Are involuntary upgrades common?

[Tapi]

Are involuntary upgrades common (even if you request NO upgrades)? It seems like everybody has experienced this.

 

I booked over a year out to get specific staterooms. Any upgrade (maybe except to a top suite) will not be a welcome change.

[cherylandtk]

If you mark your booking NUP they are very rare. But occasionally it does happen for the 'operational reasons' excuse. It does not happen often enough to be worth worrying about.

[DrivesLikeMario]

I know there are reports on CC, but personally, I have never had a client involuntarily upgraded.

[Putterdude]

We have to book accessible cabins so mark them "no up-grade". However twice we have been up-graded from balcony accessible to a Caribe deck accessible balcony but our TA has been contacted first.

[GweninTX]

We marked our cabin no upgrade and Princess upgraded us any way and it took a act of congress to get our original deck and area back! I do not trust the "no upgrade" from now on!

[vmom]

I had marked no upgrade or changes, but on my last cruise. When we checked in at the port, we found out we had been moved to a different cabin. It was not an upgrade, but a move within the same category. The change was never indicated on the cruise personalizer so I had no idea until check in.

 

After returning I called Princess and was told that cabin moves were not supposed to be made without contacting the passenger first for permission. This did not occur in my case and by that point in time there was not anything that could be done. We were traveling with family and the two cabins we chose were close to each other, down the hall.

 

We were not moved for operational reasons. We were moved so another family could have their two cabins next to each other (both cabins had adults in them, so this was not a case of moving a cabin with kids to be by their parents).

 

I still don't know if sometimes cabin assignments are knowingly moved without permission and if the passenger complains later, then apologies come later. The Princess rep told me that the policy is not to move cabins marked as "no upgrades" or no changes without permission, but its hard to know how often it happens.

 

That said, after I called Princess, the rep did offer an apology and gave me an offer of money off my next cruise since we were inconvenienced by no longer having our family cabins close together.

 

It would have been nice if they had to move me, if they would have least upgraded me to the next cabin type, in this case window cabin to balcony, but that did not happen.

[rdsqrl]

Are involuntary upgrades common (even if you request NO upgrades)? It seems like everybody has experienced this.

 

I booked over a year out to get specific staterooms. Any upgrade (maybe except to a top suite) will not be a welcome change.

It only seems like "everybody" has experienced this because only people who have had this happen post saying it happened. The vast majority of people to whom this has never happened are not posting "Guess what? I was not upgraded involuntarily."

(and no, it has never happened to me)

[Whimsy]

I've been on 6 Princess cruises, 5 of them were marked no upgrades and that is exactly what we got, no upgrades. On the one cruise we left open for an upgrade we didn't get one either.

[Diamondring]

We left some cruises open to upgrade and others we said, 'no upgrade'. We seem to have good fortune with upgrades and get them when we leave it open. Never had a issue with an upgrade when we didn't want one.

[h55zbt]

I guess this isn't really involuntary because we hadn't marked our booking "no upgrades".

 

Our first cruise on Princess is coming up on the Golden. We specifically booked D734, aft balcony. Booked on the Princess web site. Since we're new, we didn't know to request "no upgrades". So about 3 months prior to the cruise I received an email with subject "Upgrade Notice". We were upgraded to C502. The email included the phrase "***PLEASE NOTIFY US WITHIN 48 HOURS IF YOU CHOOSE TO DECLINE THIS COMPLIMENTARY UPGRADE SO THAT WE CAN ATTEMPT TO RETURN YOUM TO YOUR ORIGINAL CABIN." (The misplaced M is really in the official email!)

 

I was not pleased with this at all and called Princess almost immediately. After first being told D734 had already been reassigned and there was nothing they could do they said they would look into it and I would hear back. Well I never heard back but I checked the web site later and we were put back into D734.

