inside guaranty assigned to a balcony - how uncommon is this?

[jazzydiver]

I recently cruised on the Escape and my friends & I booked two inside cabins. There were five of us, and to get the lowest price, the three of us sharing one cabin were booked into a "regular" inside so we could get the 3rd person sail free discount, and the other two friends booked an inside guaranty.

 

A couple weeks after the booking, I checked to see if the guaranty cabin had been assigned yet - they were assigned a balcony! It turned out to be a disability-accessible cabin, and the double-wide balcony was nice for us three plebes in the inside to come visit our buddies for sail-aways and generally hanging out.

 

It did leave me wondering, though, how rare that is, to skip cabin tiers all the way up to a balcony, or if it just varies way too much to ever be able to figure out. I'm guessing if the ship had extra accessible cabins that weren't needed, they'd rather give them away as upgrades than assign them to someone who wants a regular balcony and not have a funky bathroom and a huge room but no couch. Also not sure if my friend's gold status has anything to do with it.

 

I guess the gist of this all is...if this sort of upgrade happens 25% of the time, I'm going to start booking inside guarantees. But if it's more on the order of 1%, I won't bother.

 

Any thoughts or input on this topic?

 

(As an aside, it also occurred to me if there were a last-minute demand for an accessible cabin, they may have been bumped into a mini-suite or suite - although obviously that be extra-unusual/lucky.)

[cheaperts]

I would say it is rare, they would normally sell/bid that balcony as an upgrade and get more $$$ out of it.

[ray98]

Very rare. Even going from an inside to and OV is rare.

[mking8288]

Very rare, especially these days, with the Upgrade Advantage bidding program in place ... you scored a mini-jackpot on that GTY booking.

 

Odds are that NCL did not have any available GTY stateroom, both Insides & OV that sleep 3 or 4 to assign last month, and no other bids to upgrade them higher, so you luck out with a double upgrade to an accessible balcony, that always sleep 3 with the convertible sofabed (4 with the pullman) on nearly last minute basis. Getting a bonus balcony is cool but the "system" to do that with an accessible, I can see & understand other CC'er getting "upset" about this ... while they sometimes couldn't book one.

 

That particular sailing you're on, probably did not sail 105%+ full. Did you know or have a good idea of the available stateroom inventory when you booked and when your "free" upgrade was assigned to you ?

 

Prior to this, this has happened but alway not that often & few come here to "volunteer" about it ... We're on the Breakaway (Bermuda 7 days) with an Inside - GTY, last minute booking - about 2 months out: ended up with a double upgrade, assigned to a Fwd balcony about 2 or 3 weeks from sailing ... quite a big surprise & shock. We've been "upgraded" in earlier years, from obstructed OV on deck 8 down several decks to porthole on deck 9 (forward & near/felt the anchor moving when tendering).

 

Odds of this happening again, little/slim to none again - nowadays, especially on popular & peak season, you aren't likely to see a repeat nor should you expect it ... on top of it, an accessible balcony, which you know, NCL can and has reserved the rights to bump & reassign you. You had plenty of extra space, not just the bathroom - and plenty of space to sit around the beds, of course - no sofa or couch ... it's intended to yield more space for the occupants to move around easier in their wheelchairs and/or use the walker, etc. Consider being super, super lucky.

 

I won't say the buzz word of "never" but 1% or 2% probability would be the odds that I would call ... definitely nothing near 15% or 20%, nowhere near 25% - or else, why would NCL bother to sell OV or Balcony and throw in the Upgrade Advantage.

[TrpngBilly]

Some days you're the window and some days you're the bug. Looks like you were the window that day.

[jazzydiver]

OK, thanks for the information, everyone. Just to clarify, mking, it was the cabin with 2 people in it that was upgraded. No, I don't know what the stateroom availability was when we booked (another friend who enjoys making travel plans helped us out and did the booking for us). It was my first time on that size of ship, so I don't really have a feel for how close to capacity it was. Good point about the upgrade bidding program affecting other upgrades.

 

I guess I won't bother switching to booking guarantees in the future, unless the price difference is significant. I was just jealous of the 2 guys having a balcony while us 3 gals were in a "closet" :-D (No biggie, like I said, we hung out at the other cabin every day, and I'm used to insides - I'm a budget traveller).

 

Random FYI, the accessible cabin had a doorbell, and when the doorbell rang it also caused a light in the ceiling to flash (and continue flashing until the door was opened). So the accessible cabins (or that one, at least) seem to have at least one feature for the hearing-impaired and wasn't solely for those that are mobility-impaired.