Cruises Only

I had already booked my cruise to Kyushu in Japan with Princess directly. Because a friend has used her before, I decided to transfer my booking to Barbara Nason at Cruises Only. This was a big mistake.
I was talked into taking their insurance rather than the one offered by Princess. The one offered by Princess would have given me a 75% voucher for ANY REASON.
During this time there was the major earthquakes within a few miles of one of our stops.
The lunatic in North Korea is launching subs with bombs in the area we would be sailing.
Princess didn’t cancel and neither did we.
However, my housemate of 12 years (no relation) who has stage 4 lymphoma just found out that she will require intense chemotherapy prior to a bone marrow transplant and both her sisters are also having operations. Since this will occur during the time of the cruise I was forced to cancel because she needs continuous observation while undergoing this procedure because of the danger of her going into a coma.
No, they wouldn’t hospitalize her. No, I would not turn a friend’s life over to some untrained «health worker.»
Not only does cruises only insurance not cover this (or apparently much else), they hit me with a $ 100 cancellation fee. I called Barbara Nason and asked her to email me, not call because I expected to be stuck with transactions all afternoon yesterday.
Against my instructions, she called, I could not accept the call. She never emailed but went ahead and processed the $ 100 cancellation fee.
I suggest you read the other reviews about this agency and decide for yourself.
BTW, Princess has had so many cancellations for this cruise that they have dropped the
price. Guess those folks had the right insurance.

I don’t even want to give this company one star. They are terrible. Not accommodating at all. They charge you for every little thing and have an outrageous cancellation fee that the cruise line does not have. You can’t even transfer your reservation to the cruise line if you wanted to unless you want to pay the cancellation fee. I found out that I ended up paying more for the cruise through this company than I would have through the cruise line. DO NO BOOK WITH CRUISES ONLY!

The only reason I am giving more stars is because Ryan (I didn’t catch the last name but she was a female) helped me out with my booking which was originally messed up. I booked with cruisesonly in August of 2015 and verified all my information with the agent I was working with multiple times. He gave me a specific price and I was going by that, 3 months later I make my first payment and the price was different by almost $ 250! Turns out the previous agent was giving me incorrect information over the phone and never stated to myself the escalated price. Long story short, my booking amount was way off and I was about ready to pay the $ 100.00 and cancel the entire booking because I was screwed over. I called to see if I can cancel and I was fortunately enough to get Ryan. She explained to me the misunderstanding with the prices and actually looked into getting me the price that I was originally quoted and she did that in a very speedy manner. I do not know if I will be booking with cruisesonly again, but Ryan definitely left me feeling more comfortable with my booking and helped me out to get what I was promised. Thank you Ryan for cleaning up their mess and helping out a customer.

It was just a really bad experience. It started off promising because they promise you a whole bunch of free stuff. But it ends up that is not the case. They try to nickel and dime you, and frankly the price isn’t THAT much better than what you’ll find anywhere else.
You can’t pay for your cruise online, you have to give them your credit card info over the phone.
They don’t tell you that they’ll match prices.
They’re not communicative enough.
I feel like I could have done this whole trip without them.
Don’t use them. I wish I would have read all the Unilocal reviews before using this service. They’re pretty much useless.
But if you do happen to use them for some reason or another, stay away from Tom. He’s AWFUL. Completely incompetent. Just ask for somebody else to handle your trip.

STAY AWAY FROM CRUISES ONLY! Also, stay away from any of the companies that are partnered with World Trade Holdings as they are the same as cruises only (Orbitz Cruises, Priceline, Cheaptickets, etc.) The customer service representatives for this company are deceptive and unprofessional. They are also unethical. My debit card was stolen and used to book a reservation with cruises only without my consent. After contacting my bank and disputing the charge, I contacted Cruises Only to cancel the reservation. Would you believe that they refused to cancel the reservation without charging me a $ 100 cancellation fee? I thought that this was funny seeing as I had already canceled the card they had on file and had their little $ 24.99 processing fee credited back to my bank account by my bank. They would have no way of charging me again, and I certainly wouldn’t be paying them a dime. What they fail to realize is, the longer they keep a reservation for someone that obviously isn’t going to pay them, the longer that room isn’t available to an actual paying and LEGIT customer. No respectable company would ever try to charge a victim of credit card theft, that is completely absurd. As stated before, stay away from them at all costs. If zero stars was possible, that is what they would get.

