Booking Guarantee stateroom

[LounVal]

Anyone have any experience with booking a guarantee category and letting the cruise line pick your cabin. I hear many times they bump you up to another category. Any comments? Thanks

[firefly333]

Anyone have any experience with booking a guarantee category and letting the cruise line pick your cabin. I hear many times they bump you up to another category. Any comments? Thanks

 

I would say "many" is a huge exaggeration .. it can happen. I booked 3 or 4 days before a cruise, and thats the only time I got bumped up, from inside to OV .. as did almost everyone else on the bottom deck 2 of Voyager that cruise. We had all booked a inside guarantee. All the OVs are on bottom decks on that class of ship and apparantly dont sell well on the bottom deck, which does not go thru, so we had to take two elevators to get to dinner in the aft (my sister is HC).

 

Sometimes it is better to get the category you booked.

 

I have had good luck though with guarantees from RCL. Once worst possible inside .. but we also got a PR another time.. Im happy with RCL. Very happy with guarantees. Wish I could get one every time.

[workingboy]

Anyone have any experience with booking a guarantee category and letting the cruise line pick your cabin. I hear many times they bump you up to another category. Any comments? Thanks

 

I have done it three or four times, but have never been bumped to another category. You have to be prepared to be anyware on the ship and a lot of times the cabins that they use for guarantee are front or aft. If cabin location doesn't matter to you then it is a great way to save some money. One tip, once they assign you a cabin (ie a E1 category for example) you can asked to be moved to another cabin within that category.

[textbookcase]

We've done it twice and were very pleased with the results. One was a balcony and we ended up with a D1. Last year, we did it in the Suite category and ended up in a Grand Suite - awesome! If you don't like where they put you, you can ask to be put back into the guarantee pool again. Or if you see a cabin you like better in the same type of room, you can request to be switched.

[chef_christoph]

Anyone have any experience with booking a guarantee category and letting the cruise line pick your cabin. I hear many times they bump you up to another category. Any comments? Thanks

 

That is exactly what happened to me last December. I booked interior GTY cabins on my b2b Oasis cruise and was upgraded to a Boardwalk View on the first leg and to a Central Park View on the second leg of the b2b.

 

I would not count on that always happening and be prepared to perhaps receive the worst cabin in the gty category you booked.

[calmpets]

I recently changed my assigned interior room to a guaranteed interior room for the price break. Within 24 hours they had assigned me to a forward interior room on deck 2 (Radiance of the Seas). No problem, but definitely NOT an upgrade. :D

[Shippy]

Those of us that have cruised for decades remember when catagories were simple. Inside, outside, balcony, suite. Also ships were not as stable.

To make more money they started creating more & more catagories mostly depending on location of the ship. Kinda reminds me of airlines now charging extra for 'premium' seats like exit row that used to be the same cost as the rest.

Anyway, there might be 5 catagories of outside rooms.... say you book the lowest as a guarantee...they bump you up 3 catagories....you are STILL in an outside room but got a 'great upgrade'. Ships are so stable now I do not care where I am located.

 

This is not to say I do not do guarantees, it depends on the price. We just put a 24 hour hold on a SC (deluxe suite) on a Holland ship for $1099. We have already cruised too much this year but I cannot resist a good deal, love suite perks.......going to be a long day considering this one !

[luvnz]

That is exactly what happened to me last December. I booked interior GTY cabins on my b2b Oasis cruise and was upgraded to a Boardwalk View on the first leg and to a Central Park View on the second leg of the b2b.

 

When did you find out you had been upgraded? Was it at the pier, or prior to the cruise when you first got your cabin assignment?

[Aussiegrlfl]

I must admit I like to pick my cabin because I love midship......but once I booked a gty inside for a short cruise and got an OV upgrade at the front of Navigator....and it was wonderful.....I did not feel any movement or have any issues it was a big room and the window was very large....I would do it again on a shorty cruise...oh and I found out a few days after booking.....

[chef_christoph]

When did you find out you had been upgraded? Was it at the pier, or prior to the cruise when you first got your cabin assignment?

 

I had no idea what cabin I was assigned until I arrived at the pier.

 

In fact, when I arrived at the pier and told the porter I didn't know what stateroom I had been assigned, the porter checked the printout of the ship manifest and it only had my name on it - they didn't even know what cabin number I was in.

 

I had to go into the terminal and speak to the pier coordinator and he was the one to give me my stateroom assignment.

[Caliterp07]

We booked an inside guarantee for our upcoming med cruise, because it was $300 cheaper pp than the lowest category of inside. How can you lose in that situation? Worst case, they assign us to the room we were going to book in that lowest category anyway.

 

We ended up getting lucky, and were assigned a promenade room. We got our assignment ~1 week after we booked (a couple weeks before final payment)

[antmintj]

We booked a balcony GTY on Explorer about 5 weeks prior to sailing to Bermuda last year. We were assigned a JS :) very near the front of the ship, but I was actually able to call & switch it to another JS midship, no questions asked :D. Because it was a JS, we even got the double cruise credit !!!