The upgrade fairy called me today! v.Splendor

[yamsi12]

My wife and I are booked on the 4/19 cruise in an ocean suite. Got the call to upgrade to a grand suite for $780 total. I turned it down. I told them the reason was that I proposed to my wife on the balcony of the ocean suite we are booked on. Not that I would of paid the upgrade fee if the room didn't hold a sentimental value to us. He laughed and agreed.

[CBreezes]

Hi .. I'm new to cruising and was wondering how you apply for an upgrade? Haven't seen a forum or posting reguarding this topic

[lucky13elec]

Hi .. I'm new to cruising and was wondering how you apply for an upgrade? Haven't seen a forum or posting reguarding this topic

 

Carnival normally just calls about a month out from the cruise. 90% of the time they are trying to sell you. Twice they have called to move us to a better cabin at no charge.

[CBreezes]

Thanks for the reply .. Do you have to be in a suite for them to call you? I notice you're from Virginia also .. We're in Amherst County about 20 minutes north of Lynchburg

[popeyeal]

Hi. This will be our second cruise on the Glory ( April 11th ). When they call with an offer, do they leave a message ? We don't answer the phone if we don't recognize the number or name. we did get an email for a 6 deck upgrade for $40 (flat fee, not per day) for our interior cabin that we took.

[NS-Cruiser]

Carnival normally just calls about a month out from the cruise. 90% of the time they are trying to sell you. Twice they have called to move us to a better cabin at no charge.

 

 

What Carnival is trying to do is upsell you to a more expensive Cabin so that the cheaper ones are then available to sell to the folks that may be looking but don't want to spend a lot... If they can get you to move up, then yours will be available to sell to someone else, and then hopefully fill the ship.

 

Sometimes they do it for free, sometimes there's a charge. On our first cruise on Freedom, they moved us from the Main deck (#2) to the Spa deck for FREE... both ocean view rooms in those days, with floor to ceiling, wall to wall glass on the Spa deck rooms. We loved that room! So much so, that on our second cruise on Freedom we booked the same room again, but alas it has been renovated to a balcony... but now we are hooked on balconies...

[CBreezes]

Thanks for the reply .. Really appreciate it.

[SlotCarKing]

We just got a call about our trip on the Valor. Consolidated are 2 double occupancy interiors to a single balcony with an extra $105 obc per person.

[kicia]

Lots of lucky people on this board. By reading these posts it almost seems like everyone gets an upgrade/upsell call. We have 45 Carnival cruises and have never received either. Maybe Carnival tries to get the newer cruiser hooked with higher level cabins and they know that us Diamonds are probably going to sail anyway so it isn't worth their attention.

 

Anyway, we'll keep sailing and having a great time - even without an upgrade.

[MMastell]

There is a big difference between an upgrade and an upsell. With an upgrade you get a better cabin for no extra charge. With an upsell you pay to get a better cabin. Sometimes an upsell is a good price but in the last year or so the upsell price is close to the current difference between what you paid and the upgraded room price. What the OP is referring to is an Upsell.

 

Sorry but the Upgrade Fairy is on life support and the Upsell Fairy has taken over.

 

Take care,

Mike

[NS-Cruiser]

There is a big difference between an upgrade and an upsell. With an upgrade you get a better cabin for no extra charge. With an upsell you pay to get a better cabin. Sometimes an upsell is a good price but in the last year or so the upsell price is close to the current difference between what you paid and the upgraded room price. What the OP is referring to is an Upsell.

 

 

 

Sorry but the Upgrade Fairy is on life support and the Upsell Fairy has taken over.

 

 

 

Take care,

 

Mike

 

 

Well yes, in this case there is a difference between and upgrade, and an upsell..... But think about this, if you are in the market for a new car, and you look at a Kia, but then later decide instead to UPGRADE to a Ferrari, do you expect to still pay the Kia price? It's still an upgrade, you just need to pay more to get it.... Semantics, call it what you want, I think it's still an UPGRADE... No one ever said it was gonna be at no extra charge.

 

 

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[lizardhowson]

As others have corrected, your call was an upsell, not an upgrade!

Many thousands of people cruise each week. A small portion of those post on Cruise Critic. And of those who post here a very few get upgrade calls, some get upsell offers.

 

So even though you see threads about upsells/upgrades, it is a very small percentage who receive them as compared to total number of people cruising.

[hfj17002]

What Carnival is trying to do is upsell you to a more expensive Cabin so that the cheaper ones are then available to sell to the folks that may be looking but don't want to spend a lot... If they can get you to move up, then yours will be available to sell to someone else, and then hopefully fill the ship.

 

Sometimes they do it for free, sometimes there's a charge. On our first cruise on Freedom, they moved us from the Main deck (#2) to the Spa deck for FREE... both ocean view rooms in those days, with floor to ceiling, wall to wall glass on the Spa deck rooms. We loved that room! So much so, that on our second cruise on Freedom we booked the same room again, but alas it has been renovated to a balcony... but now we are hooked on balconies...

 

I just upgraded to a balcony on the spa deck. I can't seem to find much info on these cabins. Can you tell me about them? Do you feel the rocking that high up. Is it quite at night, I see the serenity deck is above so is it loud at night when the clean? Thanks!

[cruisexlife]

I booked my Splendor cruise about 8 weeks out. It's four days from New York. I booked an inside stateroom. I hope I can get a call from the upgrade fairy, I haven't had a balcony in a long time!

[MMastell]

Well yes, in this case there is a difference between and upgrade, and an upsell..... But think about this, if you are in the market for a new car, and you look at a Kia, but then later decide instead to UPGRADE to a Ferrari, do you expect to still pay the Kia price? It's still an upgrade, you just need to pay more to get it.... Semantics, call it what you want, I think it's still an UPGRADE... No one ever said it was gonna be at no extra charge.

 

 

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An upgrade is buying a Kia and they "give" you Ferrari.

 

An upsell is that you buy the Kia and then the dealer offers to sell you a Ferrari for $90,000 more. :) What you describe is just deciding on buying something more expensive "before" you have actually purchased another vehicle.

 

For MANY years the "free" upgrade was a common practice. You purchased an inside cabin and you were upgraded to an Ocean View or Balcony at no additional cost. Great!

 

About eight years ago the cruise lines realized that they could make money off of this and I don't blame them. Someone purchased an inside cabin and for only $50 more they could get a window or sometimes a balcony. So, instead of just moving them to the better cabin they could offer it to them for a bargain. The issue is that the cruise lines realized that people were willing to pay much more and upped the price to what now is often close to the current retail price of the cabin.

 

This is very common with balcony to suite upsells. I have been offered an upsell from an 8M aft balcony cabin to a GS for $300 pp. With what I had already paid and the cost of the upsell it came out to $20 less than the current price of the GS. Not a bargain and I wouldn't give up an aft balcony.

 

So the upsell and upgrade are really more than semantics in the world of cruising. It's always nice to get something for free than to pay more.

 

Take care,

Mike