deepsea21
Contributor
Agreed - Our last 4 years diving with 3P's in December Jeanie has delivered the same or better pricing than I could find anywhere. However, the biggest benefit of booking CM via a 3P's dive and stay package is Jeanie knows all of the best deluxe ocean view and standard city view rooms. 3P's clout with the CM enables them to request specific room #'s and those requests are usually if not always honored (You can't do that booking through a website and if you do try to enter a room request under "special needs" etc. it won't be honored as the CM doesn't "reserve" any rooms booked through the hotel websites - or its own site for that matter). That's not to say you can't request a specific room when you're checking in but there's no guarantee it will be available. If it's not you have to be willing to move mid-stay when it does become available.
Anyway, there are select standard city-view rooms that offer far better ocean views in my opinion than the more expensive deluxe ocean view rooms. Deluxe Ocean View rooms are not worth the higher price (in my opinion) unless you get the 5th floor rooms (501,502,503 and 504) 501 and 504 are the 2 best rooms in the place.
