This cruise was one of the best experiences of my life. I'm going to be honest about the minor bumps it had, but in no way think I had a bad time or wouldn't do the same trip over.

I booked my 7 night Mediterranean cruise on Voyager of the Seas through a TA. I used an agent because I wanted everything handled and I used this because my parents used them for a cruise they took a few months before mine. Using an agent was a waste of time. No matter what I asked her, she never had an answer besides "I'll call Royal Caribbean" or "look online". Now if I wanted to do leg work for this trip I wouldn't have used an agent, and I could have called RC myself. I expected a travel agent to be able to provide me with expert advice on a hotel for before my stay, but she referred me to the internet. The one tip she gave me was that the RC sponsored hotel I chose was supposed closer to everything than the other RC hotel I was looking at, which turned out to be wrong. She also didn't know that I could buy a post cruise transfer after I did my own airfare and when I called to ask her she had to call the cruiseline. This agency specializes in cruises, how could she not know? Better yet, why couldn't anyone in her office tell her? In the end, when my final documents didn't appear, I called the agency to find out she no longer worked there (no surprise though a call from them to inform me would have been nice) and that RC no longer mailed documents as they were all online. The last time I spoke to my agent she told me to look for them in the mail so there was another thing she didn't know.

All I can say is that with RC's easy to use website and the uselessness of the agent I had I would book my next cruise myself instead of via "remote" control the way I did this time. Read more