By the same token, not all travel agencies were created equal. My folks arranged for us to go on our first cruise way back in the 90’s. So we went to a travel agency, the woman sweet talked my folks into a “lovely” room - lower levels, inner room with NO windows as we discovered later. My parents had a room with two twin beds, and so did my brother and I. The rooms did not connect together, nor was it “cozy” - it was literally two twin beds side by side, with a nightstand in between. Then there was a TV on a shelf, and a door to the bathroom next to the door to the hallway.

The travel agent also told us this was a brand new ship (Norwegian cruise lines, it was the smallest ship in their fleet) and it had an arcade for my brother and I to enjoy. Except when we got to the ship, the room was labeled “employees only” - and there was essentially nothing on the ship to do for two young boys - no video games, no game boys, nothing. Oh and they only had like four movies playing in repeat on the televisions in the bedrooms - Ace Ventura Pet detective and “father of the bride 2” were two of the movies I distinctly remember because I saw them enough times on that ship to never want to see them ever again

Later we found out that travel agents got all sorts of perks/kickbacks like free room upgrades, or welcome fruit baskets, etc. And they could choose to gift them to their clients… or some agents would keep all those perks for themselves and splurge on a premium cruise vacation for their families.

Go figure my father (who is a real life bad-luck-brian) picked the absolute worst travel agent in our small town who pushed us into a trip on the smallest/worst cruise ship in the fleet for a family with two young boys.