Yes the travel agent. Some people love them some hate them.
I don't bother with having them help me with getting to the port or getting a place to stay but on the ship it's well worth having someone to help you. Do your research and make sure the agency has a good reputation. There is nothing worse than to have an issue and not be able to contact someone. My go to travel agent is with VacationsToGo and even if he is out of the office I can get things done with just a little longer wait. If you are looking for a good agent call them up and ask for Jason Whitson!! Just tell him the geek that is rebuilding his house sent you, LOL. He will know.
But anyway I like working with my agent because I often get a little bit of onboard credit, pay the same price or less, and I found out today that I can actually use RoyalCaribbean Promo Codes with them as well. So my latest cruise came with 50 onboard credit and I got a discount with the code SetSail. Maybe it's only a few bucks more but it all adds up in the long run, right?
Other advantages are that you don't have to wait to speak with someone if you need to make a change. You simply contact your travel agent, let them know what you need done and they will see what they can do to make things the way you want. I was recently booking a trip for January 2024 and in the rush I learned my cash transfer to another account was taking longer than usual. The booking was put on hold for a couple days till I could get the payment to process and even though my regular guy was out of the office I was able to speak with someone else and get things done. To add to that it was only a 5 minute wait because a supervisor needed to deal with the issue otherwise I am sure the wait would have been much shorter. But let's be realistic, a 5 minute wait on hold for someone to be available is a very short time compared to the sometimes hour long wait for someone at RoyalCaribbean and if the cost is the same why not go for it!
Anyway that is my little tip for the day and actually something I didn't even realize I could do. But from now on I will be using that trick when I make a booking. Just be sure to have them apply the code before the deposit is made otherwise you likely can not add it without canceling a previous booking and if you had a nonrefundable deposit it's likely not worth it.