My wife and I are traveling to Hawaii for a cruise at Christmas time. I’ve been fretting over the flight arrangements. The cruise line has discounted tickets, but you lose a lot of control over them.
If you book the flight with Norwegian they send you your plane tickets approximately 1 month before your cruise departure date. At that time you can call the airline an request a seat preference. I was not happy with putting it off so late ~ particularly since we are flying December 20th and 29th.
So I looked into booking them myself. The cost difference is roughly 1000 dollars. More. Some would argue that it was foolish to spend $1000 more for the same seats. I would argue that the intangible benefits from booking our own airline tickets far exceeds any price, much less $1000.
We have a non-stop flight. We are flying from our local airport, where we will clear security and check baggage; avoiding the whole checkin mess at the international airport. We have our seat preferences on file now ~ 7 months in advance.
Mostly we have peace of mind. I won’t fret about the arrangements for the next 6 months, and my lovely wife is at ease knowing what to expect for the most difficult part of the trip.
Our way is priceless. Our feelings and comfort level is priceless.