JP
You may not have had any hand-holding up to now, but what happens in a month when The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate intervenes, and the cruise line postpones the cruise for maintenance reasons?? Celebrity is having problems with their Mermaid pod propulsion system, and they shortened one cruise on the Summit, cancelled another.
Your local travel agent will step in and help you find options, be the go-between with the Cruise Line, maybe get you an option not offered to others.
The travel agent's work doesn't stop when you pay for the cruise. It begins there.
In my past life, I was a travel agent, as was my husband, so I do know a bit about the subject.
I now work for United Airlines in reservations. I talk to people daily who go through internet agencies. We get so many calls from people where United has had a schedule change, notified the internet agency, but the passenger is never called. I can't tell you how many times I have had to completely redo things for people leaving in a day or two because once they paid, the internet agency felt their job was finished.
On the other hand, I talk to Real Travel Agents daily, like the one you booked your cruise with. They stay on top of all changes and pro-actively call us to rebook when schedule changes occur. Many times they fix things before their clients knew anything was broken.
Your local travel agent has years of experience dealing with all kinds of "oopses" and things going bump in the night. This is experience most internet agents don't have.
By the way, by internet agency, I am not including Real Travel Agencies with their own web site, like Brown and Keene, among others.
When it comes to vacations, the best friend you will ever have is a good travel agent. This time she may have easily earned her commission, but I guarantee you, there are plenty of times when she spends more time and energy on a booking than she will ever earn on that booking.
In the end, it all evens out.
Frances
