No room assignment, 4 days left

[quilter323]

We have a land first, cruisetour booked with guaranteed premium balcony starting July 7 with cruise leaving July 11. We have not gotten a cabin assignment as of this moment (July 3). We are first time cruisers. Is this typical? I'm getting nervous and am driving my husband crazy. We are going to Alaska on the Grand.

Edited July 3, 2015 by quilter323

[CruiserBruce]

You could get your room assignment up to arrival at the pier.

[OCruisers]

You could get your room assignment up to arrival at the pier.

 

Unfortunately, this is true! You may not get your cabin number until you are actually there. :(

 

LuLu

[Thrak]

You will either end up with a Premium Balcony or with a Mini Suite. Either way I wouldn't worry about it. The very least you will get is exactly what you booked. I would just check the cruise personalizer multiple times a day. It's not necessary but I'm just that way.

[Shelly97060]

Don't worry, they will have a cabin for you and it will be at the guarantee level you booked or better. As others have said just keep checking your Personalizer.:)

[paul929207]

This is a drawback of booking a guarantee. The cruise line can assign you a cabin whenever they want to. It can be months before sailing or even at the pier.

 

Don't worry you will have a cabin

[ggprincess2004]

No worries, at worst you will have a premium balcony. The upgrade fairy seems to like first time cruisers, so you could have a nice surprise waiting - mini-suite or suite, you just never know. We were upgraded to a suite about 3 days before we sailed (a long, long time ago when we were fairly to new to cruising Princess).

 

Just keep checking your cruise personalizer to be able to print luggage tags until a few hours before you leave the house...or the hotel. The porters at the pier do have the final list of cabin assignments and extra luggage tags, too. Honestly, it is a bit nerve wracking not to know where on the ship you will be, but really, no worries.

 

Actually with a land tour, the tour host can be in touch with the ship and check on your cabin assignment for you, as well.

 

(As far as we know, they haven't started to put berths in the survival craft so you will have a cabin.)

Edited July 3, 2015 by ggprincess2004

[quilter323]

Thank you

[Husky61]

We have a land first, cruisetour booked with guaranteed premium balcony starting July 7 with cruise leaving July 11. We have not gotten a cabin assignment as of this moment (July 3). We are first time cruisers. Is this typical? I'm getting nervous and am driving my husband crazy. We are going to Alaska on the Grand.

 

Have you called Princess and asked them?:)

[caribill]

Often GTYs are assigned in the last week before embarkation.

 

When we did our cruise tour in Alaska (tour first) we ended up getting our GTY assignment about two days before we left for the land tour.

 

But it could be made while you are on the land portion.

 

The only problem you may have is what you should put on your luggage tag for the luggage that will "meet me at the ship" instead of going with you on the land tour. If you do not have your assignment, ask your tour rep in Alaska what to do for the luggage tag labeling.

 

Be sure to post back here what type cabin you do get assigned to and when you learned about it.

Edited July 4, 2015 by caribill

[ar1950]

Always fun to read these types of posts (they seem to show up every two or three months). It is always funny to "hear" the concern, and sometimes panic, in the posts because they are worried that they don't have a cabin yet.

 

OP, please check back and let us all know where you ended up. It is great for us all to know if you get an upgrade or not. As others have said no matter what you will, at the very least, get a cabin in the GTY category that you booked.

 

Have a great cruise. Alaska is wonderful.:cool:

Edited July 4, 2015 by ar1950

[Colo Cruiser]

We have a land first, cruisetour booked with guaranteed premium balcony starting July 7 with cruise leaving July 11. We have not gotten a cabin assignment as of this moment (July 3). We are first time cruisers. Is this typical? I'm getting nervous and am driving my husband crazy. We are going to Alaska on the Grand.

 

Yes its typical.

You can check the personalizer for your cabin right up to sailing day. Just log in and look at either the travel summary, boarding pass, or baggage tags. They will show the cabin assignment. It will be done by at least the day before the cruise. ;)

As stated in above posts this is the way the GTY works. Not to worry. :)

[Colo Cruiser]

Have you called Princess and asked them?:)

 

Why would they need to call Princess?

They can just log in online and see the same thing.

[quilter323]

Since we are so new to this, help me understand the guaranteed room thing. (We booked through a travel agent and I trusted her on lots of decisions). Do most experienced cruisers select their room rather than do guaranteed? What is the $ difference between guaranteed and selecting. Thank you.

[ggprincess2004]

Usually there is no difference in price between doing a gty in a category and booking a specific room in the same category. What happens is closer to sailing they may not have an inventory of those rooms, so it is impossible to actually choose the room you want.

 

I suspect, however, that is was simpler for you TA to have you take a gty rather than go through all the pros and cons of various locations, and since you are a first time cruiser you really would not have too strong an opinion about "where" the best cabin location is. Luckily there is a lot of disagreement about whether a higher or lower deck, forward mid-ship or aft locations, etc etc are preferred. There are pros and cons to all the options.

