Many of us have become our own bank tellers, gas station attendants and grocery clerks. And since about half of all travel purchases are made online now, it's safe to say quite a few of us have become our own travel agents as well.
But booking a two-hour flight or a midsize car for the weekend is one thing. Buying a cruise vacation is another. I recently researched this topic for Consumer Reports and found that while the Internet has remade the face of airline ticket distribution, the overwhelming number of cruises are still booked the way they were before there was a World Wide Web: through travel agents.
Some experts question if this will change significantly any time soon. "I don't see booking direct in a big way," says Fran Golden, travel editor for GateHouse Media and author of Frommer's Alaska Cruises. "The vast majority of cruise passengers still book through agents, whether on the phone or with online agencies."
These days, it can be fairly hard to mess up an online booking for a domestic round-trip flight or a one-night hotel stay. But a lot can go wrong if you don't know how to book a cruise.
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