June 13, 2002 -- At one time, selling cruises online was an oddity in a market dominated by traditional travel agents. How things do change. Today, practically everybody has a website, and the difference between so-called cruise consolidators and more traditional travel agencies is that the former offer an actual online booking function, while the latter use their sites as glorified advertising space, promoting their offerings online but doing the actual selling over the phone or in person. Most cruise lines also offer a direct-booking option on their websites.
So which is the best route to take when booking your cruise?
How Cruise Pricing Works
First, in case you haven't heard, don't ever go by the prices listed in a cruise line's brochure: With the exception of some of the small, specialty lines, everybody offers heavy discounts as a matter of course, often 50% or more off what they print. These days that's particularly true, as cruise lines struggle to fill their ships in a tight travel market.
The bottom line is, today's cruises are just plain cheap. Remarkably cheap. Ridiculously cheap. And what that means in terms of comparison shopping is that you'll find little price difference between different agents or consolidators.
True, some still get slightly better prices or access to one-day deals from certain cruise lines because they sell a high volume of that line's product, but today's low prices mean the lines have little incentive to cut a million different deals with a million different agencies. When you're selling a weeklong cruise for $399, what's the point of pitting one seller against another, with one offering the cruise for $389 and another for $409? You can only slice a peanut so thin. The same theory applies to the practice of agents shaving their commission profit to offer a lower rate -- when your profit margin is so slim, you can only shave it so far without going bust.
Prices offered by the cruise lines' direct-booking engines tend to be higher than those offered by the consolidators and agents, so we don't recommend using these systems. Though it might sound peculiar, the cruise lines actually prefer that you book through third parties, since having agents and consolidators do the grunt work allows the lines to maintain small reservations staffs and, simultaneously, maintain goodwill in a system that works -- something they have to consider, because the vast majority of cruises are booked through agencies of one type or another. Typically, cruise lines report that only about 5% to 10% of their bookings are direct -- more than in years past, but still a smallish chunk of the business.
What the Booking Sites Offer
The following sites are reputable online cruise consolidators, either offering cruises only (as with cruise.com and icruise) or offering cruises as well as other vacation options (as with Expedia, Travelocity, and the like). All allow searches by various criteria, and all allow you to book some if not all cruise lines online -- often, you'll have to call an 800 number when booking the smaller ultra-luxe and adventure lines. In many cases the online booking engines don't have a live connection with the cruise lines' reservations database, so you'll often have to wait up to 24 hours for a confirmation via e-mail, fax, or phone call.
All the sites allow you to call and speak with one of their reservations agents as well -- a good option if you're a novice cruise passenger or just want someone to watch your back as you go through the booking.
Our comparison shopping found that prices with Cruise.com, Cruise411, and Icruise tended to fall within a few dollars of each other. Expedia, Cruises Only, Travelocity, and Uniglobe all offered comparable prices that fell slightly higher.
Cruise.com
(www.cruise.com; 800/800-9552, 800/303-3337, or 888/333-3116)
Cruise.com offers the largest variety of cruise lines, from the mainstream giants to some of the more esoteric adventure operators -- some 84 lines and ocean-tour companies in total. While the search engine on their opening page seems not too useful (searchable only by destination, month, and number of days), it's actually only a precursor to the drill-down search on page 2, which allows you to really focus in on what you want. A lot of information is given at every stage, with basic "from" prices for inside, outside, balcony, and third/fourth passengers available on every search return.
Nifty features: "Beat Your Quote" allows you to submit a competitor's price, challenging Cruise.com to beat it. A nice rollover function on the search-results page allows you to quickly see pop-ups of ship exterior and selected public rooms. You can drill down to profiles of ships and public rooms. Hot deals are noted on the homepage.