 

With a premium balcony gty I believe you will be happy with the room. Try to relax and enjoy all the great scenery and experiences. We returned from 2 weeks in Alaska in early June and are excited to go back, once again, next year in the late spring, early summer.

[Grayce]

What is the $ difference between guaranteed and selecting. Thank you.

 

I always choose my cabin. I think it depends on the cruise whether there is a big price difference. For our upcoming cruise there wasn't any cost savings for booking a garantee.

[Colo Cruiser]

Since we are so new to this, help me understand the guaranteed room thing. (We booked through a travel agent and I trusted her on lots of decisions). Do most experienced cruisers select their room rather than do guaranteed? What is the $ difference between guaranteed and selecting. Thank you.

 

 

There is no set price difference between the 2. It all depends on the sailing and demand.

If you wanted a specific cabin/category or you want to know your cabin assignment right away you should not pick a gty.

[Coral]

Since we are so new to this, help me understand the guaranteed room thing. (We booked through a travel agent and I trusted her on lots of decisions). Do most experienced cruisers select their room rather than do guaranteed? What is the $ difference between guaranteed and selecting. Thank you.

 

When I am booking an inside cabin, I often book a guarantee as I am hoping for an upgrade. When you book a category, you often have a choice between a specific cabin or a guarantee for the same price. If all the cabins are allocated or appear allocated in the system, your only choice is a guarantee.

 

When I book a mini suite - I want a specific area and specific cabin (often covered decks).

 

So it depends on the circumstance.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Coral

[shepp]

Since we are so new to this, help me understand the guaranteed room thing. (We booked through a travel agent and I trusted her on lots of decisions). Do most experienced cruisers select their room rather than do guaranteed? What is the $ difference between guaranteed and selecting. Thank you.

 

There is no price difference between getting a guarantee and an assigned cabin in the same category. The money saving occurs if the lower priced cabins in a metacategory, e.g., cheaper balconies, are on guarantee only, and choosing a specific cabin would mean moving up to a more expensive (for instance) balcony. Or if an entire metacategory (e.g., all insides) are on guarantee-only and all the specific cabins that are left are in more expensive categories (e.g., outsides). Sometimes all that's left in a category are locations people view as undesirable, like all the way forward, and they will choose guarantees because they figure, "It can't get any worse."

 

When you buy a guarantee, Princess will either upgrade you to a higher category, usually within the metacategory (i.e., balcony to higher priced balcony) or they will upgrade someone else or there will be a cancellation and you will get a cabin within the exact category you paid for. In any case, you will be on the sailing, even if the ship is oversold and Princess has to go out and make moreover offers so other passengers will choose to move from that sailing to something else, at significant savings. Once your cabin is assigned, you may be able to make a lateral move within the same category, but the chance of subsequently getting an upgrade from a cabin assigned from a guarantee is slim to none.

 

The theory is that buying a guarantee will make it more likely you get a significant upgrade, but I'm unaware of anything but anecdotal evidence on this and you can get upgraded from a specific cabin, too. The best upgrade I ever got was from a specific cabin, I've gotten less impressive upgrades when I've booked a guarantee, and sometimes I've gotten just what I paid for. Often passengers will have a preferred location and will book that and specify "No Upgrade," but even that isn't honored 100% of the time.

 

Hope that helps.

Edited July 4, 2015 by shepp

[Shelly97060]

Since we are so new to this, help me understand the guaranteed room thing. (We booked through a travel agent and I trusted her on lots of decisions). Do most experienced cruisers select their room rather than do guaranteed? What is the $ difference between guaranteed and selecting. Thank you.

 

We typically pick our cabin however there are times when picking a guarantee works our better for us. If we are not traveling with others we are less particular about exact cabin location ( but we do prefer to have a mini or a suite) and we will book a lower priced category of mini guarantee knowing we will get that category or better in particular if the inventory is low on the guarantee category.

 

In some instances we have gotten exactly what we paid for in other cases we have been moved to higher catagories - we have never been disappointed with the room assignment because we have booked the type of room we knew we wanted.

[Husky61]

Why would they need to call Princess?

They can just log in online and see the same thing.

 

They might feel more comfortable and reassured talking with an actual person. Some people are like that. Besides, the person they are speaking with has more resources than you and I.:)

[caribill]

They might feel more comfortable and reassured talking with an actual person. Some people are like that. Besides, the person they are speaking with has more resources than you and I.:)

 

Not really.

 

What you can see in the personalizer is as much information that they can see.

 

In any event, I would not expect any cabin assignment to be made over this holiday weekend.

[Husky61]

Not really.

 

What you can see in the personalizer is as much information that they can see.

 

So you used to work at Princess?:)

[quilter323]

Thank you for the insights everyone. I will let you know what we end up with.

[M4dC0w]

They can see your upgrade choices, we can't even make that choice on personlizer,

Edited July 5, 2015 by M4dC0w