NEVER AN UPGRADE!

[suzyed]

Are we the only ones who have never gotten an upgrade?  6 different cruise lines, 35+ cruises...never an upgrade, even on sailings where it seems everyone is getting upgraded! 🤔

[jasbo49]

In 25-ish cruises we've had exactly one minor upgrade. I think a lot of people have never gotten one, but it's the lucky ones who pipe up and say something.

 

And it seems like in the new world of upsells, you'll see fewer and fewer free upgrades.

 

Jim

[denmarks]

I have had 3 out of about 15 cruises. 2 were minor. 1 was from inside to balcony.

[jennybenny]

Not sure if you book direct or with a TA.

I am often not asked if I am willing to accept an upgrade to my stateroom and that flag is not something you can see on your own on the Personalizer. 

 

I have found that the TA I've used does not receive the Upsell offers from Princess, and we did receive an amazing upgrade with her once from a low level Balcony to Mid ship Caribe deck Balcony. Note:  I know she doesn't get all messages for upsell offers because the one time we wanted one we asked her to call and they told her they had offered one, but it had expired.  She then told us she was sorry but her office had never received it.

 

I prefer to book early and directly through Princess,  Ask for "No upgrade" if I have chosen the cabin I want and I make sure that any "upgrade" would be acceptable before I allow my cabin to be marked for OK to upgrade.

 

When Princess does the "free" upgrade they do not tell you.  They just do it. Some people have caught it early on and been able to move back, but often times people are stuck with the new upgrade and it may or may not be favorable.

Edited September 8, 2019 by jennybenny

[XBGuy]

13 minutes ago, suzyed said:

Are we the only ones who have never gotten an upgrade?  6 different cruise lines, 35+ cruises...never an upgrade, even on sailings where it seems everyone is getting upgraded! 🤔

 

Is it because you always book suites?

 

I'm pretty sure that I'm just kidding, here.  😉

 

We have received, I believe, three "Congratulations, You Have Been Upgraded" notifications in, roughly, a dozen Princess cruises.  In all three cases we immediately called Princess and had them restore us to our original cabin.  We, actually, enjoy feeling that we are on a ship at sea.  So, moving us from a balcony cabin in the forward part of the ship to the same size cabin more amidship, is not attractive to us.  I have learned that Princess wants you to call within 24 hours of notification if you want to turn down an upgrade.  So, I am pretty diligent about watching out for those notifications.

 

We also received one upsell offer, last winter.  That was an easy ignore.

 

Your question broaches one of the great mysteries of the the cruise industry.  I don't think that anybody outside the industry knows how upgrades are allocated.

[suzyed]

23 minutes ago, jasbo49 said:

In 25-ish cruises we've had exactly one minor upgrade. I think a lot of people have never gotten one, but it's the lucky ones who pipe up and say something.

 

And it seems like in the new world of upsells, you'll see fewer and fewer free upgrades.

 

Jim

Never an upset either!

 

[Steelers36]

Pre-9/11, I was making a last minute booking with Princess and there was an Inside and a Caribe balcony and I was going to go for the balcony and as we got to finalizing and paying I had been looking at the numbers and I told the agent that I couldn't do the $1000 extra and please put us back in the Inside.  That is what he did and billed me the Inside.  When we checked in at PE Terminal 2, we had been placed into the Balcony.  And I didn't know how to thank that agent.

 

Otherwise, we have had a couple of what I don't think of as true upgrades as they were cabin assignments from a GTY (which seems to be the most common way).  One of them was not too exciting at all as we had upper berths hanging on the wall. 

 

Our friends had an obstructed balcony GTY on a cruise once and got a regular balcony on Lido.  We had a deluxe obstructed GTY on the same trip and that is what we got (albeit what we got had a bit of a gap between lifeboats and we could see a bit).

 

[fluffybunny22]

I've never gotten an upgrade but I don't want them. I want the cabin I book. My next cruise is marked no upgrade because we have an aft balcony on the Baja deck of the Sky which has a bigger balcony. My in laws are a couple of cabins down the hall. I check my cruise personalizer every day to make sure Princess hasn't jacked my cabin.

[Steelers36]

3 minutes ago, XBGuy said:

We have received, I believe, three "Congratulations, You Have Been Upgraded" notifications in, roughly, a dozen Princess cruises.  In all three cases we immediately called Princess and had them restore us to our original cabin.

Next time, ask them to call Steelers36!!!  LOL.

Edited September 8, 2019 by steelers36

[suzyed]

4 minutes ago, XBGuy said:

 

Is it because you always book suites?

 

I'm pretty sure that I'm just kidding, here.  😉

 

We have received, I believe, three "Congratulations, You Have Been Upgraded" notifications in, roughly, a dozen Princess cruises.  In all three cases we immediately called Princess and had them restore us to our original cabin.  We, actually, enjoy feeling that we are on a ship at sea.  So, moving us from a balcony cabin in the forward part of the ship to the same size cabin more amidship, is not attractive to us.  I have learned that Princess wants you to call within 24 hours of notification if you want to turn down an upgrade.  So, I am pretty diligent about watching out for those notifications.

 

We also received one upsell offer, last winter.  That was an easy ignore.

 

Your question broaches one of the great mysteries of the the cruise industry.  I don't think that anybody outside the industry knows how upgrades are allocated.

How did you get your notifications? Phone call, email?

 

[suzyed]

2 minutes ago, steelers36 said:

Next time, ask them to call Steelers36!!!  LOL.

Or Suzyed!

[XBGuy]

7 minutes ago, suzyed said:

How did you get your notifications? Phone call, email?

 

 

E-mail.

[Coral]

Email from my agent.

