Crown Princess - Which guarantee?

[Paulras]

We're booked on the Crown Princess for September 12 in an Oceanview Guarantee. Never did a guarantee before, but thought it might be worth a try. The Crown (like the Caribbean Princess) doesn't have many outside cabins but it has an enormous number of balcony cabins. I thought there might be a good chance that the Outside guarantee may lead to an upgrade to a balcony - or at least a better chance than on other ships. Seems logical to me.

 

But now price dropped for that cruise and upgrading to a balcony guarantee would only be an extra $250 more than we were paying. So now I'm wondering if that may be a better idea or if we should just leave the oceanview guarantee alone and keep our fingers crossed.

 

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with guarantees on a ship like this where most of the outside cabins have a balcony?

[spongerob]

You are never assured of an upgrade to the next higher configuration, so if that's what you'd like and the price is good, I suggest the "self-upgrade" to a balcony. You'll avoid any sense of disappointment or regret that way. No one really knows how the upgrade system works. In fact, I think there is no rhyme or reason so trying to outguess the Upgrade Fairy isn't a good bet in my book.

[katisdale]

I would pay the money if I wanted a balcony. New ships tend to sail full or almost full so the "upgrade fairy" may not have much wiggle room. I tend to get obstructed view rooms and have never been given an upgrade out of that category - I've had upgrades to a higher level obstructed view. Whatever you decide I hope you have a great cruise.

[geoherb]

It depends on what you'll be happy with. To us, it's not worth $250 to have a balcony. Other folks feel differently.

[Katie333]

Paulras - come join our roll call for that cruise on this board! :)

 

We've booked balcony because we're not digging the locale of those oceanview cabins (as you note, they seem to be offering only a few). When we priced the cruise, the balcony was $250 more in total and worth it to us. It has to do with the quality of room and also its location on the ship for sleeping/getting around etc.

[madelinerose]

IMHO, if you're doubting the unknown guarantee, go with the sure thing. ;)

[donna51]

It is worth all of $250.00. From what Iv'e read on these threads the princess does not up grade very often I have been upgraded twice on the ncl line which was great.

[gprentice]

Our family of 5 booked two outside cabins over Xmas this year (Celebrity Constellation).

 

One was a guarantee, the other was not (because of 3 pax in a room).

 

The outside guarantee was visited by the upgrade fairy and became a balcony cabin - but our other cabin of 3 pax was left outside (mine of course).

 

Being a Xmas cruise, the prices were quite higher in general - esp. for a balcony - it would have cost us $1500CAD/cabin to upgrade from outside to a balcony.

 

We have had balconies on our last 3 cruises and were wondering if we could ever go back to an outside - well we survived the cruise and just spent more time up on deck (the really big balcony above us).

 

We also visited our 2nd cabin (with the balcony - enviously) quite a bit.

 

It came down to a financial decision. A balcony is great to have but everyone has a price limit. (our next cruise - July/06 - balcony guarantee booked) :-)

 

We still had a great time on the cruise and enjoyed spending what we had saved on tours and fun.

 

Graham

[Paulras]

Still haven't heard back from the TA yet about the actual pricing and upgrade. But technically, even though the balcony will be about $250 more than what we're paying now, it's really about $350 more than what we will be paying if they credit us for the price reduction on the oceanview.

 

I'm not all that gung-ho about having a balcony since I've read that many aren't very private from the deck above and you can't fit loungers. It would just be a place to stretch out and get some air.

 

But I have always wanted to book a guarantee to see if we get pleasantly surprised - like gambling. Every other cruise has been an assigned cabin (usually balcony or suite). I thought we could try winging things on this cruise - no assigned cabin, no traditional dinner. Whatever happens, happens. Last cruise was on the QM2 which didn't live up to all the hype. That was disappointing, so I wanted to try things out with zero expectations.