There is no better experience as far as the "complete vacation". A cruise basically allows you to live on a hotel that sails to destinations. Both the "ship/hotel" and the "destination" are one. Both are limited. The ship is one place you stay and experience and explore, and the destinations are several places you explore, but do not stay.

This is a critical difference to flying to a destination, staying in a hotel, and exploring for a week. Both are valid vacations, but the definition must be understood. They are two completely different experiences.

This is the BIG discussion when considering spending hard earned money for a well earned vacation... serious stuff.  In the newsgroups, they are referred to as "TA's".
There are three categories.
1. Local walk-in, "brick and mortar" places you drive to.
2. "brick and mortar" agents, but have references from folks who have been there and     do on-line service
3. On-line Agencies that are strictly web entities. These are generally "block" vendors.

I will need to add alot to this website to give this area any kind of relevance, it's a very complex subject. But for now, my personal experience suggests 1 or 2. Here is why, and it's a very brief and personal comment. In our 5 cruises, all Celebrity, my TA has delivered absolutely the best prices and the best upgrades for us as "repeat" customers because they have awesome leverage with the cruise line.

Update (12/12/00) Had to fire our TA. For whatever reason she became non-responsive, promised upgrade without written confirmation from Celebrity and other issues. On the hunt for a WCS Travel Agent.

One thing you learn from reading rec.travel.cruise, or any other travel forum, is that "cheap", "inexpensive", "saved" are keywords. "Go for it", "live for today, or "you only live once" are strangely rare.

We, like everyone, look for a "deal". We get them every cruise because we've begun to figure this cruise thing out. However, that's not really the point.

I'd like to submit the following: "a cruise is not Hotel 6. It's something you SAVE for and do in as grand a style you can afford , only when you can afford it."

In other words, cruise less, spend more. Don't you owe it to yourself to be really pampered? Maybe it's a better cabin (like a verandah), maybe it's spa treatments, maybe it's deciding you're going to have alot of fun in the casino, or buying jewelry ashore.

The bottom line is that's it is real sad to see 2 adults and 3 kids crammed into an inside cabin. The solution is that the parents have an outside verandah, the kid's get an inside across the passageway. Kids have fun and the parent's really have fun.

New on 11.18 trip was the Garmin III+ unit. Great site for info on this is...http://joe.mehaffey.com/ What was really fun was knowing at all times exactly where we were, how fast we were going and how far away was land or destination. For example, if I saw an island from my veranda, I just moved the pointer and it showed me island detail and distance and bearing to it. When I went on the Bridge Tour, I asked the Chief Officer if in fact we were at 9.1 knots and course 350, he looked at his instruments and said "yep!". Feel free to ask questions by clicking email link below.

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