Please help me understand the point of "Guarantee" cabins....

[bigbenboys]

We saved what I think is big. We paid $2700 pp for a guarantee S2 with all 4 perks. That S2 was going for $7000 pp. We had a good price for a A1 cabin, but the suite guarantee was only $900 more than we were already paying.

 

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[Iamthesea]

Okay I went to the UK site. We have an S1 guarantee on an Australia New Zealand cruise, and they show no availability in any suite category. I booked a guarantee as that was all that was available, but am curious how it works now.

 

Sometimes TA's have a block of unsold staterooms that they release back to Celebrity closer to sailing. Also, people cancel at the last minute. Very rare is it that you will not get an assignment in the category you booked.

 

Most of the time, if there is going to be an upgrade, a person that paid the 'full" price, for a Sky Suite, will get bumped to a higher suite. And then the person booking the GTY will stay in the Sky Suite category.

[Merriem]

Sometimes TA's have a block of unsold staterooms that they release back to Celebrity closer to sailing. Also, people cancel at the last minute. Very rare is it that you will not get an assignment in the category you booked.

 

Most of the time, if there is going to be an upgrade, a person that paid the 'full" price, for a Sky Suite, will get bumped to a higher suite. And then the person booking the GTY will stay in the Sky Suite category.

This trip from Perth to New Zealand and back to Sydney should be lovely. No doubt they have a method to their madness. We did pay a lot ...and their are no bad s1 cabins. Just dreading the long flight, as we have done it twice before.

[villauk]

OP,

 

X will not let you book GTY cabins with the kids in one and the adults in the other ;). You will be required to split the booking to one child with each adult - only mentioning this as I know you are travelling with kids. The reason is that the allocation could result in you having different cabins on different decks, and this would then be against their rules on allowing kids to occupy their own room i.e. across the hall, adjacent, connecting etc. Sometimes the perks are included, sometimes they are not when booking a GTY, it depends on the offer at the time.

 

If you book in the U.K., changing the cabin to one in the same category, once it has been allocated, is not allowed (unlike US bookings). Additionally, pax see only one particular cabin left in a higher category and presume that's the cabin they will be allocated, however X usually upsell and move pax along the line e.g. paid for an inside GTY and only A1 showing availability, then X offer a full paying inside pax the opportunity to move to OV, an OV to balcony etc. down the line.

 

The GTY just means that's the minimum cabin you would be allocated, so a balcony GTY could be anything from a 2D (or the equivalent, depending on ship) and above. There have been a few occasions when X have overbooked the GTY on a particular sailing and they have offered an incentive to pax to 'down grade'. There have also been a few times when the cabins have been recategorised to fit an overbooking - I recall one occasion when some 1Bs were changed to concierge class on an S class ship to deal with an overbooking of Concierge GTYs.

 

One additional point, the GTY system was in operation in 2014, however they do not apply to every sailing. As others have quoted it's 'inventory management', so it may have been a case that on your particular previous sailing there were no GTYs offered because X had no need to sell off cabins ;).

[Pier290]

OP,

 

X will not let you book GTY cabins with the kids in one and the adults in the other ;). You will be required to split the booking to one child with each adult - only mentioning this as I know you are travelling with kids. The reason is that the allocation could result in you having different cabins on different decks, and this would then be against their rules on allowing kids to occupy their own room i.e. across the hall, adjacent, connecting etc. Sometimes the perks are included, sometimes they are not when booking a GTY, it depends on the offer at the time.

 

If you book in the U.K., changing the cabin to one in the same category, once it has been allocated, is not allowed (unlike US bookings). Additionally, pax see only one particular cabin left in a higher category and presume that's the cabin they will be allocated, however X usually upsell and move pax along the line e.g. paid for an inside GTY and only A1 showing availability, then X offer a full paying inside pax the opportunity to move to OV, an OV to balcony etc. down the line.

 

The GTY just means that's the minimum cabin you would be allocated, so a balcony GTY could be anything from a 2D (or the equivalent, depending on ship) and above. There have been a few occasions when X have overbooked the GTY on a particular sailing and they have offered an incentive to pax to 'down grade'. There have also been a few times when the cabins have been recategorised to fit an overbooking - I recall one occasion when some 1Bs were changed to concierge class on an S class ship to deal with an overbooking of Concierge GTYs.

 

One additional point, the GTY system was in operation in 2014, however they do not apply to every sailing. As others have quoted it's 'inventory management', so it may have been a case that on your particular previous sailing there were no GTYs offered because X had no need to sell off cabins ;).

They do allow kids in cabin across the hall as we booked it that way....u have to call them to achieve this and not every Representative knows of this....

 

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[villauk]

They do allow kids in cabin across the hall as we booked it that way....u have to call them to achieve this and not every Representative knows of this....

 

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Not for GTYs. I was the poster that original informed you of the children in their own cabin rules ;), but I can assure you that they will not allow this for GTYs. As I stated above, this is bacause of the allocation process - you could end up with two cabins on different decks and so then the kids would not be permitted in their own room away from the parents' cabin. Another point, GTYs are not always available for more than 2 pax per cabin. Occasionally, they do offer for 3 or 4 berths, but not at the same frequency.

[BosoxI]

To the OP, believe me, the cost savings can be remarkable. That's the only time we book a Guarantee and we've booked quite a number of them over the years. Most recently we booked an A1 @$1399 p/p when the full cost at the moment was $3899. The guarantee was posted only for two days and then it disappeared. We never would have taken that cruise if we had to pay $7800, but at $2800 it was a steal. No perks, of course, but who cares?