To further the company’s commitment to its Partners First philosophy and make it easier than ever for agencies to book cruise reservations through Norwegian Cruise Line, the line today announced the launch of a new “Freestyle” booking engine, giving travel partners more freedom and flexibility when making reservations via Norwegian’s online tool. The new booking engine features an array of new functionalities in both the FIT and new Freestyle Groups modules.

One of the most exciting features, exclusive to Norwegian’s booking engine, is the addition of interactive deck plans which allows agents to view all available staterooms on any deck, regardless of stateroom category.  From the deck plan, agents also have the ability to select up to five staterooms in a variety of categories and place them on hold for 30 minutes as they finish the transaction.  In addition, the new engine allows agents to conduct a side by side comparison of group versus FIT rates, extend options, apply coupons, enter check numbers and schedule final payment for a later date.

Norwegian has also created a new group booking engine called Freestyle Groups, which allows partners to create and manage their group reservations online. Exciting new enhancements to this booking engine include the ability to customize amenities down to the first stateroom, assign or distribute tour conductor credits, and include FIT staterooms into a group up to seven-days prior to sailing. In addition, Norwegian added features that enable host and consortia models to select how they would like commission to be paid and how they would like e-docs to be managed, while still maintaining a local presence.     

“We continue to look for ways to make it easier for travel partners to do business with us,” said Andy Stuart, executive vice president of global sales and passenger services. “We’ve listened to travel agent feedback on our booking engine and have incorporated the comments and suggestions into these latest enhancements. With all of these new features, we are confident that partners will love how easy and flexible it is to book their clients on Norwegian.”

Norwegian’s new booking engine is already receiving excellent feedback from the travel partner community. Linda Allen, Master Cruise Counselor at Cruises by Linda commented, “All of the agents in our office are delighted with the improved agent booking tools that Norwegian introduced. Our efficiency and ability to quickly and easily make a reservation on the Norwegian agent site is just one of the many reasons that we are recommending Norwegian more often to our clients.”