Cruise411.com
(www.cruise411.com, 800/553-7090)
Cruise411 handles 28 cruise lines, but it takes lots of drilling down to accomplish an online booking -- you have to go through eight screens just to get a final price. The homepage has a tab for search, with search options on the next page, sortable by date, destination region, cruise line. You can drill down to do an advanced search, which allows you to also search by date, destination, maximum price you want to pay, and length of cruise. You can drill down to see cabin photos and cabin descriptions.
Note that prices displayed do not include port charges, which add an extra $125-plus to the average cruise.
Nifty features: Ability to compare four cruises on one screen. Some hot deals are displayed on the homepage, but you have to drill down for more, which are in paragraph form and sometimes tough to slog through.
Cruises Only
(www.cruiseonly.com; 800/CRUISES)
Cruises Only offers 18 cruise lines total -- the biggies and the luxe lines, plus adventure lines Cruise West, Star Clippers, and Windjammer. You can search by destination, date, number of nights, and cruise line from the homepage, with an advanced search adding options for searching by ship and homeport. The results page lists "from" rates; two more clicks get you final rates (with taxes and fees) for all cabin categories.
Nifty features: An amazing selection of 360-degree ship tours (click from homepage) gives a really good overview of each ship. A compare function allows you to see three cruises on one page. Some hot deals are displayed on the homepage, with more available on drill-down pages.
Expedia
(www.Expedia.com, 800/397-3342)
Expedia handles only 16 cruise lines -- the biggies, plus the luxe lines and, alone among the adventure lines, Windjammer Barefoot Cruises. You can search from the cruise main page by destination, date, cruise length, price range, cruise line and ship. Search produces "from" prices for inside cabins only, plus third- and fourth-person prices. Drill down for more exact cabin pricing.
Nifty features: An unlimited compare function allows you to see dozens of cruises on one very wide page. Drill down to see cabin photos and ship descriptions. A selection of hot deals appears on the cruise homepage, with more on a drill-down page.
Icruise.com
(www.icruise.com; tel 888/909-6242 or 212/929-6046)
Icruise handles 22 cruise lines total. From the homepage, you can search by destination, date, length, price, and departure port. There's also an advanced search function, but it's peculiar, allowing you to search for ships by size, age, passenger capacity, and amenities -- sensible ones like handicapped accommodations and 24-hour childcare; preference ones like juice bar, chapel, and barber shop; and totally bizarre ones like helipad and the mysterious "garage." Search results do not initially display comparative prices.
Nifty features: "Let Icruise Beat Your Price" function allows you to submit a competitor's price, challenging Icruise to beat it. Live shipcams allows you to see what's going on aboard or around a selection of mainstream ships. You can drill down to see cabin and exterior photos and descriptions. Hot deals are displayed on the homepage, with more on drill-down pages.
Travelocity
(www.travelocity.com; 877/815-5446)
Travelocity is reportedly the largest web-based cruise seller in the world, though it only handles only 10 cruise lines -- the major mainstream lines plus luxe lines Crystal, Radisson, and Windstar. You can search from the cruise homepage by destination, date, length, and cost range. An advanced search adds stateroom type, departure city, ship category (luxe, premium, contemporary), and cruise line.
Nifty features: A nice rollover function on the cabin-selection page brings up cabin images and short description, while a good slideshow function allows a more complete tour of each ship. A compare function allows you to see up to five cruises on a single page. Homepage shows some featured deals, with more available on a drill-down page.
Uniglobe.com
(www.uniglobe.com; 888/740-1998)
Uniglobe offers 19 lines total -- the mainstream and luxe lines, plus a few random choices like short-cruise operator Ocean Club Cruises and a selection of China river cruises. The site's search function is almost useless: You can only search from the cruise homepage by destination OR ship. Search by ship brings up a general "from" price with and without air. From there, you have to drill down to a calendar to select your travel date, then drill further to check prices for different cabin categories.
Nifty features: Ship descriptions appear on the main page for each ship only. Basic line descriptions and cabin photos are clickable from here too. There are no public room photos. A few specials appear on the cruise main page. Hot cruise deals are also mixed in with other vacation deals, clickable from the main page.
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