Expedia Review: Cruise Vacation Sites

Expedia is an online travel agency that handles reservations of hotels, rental cars, plane tickets, and cruises. They're a sibling company of Orbitz and Travelocity, and their site listed nearly 30,000 sailings at the time of our review.

You'll have to look for deals yourself

Unlike their sibling company, Expedia's landing page for booking cruises displays curated collections of popular destinations, ports, and cruise lines. However, they don't give you much of a jumping-off point to find last minute deals - something plenty of their competitors do. You'll have to start a search and use the sorting and filtering tools to hunt for these yourself.

Bonuses available, but hard to keep

When you use the "Agency Specials" filter, you'll see cruises with offers like $25 in onboard credit, $50 towards a shore excursion, drink & dining packages, and more. While these sound like a great reason to book through Expedia instead of direct, you'll need to be vigilant about reading the terms and conditions of each deal to make sure you don't accidentally make yourself ineligible for them by changing something about your booking.

Unclear policies and no help from chatbot

The cancellation, gratuities, minor accompaniment, and other policies of the cruise line you're thinking of booking with can be found by clicking into the sailing's listing. Expedia doesn't say whether or not they charge booking fees or cancellation fees. When we asked their AI chatbot any basic question, we were told we had to create an account first - the same issue Expedia's sister company, Orbitz, has.

Booking with Expedia was cheaper in one instance

We looked at a 4-night cruise to the Bahamas with a stop in Key West aboard Celebrity's Summit. Expedia listed this cruise at $315 per person for an interior room with a $50 onboard credit. They claimed that booking through them would save you $137.50 per guest. When we checked out the same itinerary and dates on Celebrity's website, their price was $126 higher.

Even worse ratings than their sibling company

Expedia has a staggeringly disappointing 1.2-star rating average from over 9,000 customer reviews on Trustpilot. What did we learn from these? It's nearly impossible to get in touch with Expedia when you need a refund, and if you do manage to get one, it won't include everything you paid for. You may end up in frustrating back-and-forths between Expedia and the cruise line about who is able to rebook your excursions in the event of a postponed cruise. You won't get your onboard credits unless you find and submit a particular survey before an arbitrary deadline, which Expedia will not tell you anything about. Overall, Expedia gets terrible marks for customer service.

Better choices available

Expedia's cruise booking service could offer you some potential savings compared to booking directly with cruise lines (showing savings up to $126 in one case), along with good search tools and occasional onboard credits. However, you shouldn't ignore the drawbacks - for example, a very low 1.2-star average on Trustpilot, poor customer service, unclear fee policies, and difficulties with refunds. When compared to competitors, Expedia falls short. Some rival platforms offer better perks and are transparent about agency fees, with much higher customer satisfaction rating averages of up to 4.9 stars. Though Expedia might save you money upfront, their poor service record and complicated bonus terms make them a riskier choice for booking cruise vacations.

On the Expedia website