[The4OfUs]

Building on this topic - how far out from your cruise date have people seen upgrades, involuntary or not? We are sailing in March, so I'm guessing that nothing will happen for a very long time, if at all, especially given how many of our room type is still available - however, our TA is going on the Royal in a couple of weeks when it comes to the US from Europe, and with my luck, that's when the email would come to her, and we wouldn't get a chance to "choose" to take it or not! :p I'm being paranoid, right?? It's just that an upgrade could be a downgrade for us, so just like the OP, I don't want it to happen without my being aware. :rolleyes:

[DrivesLikeMario]

Building on this topic - how far out from your cruise date have people seen upgrades, involuntary or not? We are sailing in March, so I'm guessing that nothing will happen for a very long time, if at all, especially given how many of our room type is still available - however, our TA is going on the Royal in a couple of weeks when it comes to the US from Europe, and with my luck, that's when the email would come to her, and we wouldn't get a chance to "choose" to take it or not! :p I'm being paranoid, right?? It's just that an upgrade could be a downgrade for us, so just like the OP, I don't want it to happen without my being aware. :rolleyes:

 

Everything from within a month of booking to within the last 3-4 days of sailing. Usually, I'll see movement within 3 weeks of sailing.

 

Princess (or TA corp offices) are not very good about getting notifications to the TAs about these moves.

 

For those that want to be by their friends/family's cabins, make sure you have your TA do a TWID (traveling with ID - basically a cross-reference) with those other cabins. That should help avoid those unnecessary moves.

[geoherb]

Our upcoming back-to-back cruises on the Ruby are the first time in a long time that we have chosen a specific cabin so that we won't have to move on the turn-around day. DH was arguing for taking a guarantee as we have in the past. They have been very good for us on our last three Princess cruises--having been upgraded to a higher type of cabin (not just a change in location). But I'm not willing to risk it.

 

Back when we regularly booked specific cabins, we did get an upgrade notice through our TA with the 48-hour time period to respond. It was a better cabin, so we let it go through.

[Dayenu]

Are involuntary upgrades common (even if you request NO upgrades)? It seems like everybody has experienced this.

 

I hope not!!! :mad:

[RNGALNG]

Building on this topic - how far out from your cruise date have people seen upgrades, involuntary or not? We are sailing in March, so I'm guessing that nothing will happen for a very long time, if at all, especially given how many of our room type is still available - however, our TA is going on the Royal in a couple of weeks when it comes to the US from Europe, and with my luck, that's when the email would come to her, and we wouldn't get a chance to "choose" to take it or not! :p I'm being paranoid, right?? It's just that an upgrade could be a downgrade for us, so just like the OP, I don't want it to happen without my being aware. :rolleyes:

 

Our friends had booked a balcony room to Hawaii. They received an email asking, if for a small price, would they like to be upgraded to a mini suite. They said - sure! When they went to check in and get their keys before boarding, they were told they had been upgraded again - a a full suite on the aft! So, they can come even when you go to check in!

 

Oh, and they enjoyed the room, however, she has some physical limitations and being in the aft, it was very hard for her to walk around the ship. (She still has her pride and will not get a chair to get around!)

[DrivesLikeMario]

Our friends had booked a balcony room to Hawaii. They received an email asking, if for a small price, would they like to be upgraded to a mini suite. They said - sure! When they went to check in and get their keys before boarding, they were told they had been upgraded again - a a full suite on the aft! So, they can come even when you go to check in!

 

Oh, and they enjoyed the room, however, she has some physical limitations and being in the aft, it was very hard for her to walk around the ship. (She still has her pride and will not get a chair to get around!)

 

That's true - sometimes the upgrades don't happen until you show up at the pier but that's kind-of unusual. ;)

[sunsetbeachgal]

When we sailed on the Royal in July we had three cabins in a row...insides...two of which were connecting. TA marked all three do not upgrade and reservation numbers were cross referenced. We checked in in Barcelona, got to our cabin and found someone else's name on it. Fortunately the connecting cabins, which were for a family with small children were intact. We had been upgraded to a nearby handicap accessible balcony cabin, a large and wonderful stateroom with a huge bathroom. Very happy but thought it odd that no one emailed me, the TA or mentioned anything at check in. If the family had been upgraded and the connecting cabins were lost, it would probably not have been a welcome upgrade.

[Piepkorn]

We were upgraded to C502.

 

And you would have really hated C502 - as it's directly across from the main crew work area. Glad you got your original cabin back.