[scarecrow]

Brits can book with Carnival.com.

If you know you are definitely going consider an early saver rate. With this if you book a price drop even up to 2 days of sailing, you simply phone up and ask for the price difference. Full details are in the sticky above. The cabin has to be a valve to book for the same number of people and the same catagory, so book a cabin where there are lots of them for a example a 8b for two people.

The TA's tend to offer the same perks as Carnival or that's my experience so I always book directly with the cruise line, plus you are in charge of cabin etc should you want to change.

Also look out for low deposit offers. Often these come along for $50 a cabin. Track price drops on cruisefish it's worth paying the fee for me for the money I've saved in the past.

As for agents I haven't used any of these, but worth a try are vacations to go, cruise planners, viva voyage the US site not the UK one. Also have a look at cruise nation uk ta they sometimes have great carnival pricing better than the US. Last year I got a balcony for 12 nights for three of us for £800 with a night pre cruise at the Novotel in BCN. Carnival were wanting double that.

With cruise nation to get the best pricing you have to book either flights, hotel or both if you want them both. So long as it's some form of package. You don't even have to stay in the hotel. They will look to see if they can book a specific hotel of your choosing too. However there will be no price drops.

Perks across different cruise lines are not recognised by the Carnival group. If you hold Carnival shares then you can get $200 OBC I think it is.