After reading these reviews I Felt obligated to say something. On their website I saw an offer for $ 899 for inside cabin to and from Hawaii. when I called them they said that that offer is only for military specials. They quoted me a price of $ 1199. They should not have advertised the offer if it wasn’t for the public. After I hung up the phone I went back and tried the website to see if the special was still available. Lo and behold it was gone. Now that I think about it I think it is a way for them to Lure customers to call them. I would not do business with these guys. I don’t trust them after reading all the negative reviews.

Our last time with them, I get sick and tired of being pounded for their insurance, and nickle and dime’d to death. I explicitly told them when we booked that I wanted Princesses protection plan. I was given a price for the cruises. Today I went on to complete my on-​board request and found «I» had declined the protection plan. I have booked back to back cruises and now found out that it’s an extra almost $ 600.00 for the cruises. Just beware when booking that what seems a deal, could not be the deal you planned on.
Buyer Beware and read the reviews, I failed to before I booked or would not be writing this review.

is affiliated with Alaska Airlines. If you want to get credited for Alaska Air miles in conjunction with your cruise, then book with them. Otherwise, booking directly with Norwegian yields the same price, with the exception of a service fee of an ADDITIONAL $ 24.99 that Cruises Only charges.
If you’re a Costco member, I highly recommend that you go that route — the total price is lower at Costco Travel, plus they include shipboard credit.
Cruises Only offers a Best Price Guarantee, but the customer rep that I spoke with will not price match the Costco Travel price because the Costco price is only for members. I asked the customer rep if they could at least give a shipboard credit since Costco offers it, and she said no because they offer Alaska Air miles instead.
It’s okay. I simply will never book with Cruises Only again. Lesson learned. I just simply forgot to check with Costco.

Not the greatest agency to book a cruise. We just used them. I was a bit disappointed with the booking fees charged to my family of 5. Their Onboard Credit was not great either. You have to fill out paperwork in order to get this credit. I would not have known this if I did not ask. Once the agent books your trip, you will never hear from her again. Just booked another cruise and I am back with another agency. Our cruise would have been cheaper if we booked directly through Norwegian.

The owner of the agency is a family friend so when he hand picked an agent for our family cruise I assumed we would be in good hands. Boy was I wrong! Our agent was completely useless. Thankfully I was able to take the time to make all the phone calls and delt directly with the cruise line to take care of all our reservtions. Stay clear of this company!

Very disappointed!!! Would not recommend booking through this site. Prices on website not available — when booking much more. Also website states no deposit, but again, not true.

i made a reservation on october 4^th to go on a western carribean cruise out of galveston departing november 30 on rcl. i called today to try and reschedule or cancel the trip and they told me because i was inside the 44 day limit i would be penalized $ 507.35 plus a $ 100 cancellation fee!!! this is outrageous. i made the damn reservation inside of what they claim was their penalty period. i did not see the fine print until today when i printed out the documents and realized i needed to cancel the trip. who in their right mind would travel on an air line and cruise ship during this ebola scare? don’t use these people!!! they are unethical! i called visa to disput the charge. never had to do this before. i will also file a complaint with royal carribean cruise lines about cruises only!!!

Can you give less than 1 star? I booked a cruise with Cruises Only yesterday and it took over one and a half hours to book the cruise. The reservation agent did not really understand the bonuses or discounts, and what was advertised conflicted with what was in her paperwork. When i finally got the cruise booked, upon looking at the reservation, one of the discounts was missing so I had to call AGAIN to get it fixed. When they fixed it they told me that one of the initial discounts was incorrect. I was given three different times that my final payment was due – one by phone, one by email, and one on the web site. I was told that the big benefit to booking over the phone was that (although you had to pay a $ 24.99 fee), the cruise would be a «no deposit» cruise. Only I still had to put down $ 500. I am completely frustrated at this point. DON’T USE THEM!

Don’t book with this company. They told me if the price of the cruise drops to call them. The price dropped I called. They told me it was a different category and they could not give me the difference. I also called Priceline and some how got transferred to CruiseOnly. They have been unprofessional since they got my money. I have a garonteed cabin. They don’t tell you this means they are sold out of those cabins and they will reduce other levels.

