10 Reasons to Cruise with JustJoeyTravels

Joey: There's some questions that I get pretty frequently, but probably the biggest one that is my biggest responsibility as a business owner is why should I book with you? Why should I book with JustJoeyTravels?

Number one, I'm going to answer all your questions. I'm going to read you a quote for someone who DM'd me, a potential client that DM'd me. "I'm wanting some help. I've never been on a gay cruise before, but looking for my first one. But I have no idea where to look, when they are, and all that. When I search, I get confused." This is literally what this person DM'd me, this was their very first message. The way cruise ships work is very different from going to a hotel or hopping on a plane. So cruises are already a niche and like a specialty because they're so different than anything else. And then we have queer cruises, so that's like a niche within a niche. And then Atlantis is just one of the many companies offering queer cruises. They focus on gay men. So we have a niche within a niche within a niche. And this is where talking to an expert, someone like me, if you're confused, that's fine. I know all the right questions to ask you even if you don't know what questions to ask.

Number two is I will go one-on-one with you. So whether that's like a private DM, I have been on phone calls with potential clients. So however you want to communicate with me one-on-one. I don't know that many other Atlantis travel advisors that have their Telegram and their Instagram DMs open for clients. But the key thing here is I reserve going one-on-one, doing one-on-one chats with people for prospective new clients and my existing clients. Basically, by being a client of Just Joey Travels, you will basically be a VIP and you are the ones where I reserve my focus and time and effort on to have like one-on-one DMs, one-on-one text messages and one-on-one phone calls. So you basically have like a dedicated one-on-one line to me.

Number three, the things you didn't even think about. A lot of first-time cruisers, because they've never been on a cruise before, they don't have any cruise experience. There's certain things that you're not going to naturally know about if you never tried something before. The prime example I've got here is motion sickness. So actually helping someone book their first cruise recently and we were talking about if they had a particular type of room they wanted or had an eye on. So they said they wanted an interior room. Okay, sure, that's fine. And then I asked them if they were sensitive to motion sickness. And then they said, "Oh, that's why I wanted to book an interior room." If you might be prone to motion sickness, you do not want to book an interior room. Motion sickness is caused by the mismatch between what your inner ear feels and what your eyes perceive. That mismatch, your eyes are telling you you're not moving, your inner ear is telling your brain you are moving, that's what contributes to the motion sickness. So I explained to them and they're like, "Oh, I have no idea about that." So these are sometimes things you don't know where an expert like me, someone who has that experience, I know the right questions to ask. And if you were to book directly on the Atlantis website, the Atlantis website isn't going to ask you any of these questions, okay?

Number four, picking the right cruise for you. The "for you" part is the key. This is another person that reached out to me recently. They reached out to me and said, "I want to book the Alert Cruise that's coming up in March of next year." Great, right? You would think, "Oh, I just book them on that cruise and it's done." No, because if you just wanted to book a room on a cruise, I provide so much more than that. So with every single person that contacts me, no matter what their request is or how they come up to me, if they're confused or they kind of sort of know what they want, I'm always talking to them. All the Atlantis cruises have a different vibe, and I usually don't like to just blindly book people onto a cruise that they think is the best for them. Again, I'm going to ask you the right questions, even the questions you don't even know should be asked. So that person ended up now looking at the San Diego Mexico cruise, and the more we talked about the differences between the two cruises, the more they were convinced that for what their preferences and what they were looking for, the Alert was not going to be a good cruise for them. You don't want to just blindly put down like two, three, four thousand dollars on a cruise just booking on a website and not talking to anyone and then getting on the cruise and then being like, "Oh, this is maybe not what I expected." And this is where I come in and I want to make sure you're going to spend your hard-earned cash on the right cruise for you.

Number five, picking the best room category and location for you. So I talked about the example of someone wanting an interior room because they thought it was going to be better for motion sickness and I told them, no, no, no. I was talking too to someone and I asked them, "Do you have a preference for where on the ship? I'm going to find you a quiet location regardless, but do you have a certain preference to be closer to some of the amenities on the ship? Maybe you want to be closer to the gym or the spa or the pool deck or whatever." In this particular case, this person said, "I want to be kind of close or have the most convenient access to the buffet." Okay, and I know all the ships that I book and I know that, okay, if I put them near the rear set of the elevators, if they just take that up, that opens right to the entrance of the buffet. So that's how we came up with a room location for that particular client, okay? And I also know where all the possible party venues are that Atlantis might host the parties. And if you just downloadthe deck plans, it doesn't tell you that. If you didn't know any of this and you picked a room where it happened to be close to one of the venues that Atlantis uses for their after-hours parties, those don't start until like 3:00 or 4:00 AM. Do you want your room to be on top of the after-hours venue and then there's boom-boom-boom at 3:00 AM, 4:00 AM when you might be sleeping? That's not pleasant. That's another reason to go with Just Joey Travels, you'll never find that on the website.

