanations but this Navy Chief had rebuttals for each one. The best one was how they would love to lower their price because they had no economic interest in the actual sailing cost, and that it was all controlled by RCCL. My response was that this was false because they clearly had an economic interest when they mentioned "minimum cabin cost" in relation to the pre-paid gratuities bonus. She was clearly not ready to try and wiggle out of that one. So we had an extended conservation and the bottom line was that nothing changed, including my opinion of their organization. We had a quite, civil discourse but in the end, she still could not justify the poor information I received at the time of booking. At this point, it had reached 6pm on the east coast (their quitting time). This was on a Friday and she said she wanted to check one more thing with RCCL and would call me back on Monday. Well, it's been a week, and guess what. No return phone call. Can't say that I'm surprised.

 

Will I return to the TA (cruc..). At this point, I would say no, unless the price was unbeatable, because their quality of service has issues.

 

Will I return to RCCL. Hard to say. This will be my first cruise with RCCL. I am loyal to no cruise line. I am loyal to itinerary, price, and quality. I have not had a bad experience yet. Not on Celebrity. Not on Carnival. I'm looking forward to RCCL. I'm probably easy to please after spending an entire career working on aircraft carriers. I can say I'm NOT interested in RCCL's jumbo ships. Ice Skating Rink? Why would I want to pay for a cruise just to go ice skating. Roller skating, yep, I can do that at home too. Royal Promenade? Sorry, I can go shopping at the mall just 5 miles from my house. What I want in a cruise is good food, meeting new people every day, interesting ports of call, learning about different cultures, sun, blue skies, and the open ocean. Wait a minute, I pretty much had all that while I was in the Navy. Rats!

[truffles2]

I hope you have a great experience with your cruise. We did our first cruise with RCI and they just kept getting better so we didn't even want to try another line. We did stray once but found we could not wait to get back. :D

I will admit that the quality of the food has gone down since we started BUT it is still good enough for me to always gain a few pounds!

[BillOh]

My husband and I have just booked a cruise and are letting RCCL make our air arrangements and transfers with 1 night hotel stay in San Juan precruise. We usually make our own, but the RCCL airfare was only $300 roundtrip from St. Louis compared to $685 via a travel agent..HAVE WE MADE A BIG MISTAKE!! Please tell me you experiences....:confused:

 

 

So far I've taken 3 cruise out of Miami. 2 cruises I let RCI do the air, one I did it myself. There is a direct flight from MIA to CMH(Columbus, OH) I suspect RCI gets first shot at those, its a smaller commuter jet. I saved $100 booking my own, but had to go through Chicago and arrive home 5 hours later.

[MM27]

The only problem I've had with them doing air was my last cruise. We were originally given a direct flight from Newark to Miami on Continental. We didn't have custom air, and they changed the flight down to a connecting flight. No big deal, however the new flight was not on Continental (the return flight was kept the same).

 

We were fine until we went to check in on our return flight and told we weren't in their system. Apparently RC didn't cancel the original Continental flight and since we didn't show up for that one, since they switched us to another airline, we were dropped from our return flight.

 

The Continental staff was much more helpful than RC was. My sister and I both made phone calls from the airport and were pretty much told by RC that it wasn't their fault and they couldn't do anything for us.

 

I think the woman at the Continental counter was feeling sorry for us so she bumped us to the top of the standby list.

 

Lesson learned is we now use custom air.

[Clarea]

My husband and I have just booked a cruise and are letting RCCL make our air arrangements and transfers with 1 night hotel stay in San Juan precruise. We usually make our own, but the RCCL airfare was only $300 roundtrip from St. Louis compared to $685 via a travel agent..HAVE WE MADE A BIG MISTAKE!! Please tell me you experiences....:confused:

We also use the STL airport. We had a cruise out of San Juan booked for last May and changed to Mariner out of Port Canaveral because the airfare to SJU was so high. You got a great price on airfare. Would you mind telling me your ship and cruise date? I'd love to do the Southern Caribbean but the flight to SJU has always been too pricey. Maybe the price promo for airfare is still in effect.

[Tucker in Texas]

We've always gotten our own air because it is usually cheaper and we have heard of some of the innovative travel itineraries the cruise lines come up with to save a buck. When we get our own air, we pick our own poison.

 

However, on our last trans-Atlantic cruise we used RCI's air because it was a lot cheaper than trying to find a one-way ticket on our own. They had us on a great flight with AF from Barcelona to Paris to Houston. BUT, get this, in Paris CDG we had to change planes AND terminals in 1 hour and 5 minutes! I called to see about getting custom air as I had found a flight on Luftansa which had a longer layover time in Frankfurt but to change was going to cost me mega bucks. I asked C&A what happens when we don't make the connection? Who pays for the hotel room overnight? Will they guarantee me on the 10:00 a.m. flight the next morning? Their answer? It doesn't happen, it's a legal change. Told them it happened last year to those trans-Atlantic passengers coming back from Barcelona. "Oh, really?" Well, ask them." I already had. Air France, put them up in a hotel close to the airport, on par with Motel 6, no food available other than a vending machine, not close to civilization. When we got to Paris, they asked that they let their connecting passengers to our flight off first. Joke of the day. When we got off, there was an AF person there who raced (and I do mean raced, she had the longest legs I have ever seen) us through the terminals, put us at the front of the passport/security lines, and it still took us an hour to do it and she knew where she was going and spoke the language. They held the plane 1/2 an hour. Of course, we got a warm "welcome" by those passengers who had been sitting in their seats for an hour plus waiting on us.

 

Undeterred, we are doing the same thing again this year. Haven't gotten our air assignment yet. The good news is if they fly us in for arrival the day of embarkation and we miss the ship, it is easy to get us to the first port (Cartagena) overland which will be the next day and we have been there before so we won't feel like we have missed that much.

 

Tucker in Texas

[SheltieLady]

We had RCCL do our air and hotel last year we decided to do custom air and upgrade our flights to first class so much cheaper than going thru the airlines direct. Transfer went smoothly had a great hotel for one night, this was in Fort Lauderdale.

 

 

Christine