Guaranteed Balcony Question

[mielyse]

We recently booked a Princess cruise with a guaranteed balcony to get a better price than if we had chosen a balcony. This is the first time we have ever done this and are curious to hear about your experience with doing this. Pros and Cons please. Thanks.

[paul929207]

You will get a cabin in the category you booked or better. As long as that range of cabins does no have any that you would be unhappy in, you will be fine.

[Von & John]

We will book GTY if there is a large price difference between the "GTY" and selecting the cabin ourselves. Depending which cruise-line you are sailing - they may or may not allow you to move to a different cabin, once yours is assigned. As a rule - we are not over selective on our cabin & have always enjoyed ourselves... Enjoy your cruise!

[LHT28]

Pros you could get a better cabin

 

CONS you may get a cabin in a location that may not be the best

 

could be at the front & if the seas are bumpy you will know it

 

I prefer to choose a cabin/location

 

YMMV

[wheezedr]

A guarantee basically sets the bottom category that you will receive. You may receive an upgrade to a higher ranked category. Remember though that cabin categories as set by the cruise line do not always gibe with what individuals think are better or worse.

Also be calm and prepared to wait. Princess will often not assign all guarantees until days before the cruise. Did not get mine in June until 4 days pre cruise and others on our roll call were even later.

[53sunset]

Pros: We like the anticipation of waiting for our cabin location. Our best cabin ever was a guarantee on a South America cruise, we booked a guarantee balcony and ended up with an aft balcony, the balcony was bigger than our cabin, lol. We book guarantees about 50% of the time and have never been disappointed.

 

Cons: As stated in the previous posts, you never know where you'll be.

[jlp20]

We have booked "guaranteed" about four times. First, you have to accept the fact that over 80% of all the cabins on any ship are one of four floor plans. If your going guaranteed, this is your only concern. Only a very small percentage of people ever get bumped up to mini suites. So your looking at categories of balconies on any certain ship. look at the plans and find the LOWEST category cabin you would be happy with. Remember a "bump" could be only ten feet.

[mielyse]

Thanks everyone for their input!!!

[Nebr.cruiser]

We book guarantees sometimes, but only if the price is a lot cheaper than picking our cabin. So far we have always gotten a slight upgrade, like (for instance) a 2D guarantee upgraded to a 2B. We haven't been upgraded to another level, like balcony to mini, but hey, it could happen.

 

The worst cabin we got was more forward than we like, but that was the only negative. Since the trip was quite calm it didn't matter at all.

[zqvol]

We recently booked a Princess cruise with a guaranteed balcony to get a better price than if we had chosen a balcony. This is the first time we have ever done this and are curious to hear about your experience with doing this. Pros and Cons please. Thanks.

 

Pros: Good price

 

Cons: You might end up in a lousy location

 

Other than those two things a balcony is a balcony.