[Iamcruzin]

2 hours ago, suzyed said:

Are we the only ones who have never gotten an upgrade?  6 different cruise lines, 35+ cruises...never an upgrade, even on sailings where it seems everyone is getting upgraded! 🤔

Are up grades still a thing?  It seems the cruise lines have figured out a way to move passengers around buy offering upgrades that you pay for. Royal Caribbean has a program called Royal Up where you bid on the upper room categories. I was offered a Royal up offer three times for my Anthem sailing in June. I had booked the least expensive unobstructed balcony about 16 months out and it turned out to be the lowest price. After final payment I received offers 3 different times to upgrade. As it turned out the lowest I could bid was more money than if I had booked the higher category to being with so I didn't even bid. The room category that I had booked in the beginning was sold out and since it was the least expensive one I guess they were trying to get me to move so that they could give it to someone who booked a guarantee.

[mammajamma2013]

2 hours ago, suzyed said:

Are we the only ones who have never gotten an upgrade?  6 different cruise lines, 35+ cruises...never an upgrade, even on sailings where it seems everyone is getting upgraded! 🤔

No. But we've only done eight cruises on three different lines

[Grayce]

We have never had a free upgrade. We accepted an upsell once. Another time we were offered an upsell that was for a ridiculous amount of money and did not take it.

[Lynniepoo]

We received one free upgrade on our first cruise back in 2009.  It was (if memory serves) from a balcony midship to a mini-suite aft. DH and I were so green that I didn't figure it out until after the cruise was over.

 

We now mark our cruise as do not upgrade, because we look for a specific area of the ship (mid, as I have seasickness issues otherwise) and don't want to have it messed with.

 

We've also gotten those emails saying we can upgrade to a mini-suite for $100/day.  We ignore them.

 

The one time we kicked ourselves was when we had a booked the Diamond for a trip to Asia, which must have been overbooked.  We received a call asking us if we would downgrade to an oceanview from a balcony, and if we agreed we would get what we paid as a credit towards another cruise.  DH and I said no, then realized how stupid that was right afterwards (but it was too late).  If I could turn back time...

[jondfk]

We've done 18 cruises with Princess, one upgrade, but it was a BIG one from an MA mini to a full suite.  That cruise was for our 25th wedding anniversary and this definitely played some role in the upgrade since which I answered the phone call the first thing the Princess rep said was "congratulations on your upcoming anniversary, thanks for celebrating with Princess".  

 

I confess that I had hoped this might happen and booked the MA (now M1) cabin knowing the only possible moves would be to full suites.  The call came about 60 days prior to sailing.  I managed to keep it under my hat all the way to boarding, it wasn't until we jumped into the Suites/Elites line at checkin in Southampton that my wife realized something was off in a good way.   

 

A lovely experience, but we figure we used up our upgrade luck for life on that one.

[Nebr.cruiser]

When we do guarantees we almost always get a slight upgrade; usually from the lowest priced balcony to  a higher grade balcony.

 

The only nicer upgrade we got was from a balcony to a mini-suite;  We had a friend who was a travel agent and booked the cruise for us; I truly believe she was instrumental in getting the upgrade.

 

I would love to get one of those great move-over offers on an overbooked cruise!

 

[CynCyn]

I keep hoping for one on this 3 day on Ruby......showing lots of minis and suites.  But I will still be happy just to be there!

[4x4bob]

2015 was the last time we were offered a free up grade.  We were going to be on a trans Atlantic from London to Fort Lauderdale.

We quickly looked at a map of the ship to see where the cabin would be located at. 

Just for giggles we said yes we would accept it because it would put us next door to the Wife's Sister.

That was the one and only offer like this we have ever received.   

Bob

 

 

[leck57]

After discussions with my TA we always mark "no upgrade" on my booking. I would gratefully accept an upgrade from a balcony cabin, which I always book, to a mini suite/suite, however an upgrade can just be within the cabin class you book. For example I always like an aft balcony (due to access to things I like to use) and yet Princess could upgrade me to a mid ship balcony. That is not an upgrade I want and that is why we mark no upgrade on our bookings.

I would be more than happy to consider upsells but have never received one of those.

[suzyed]

8 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

Are up grades still a thing?  It seems the cruise lines have figured out a way to move passengers around buy offering upgrades that you pay for. Royal Caribbean has a program called Royal Up where you bid on the upper room categories. I was offered a Royal up offer three times for my Anthem sailing in June. I had booked the least expensive unobstructed balcony about 16 months out and it turned out to be the lowest price. After final payment I received offers 3 different times to upgrade. As it turned out the lowest I could bid was more money than if I had booked the higher category to being with so I didn't even bid. The room category that I had booked in the beginning was sold out and since it was the least expensive one I guess they were trying to get me to move so that they could give it to someone who booked a guarantee.

Yes, apparently...

I'm going on a cruise where many people have just gotten upgrades.

Edited September 9, 2019 by suzyed

[suzyed]

6 hours ago, Nebr.cruiser said:

When we do guarantees we almost always get a slight upgrade; usually from the lowest priced balcony to  a higher grade balcony.

 

The only nicer upgrade we got was from a balcony to a mini-suite;  We had a friend who was a travel agent and booked the cruise for us; I truly believe she was instrumental in getting the upgrade.

 

I would love to get one of those great move-over offers on an overbooked cruise!

 

Our October cruise many have gotten upgrades.  On our November cruise, we had a gty and we got exactly the same category that our gty was for, which was expected.

 

 

Edited September 9, 2019 by suzyed

[MsSoCalCruiser]

 I also have thirtysomething cruises and have yet to receive an upgrade. I’ve received a few upsells but never an upgrade.