GTY selection on transatlantic

[J&J 01375]

We are looking at our first TransAtlantic, planning on HAL. Occasionally we buy GTY and take our chances. Are transatlantic ships empty or full, that our chances of getting a “good” room are worth the risk?

[TheOldBear]

44 minutes ago, J&J 01375 said:

We are looking at our first TransAtlantic, planning on HAL. Occasionally we buy GTY and take our chances. Are transatlantic ships empty or full, that our chances of getting a “good” room are worth the risk?

This is likely more a HAL question than a TA question.

Pre COVID the QM2 routinely sailed transatlantic crossings at capacity [was the case on our 2017 and 2019 round trips]. I currently have a guarantee for our 2022 QM2 sailing. We should be happy with any room in our desired category [or nicer] but I may want to speak with our $UNNAMED_TRAVEL_AGENCY about converting that to an actual reserved room. 

 

[Heidi13]

1 hour ago, J&J 01375 said:

We are looking at our first TransAtlantic, planning on HAL. Occasionally we buy GTY and take our chances. Are transatlantic ships empty or full, that our chances of getting a “good” room are worth the risk?

 

We never book a GTY cabin, although on one of our TA's the cruise line contacted us a couple weeks before departure with an upgrade offer (free). Same cabin type, but higher deck and well fwd - declined. We kept our booked midships, lower deck cabin, so DW was comfortable.

[rkacruiser]

I prefer not to book a  GTY cabin, but, during one cruise I had to do so.  This was the final segment of a HAL world cruise and segment guests are unable to book a specific cabin.  I booked the cabin category that I usually prefer.  When cabins were assigned, I received a one category upgrade on the deck just above where my preferred cabin(s) would have been located.  I was satisfied.  

[BAYA]

Like the OP, I normally do not book a GTY but that was the only choice for a verandah cabin on HAL available to me on a TA in October 2019. I was very nervous about it but it turned out that I got an upgrade and an excellent location on a higher deck than the GTY category, so all was well. 😊

BTW, my upgrade was 2 categories and I had only sailed on HAL once before so probably not related to Mariner status!

[Hlitner]

The difficulty answering your question is not knowing the COVID impact on the bookings for your cruise.   HAL ships normally are close to capacity on TAs as many of us like to use the cruise the TAs as the fun means to get to Europe.  I have sometimes pointed out that taking a TA cruise can sometimes be less expensive than Business Class on a similar route.  

 

As to booking GTY's we have often done the same thing as we are not too choosy on our cabin location.   A GTY does increase the chances of an upgrade although decent upgrades are not as common as years ago because HAL (and other lines) prefers to push "upsells" where they solicit booked passengers to pay extra for an upgrade.  Speaking of "upsells" there are sometimes excellent offers and other times an upsell can actually cost more than if you had booked the higher category cabin at the time you reserved.

 

Hank

[GulfShoresCruiser]

We've booked guarantees on most of our HAL cruises....We were on the Rotterdam TA October 2021 and the Nieuw Statendam TA Fall 2019.

 

On both cruises, we booked balcony guarantee and our cabins were bumped up to VF on the Rotterdam and VQ (the spa deck) on the NS. 

 

As an aside, we are sailing on Princess (first time) on the Sky TA leaving 3/12/21 and got our assignment today. We booked Balcony Guarantee and got the lowest level balcony.

 

We have yet to find a bad cabin on a 'dam ship......so guarantee serves us well.