I don’t know if this is just me being an inexperienced first-​time cruiser but I just booked yesterday and feel mislead. I called in to take advantage of the «Cruise & Chose-​No Deposit Required» deal. I ended up going with a «better» deal by purchasing the Early Saver Special with a $ 500 deposit (the Early Saver deal saved me $ on the cruise rate, but did not include the «no deposit» promotion). Anyway, I was fine with that but then I get my confirmation email stating that I am being charged two separate deposits – $ 500 and $ 122.99! Of course, the $ 122.99 deposit was never mentioned! I called customer service to inquire about this issue and after being on hold for about 40 minutes, I finally got through! Turns out I was charged upfront for the Processing Fee of $ 24.99 and the Protection Plan of $ 98.00. What bothered me is that the agent I originally booked with never told me that I would be charged the separate total of $ 122.99.
Yes, they have great prices but it’s obviously at the cost of customer service. Once I got through, the agent that helped me was nice and patient with me so I have no complaints there. The wait was the one that was unbelievable! If you have no problems with your reservation you should be fine. But if you encounter an issue that needs to be dealt with at customer service, good luck getting through within a reasonable wait time!
I haven’t been on the cruise yet, and honestly, I’m a little worried that I might encounter another issue and have to wait another 40 minutes to get through to customer service. I guess I will wait & see how my experience is from here to the end of the cruise. As for now, I will give Cruises Only two stars because of the lack of a thorough explanation to first time cruise travelers and for the wait time to reach a customer service agent.

Cruises Only has the worst customer service. My family will not be using them again nor will we be recommending them to anyone. We cruise every 2 years faithfully, and have much better CONSISTANT customer service when we deal with the cruise lines directly. I wish we would have read the reviews prior to booking, but they are true. Our cruise hasnt even happened yet (upcoming in May 2014) and dealing with this booking company has been such a headache. In the begining it seemed great and simple, now every time you call theres difference answers and information from different representatives including supervisors. The worst mistake we’ve made for trying to plan a relaxing family vacation was to go through them.

So far, so good. My husband and I called today to book a cruise 16 months from now, so the jury is still out as to how it all plays out in the end but our experience with their booking agent was amazing! We were quickly pulling together a large family group and the agent we spoke with today went above and beyond to accommodate everyone’s needs. Some wanted specific cabin locations, others were concerned about seasickness, others had cost considerations. «Richie» managed to get everyone booked today, making multiple phone calls back and forth to make sure we were all taken care of.
As for the cancellation fees, he explained very clearly that we are paying a nonrefundable processing fee of $ 25.00 per cabin for booking a cruise with a deferred deposit special. He also explained that we will forfeit $ 100 per cabin if we cancel and do not reschedule. As my husband and I are not in the habit of cancelling, we are not concerned with this. If there are any unforeseeable issues that crop up … well, that’s what travel insurance is for.
If someone got duped by this company, either they had a bad agent or they didn’t listen to the explanation of the fees. I, for one, am a very satisfied customer.

The total lack of professionalism is appalling. We have booked cruises many time, used them this time to book a cruise and were charged fee for making a change, have been told that we would not be able to get the same type of room, would go from the 11^th floor to the 4^th floor, plus it cost more money. When talking with the representatives it is more annoying than fingernails on a chalkboard. Just hung up after my 8^th call, this time I was on the call for 52 minutes. Avoid them at all cost.

I’ve been on numerous cruises. Take my advice, call a travel agent and book. Don’t use this service. I just had to cancel a cruise set in June, 2013. There is no way to cancel it via their website. You have to call them and go through button-​punching to talk to a human. They dog you for the $ 100 fee to cancel. You may have to pay a fee if using a travel agent but you won’t have the dog and pony show like that offered up by Cruises Only. There are always fees. Everybody wants a fee.
I booked two rooms on a Royal Caribbean ship set to sail late June, 2013. I had to cancel. Cruises Only charged me $ 200. $ 100 for each room. I canceled on January 29, 2013 — five months prior to the cruise and they charged me $ 200.
Use a private travel agent. I will never use their service again.

The terrible reviews on this company are 100% true. When you book, you are guaranteed no cancellation penalty until a certain date. I cancelled my reservation six months in advance (well before the no penalty date) and they claim there is a $ 100 service fee, which is not a «cancellation fee». This company is a rip off. Avoid them by any means!