Number six, looking up the latest inventory and availability. Why is inventory information important at this stage? Because it's not always obvious. This way, you know how quickly you need to move to book a room. I'll give you one example. Literally a couple days ago, a client I was talking to about the Athens to Venice cruise. That cruise is sailing July 5th, so we are exactly two months away now. And already in the back of my head, I already knew, okay, that's over 90% full right now. And I knew that not all the room categories are available because it's pretty full. So I instantly already knew, okay, if that's what you want to book, we have to move very quickly because it will likely probably sell out. Even if it doesn't sell out, there're not that many good rooms left. Another example is the San Diego Mexico cruise that I briefly mentioned, that just went on public sale like one or two weeks ago. Because it just went on public sale, a lot of rooms are still available, right? And that's where, you know what, if someone is like iffy, they're not ready to commit right away, I can tell them, "You don't have to rush. If you want to sleep on it for like a day, a week, a couple weeks, that's completely fine." So that's why you kind of want to know what the inventory is like. If you just look at the Atlantis website, you're not going to get an idea of what that is.

Reason number seven, exploring the different payment options. And a lot of people I talk to, they don't know about the payment options that Atlantis offers because Atlantis doesn't really advertise them. And I know it because I book myself and other people onto Atlantis cruises. So there're technically four different ways you can pay for a cruise. A lot of people do not know that you do not need the full money or even most of the money of the cruise up front. You just need like two to four hundred dollars usually at the time of making the booking to secure the reservation. And then the rest you can pay over time until two or three months before the departure. And what I also do for some clients that want to know the detailed numbers is I can do a detailed estimate of, okay, for this particular cruise, if you're going to book on this date with this specific room category, this is the exact cost and this is the estimated payment plans. This is how much you will put in as the initial deposit at the time of booking and then this is how much your monthly payments are going to be. And you're not going to get that booking yourself on the Atlantis website.

Reason number eight is I'm going to walk you through the entire booking process. Part of this is I'm going to read the fine print out loud. For example, on some of the Atlantis cruises, they have promotional rates. And it's not super obvious what the promotional rates are because they don't have this big giant banner that says, "This is a promotional slash discount rate." Usually, you do not get to pick your room location. Atlantis would pick it for you like a few weeks before the cruise. It's probably going to be in a noisier part of the ship. You might not even be able to pick the room type, like you won't be able to pick between an interior room or an ocean view or an ocean balcony. The balcony might be smaller in some of those rooms. The view might be obscured, you might be looking at a lifeboat instead of looking at the ocean. Anytime where it's a possibility with a client that they're looking at one of these promotional rates with the fine print, I basically say the fine print out loud up front.

Number nine, this kind of one-on-one white-glove VIP service that I've talked about so far, how I said, okay, I only go one-on-one with potential clients and my existing clients. That's not just during the booking. This guidance that I have and all this advice I have to give, it continues after the booking, okay? It's not just I'm here to book your cruise and I'm done. This is not how Just Joey Travels works. There's going to be a lot of follow-up advice and tips between when you actually make the booking and before you set sail. One example is the Just Joey Travels Guide to the Cruises. A packing checklist and packing advice, things that you cannot bring onto the ship, what the policy was for bringing on alcohol and drinks and things like that. Embarkation day, the things you need to know, how to get to the port, what are some of the eateries that are on board, what are some of the bars? Lots and lots of information, right? That's one of the advantages of booking with Just Joey Travels. I'm not just helping you pick the right cruise, pick the right room, with the booking process. You're going to get my tips and advice that you're not going to get from some website between when you do the booking and all the way until you board the cruise. So I also do what I call the 3-2-1 emails, which is, at three months before departure, these are the things you need to know right now. And then at two months, I'll send you another email that's like, okay, we're two months away to your cruise, these are the things you start looking at. And then we're one month away from the cruise now, and you start looking at that. But that's just some of the things you can expect from me after you've made the booking. After the initial booking, you're still going to get that high-level white-glove VIP guidance from Just Joey Travels. And you're not going to get that when you book directly with Atlantis.

The final reason is I'm going to continue to be your cruise concierge beyond the booking like I said, but basically for life. For as long as you are a client of Just Joey Travels, you can DM me, you can message me, you can call me, and I will be there for you for whatever travel cruise related question that you have. For example, there was someone that I booked onto the Atlantis cruise last month and even during embarkation, I was messaging with him just to make sure because he had some questions about the parking and about the priority check-in access that he purchased before-hand. So I was able to answer his question. So well after the booking, I'm still helping you. As long as you're a client of Just Joey Travels, I will continue to offer all of these advantages for you for every subsequent booking that you have. Doesn't matter if it's a booking related thing, doesn't matter if it's getting ready for your next cruise after you've booked it or even on embarkation day, you have some last-minute questions. Even when you're on the cruise, if you want to DM me, I will still answer you. Basically, when you're a client of Just Joey Travels, you just DM me whenever you want. Text me whenever you want, DM me whenever you want and I help you. So that type of VIP level concierge service you're not going to get from Atlantis. So those are the ten reasons why you should go with Just Joey Travels. Don't just book on the website. Come to me for your very first Atlantis vacation. And until next time, bye y'all!