Available cabins keep changing

[giltedge]

I am booked on the 48 day South Pacific cruise on the Amsterdam 30 Sep 2016 and have booked an Inside Guarantee. I have been keeping track of the available cabins for several months by jotting down the cabin numbers and comparing them from week to week. Yesterday the various websites including HAL indicated there are no more inside cabins for sale. I checked how many outside cabins were available and was shocked to see the number had nearly tripled from a couple of days ago and when I checked the cabin numbers they were nearly entirely different cabins from those that were available before. How is this possible? Does anyone have any idea who so many cabins would show up available and why are the cabin numbers different from just a few days ago? Mainly just curious but find it really odd.

[CruiserBruce]

There is no way to know what cabins are truly available unless you know the number and types of guarantee bookings. This is not public info, and can't really be derived from the internet.

 

For example...lets say there are 10 available cabins in category XX. They have not been assigned, so you see 10 "available" cabins in that category. What you don't know is that there are 9 guarantees in that category. So you look in, and book a cabin- and pick from the available 10, in category XX. Immediately after your booking, category XX lists as full, as the cruise line now has all the cabins in category XX committed.

[SilvertoGold]

I am booked on the 48 day South Pacific cruise on the Amsterdam 30 Sep 2016 and have booked an Inside Guarantee. I have been keeping track of the available cabins for several months by jotting down the cabin numbers and comparing them from week to week. Yesterday the various websites including HAL indicated there are no more inside cabins for sale. I checked how many outside cabins were available and was shocked to see the number had nearly tripled from a couple of days ago and when I checked the cabin numbers they were nearly entirely different cabins from those that were available before. How is this possible? Does anyone have any idea who so many cabins would show up available and why are the cabin numbers different from just a few days ago? Mainly just curious but find it really odd.

 

HAL shifts the cabins around based on departure port. This cruise is available from 3 different ports: Seattle, Vancouver, San Diego.

 

You needed to keep separate track of all 3 cruises, to see what is being shifted where.

 

I've done this (yes, nothing better to do) and have seen blocks being transferred from one to another. And then sometimes back again. For example, I remember one cruise where all the Fs from Seattle disappeared and showed up on the SD one. Several days later all but one was back on the Seattle departure.

 

This likely has to do with how each is selling. This happens all the time with cruises like this one, with different departure ports.

 

Great cruise: have a good time!!!

Edited July 30, 2016 by SilvertoGold

[giltedge]

That makes sense. I guess I didn't think about that. I understand the concept of how guarantee cabins are set aside and that they cannot sell more cabins than are available. Thank you for all your comments

[SilvertoGold]

That makes sense. I guess I didn't think about that. I understand the concept of how guarantee cabins are set aside and that they cannot sell more cabins than are available. Thank you for all your comments

 

HAL does sell more cabins than are available. This is the basis of GUARs. They can always move someone up. Once in a while HAL has to buy pax off the ship because they have overbooked.

Edited July 30, 2016 by SilvertoGold

[CruiserBruce]

HAL does sell more cabins than are available. This is the basis of GUARs. They can always move someone up. Once in a while HAL has to buy pax off the ship because they have overbooked.

 

I wouldn't say they "can always move someone up". I would say they fill from the top down. That is why our several SC GTYs have been assigned at 28 days prior to sailing, where the common report is the average GTY is assigned around 12-15 days prior to sailing.

 

Cheaper cabin GTYs are a way to sell the ship from the bottom up, using upgrades and upsells.

[SilvertoGold]

I wouldn't say they "can always move someone up". I would say they fill from the top down. That is why our several SC GTYs have been assigned at 28 days prior to sailing, where the common report is the average GTY is assigned around 12-15 days prior to sailing.

 

Cheaper cabin GTYs are a way to sell the ship from the bottom up, using upgrades and upsells.

 

I don't see your point vis-a-vis what I was attempting to explain: that "HAL cannot sell more cabins that are available", taking that to mean within a category. They can and do.

 

Also, HAL upsells every category except the PH.

[CruiserBruce]

I don't see your point vis-a-vis what I was attempting to explain: that "HAL cannot sell more cabins that are available", taking that to mean within a category. They can and do.

 

Also, HAL upsells every category except the PH.

 

I agree they can sell more than are in a cabin category. What I am saying is that if sales are good above the GTY level, they need to assign the cabins first, and monitor those sales to avoid oversales. So they can't always "move someone up". The variables involved here...very different every cruise...is part of the reason you can't really get an idea of your upgrade chances by looking at the website, without access to a lot of other proprietary info.

[3rdGenCunarder]

There is no way to know what cabins are truly available unless you know the number and types of guarantee bookings. This is not public info, and can't really be derived from the internet.

 

For example...lets say there are 10 available cabins in category XX. They have not been assigned, so you see 10 "available" cabins in that category. What you don't know is that there are 9 guarantees in that category. So you look in, and book a cabin- and pick from the available 10, in category XX. Immediately after your booking, category XX lists as full, as the cruise line now has all the cabins in category XX committed.

 

Over the years, I have tried to explain the "guarantee factor" several times. But your example is the clearest explanation I've read yet!

 

I agree that they have to fill from the top down. They have to make sure all the SC guarantees can be taken care of before they start upselling/upgrading "lower" suites to Neptunes. Verandah pax have to be accounted for before OV pax can be offered upsell/ugrade to verandahs. And so on.

[RocketMan275]

There is no way to know what cabins are truly available unless you know the number and types of guarantee bookings. This is not public info, and can't really be derived from the internet.

 

For example...lets say there are 10 available cabins in category XX. They have not been assigned, so you see 10 "available" cabins in that category. What you don't know is that there are 9 guarantees in that category. So you look in, and book a cabin- and pick from the available 10, in category XX. Immediately after your booking, category XX lists as full, as the cruise line now has all the cabins in category XX committed.

 

There is another, perhaps even more significant, factor why one cannot derive cabin availability from the internet.

 

Holland does not show all the cabins that are available within a category on their website. For example, we booked an SA for a cruise for the Fall of 2017 while on board. We could see the cabin selection screen that the on-board consultant was using. Not surprising for a cruise that far out, almost all cabins were shown as available.

 

I checked again withing days of our return and only a few cabins were shown on the Holland website as available. I doubt there were that many guarantees or bookings in five or so days.

 

Today, if you go to the Holland website, it will only show a very few cabins as available and all will be those furthest from the Neptune Lounge. However, if you input specific cabin number requests, there are a bunch more cabins actually available.

 

I do think the websites, for most cruise lines, will only show a few, maybe five or so, cabins as available in each category on each deck.

[jtl513]

On a thread about a year ago there was this exchange:

Looking at an upcoming cruise, and last week it showed the Neptunes as sold out, but not this week. The signature suites were sold out on Monday, but not today.

Now the Veranda suites show as sold out.

What a rigamarole they do on cabin bookings as the sailing date approaches.

Any ideas on the logistics of assigning cabins.

 

Just business as usual.

 

On any mass market cruise, every stateroom is sold an average 8 times before the voyage actually begins.

Cruisers are very fickle; cancelling, re-booking, upgrading, downgrading, moving to other decks, changing ships, changing sailing dates, changing itineraries, changing cruise lines.

 

Cabins are fully booked one minute and not full the next. It's a normal day.

BruceMuzz is a long-time HD on HAL and other cruise lines. Edited July 30, 2016 by jtl513