Adding cabin on embarkation day?

[gidget19]

We made the mistake of booking with a "big box" travel agency that is nearly impossible to get on the phone - and once we do get them, they can't answer with confidence anything but the most basic questions.  Hoping someone can offer insight here?
We sail on 4/9 and have a cabin for 4.  We wanted to change this to 2 cabins with 2 people each, but we were told we couldn't do that without exorbitant change fees (we knew the fare itself would go up, but we didn't realize they'd charge so much to change, since we'd be paying them more money overall). 
I keep reading about people doing upgrades on the day of boarding.  Has anyone "added a cabin" on the day of boarding?  It would be the same guests (so all would have been checked-in/cleared properly), but we'd just be adding an additional cabin to have two people in each, instead of everyone in single cabin.   

[MommaBear55]

You no longer can do it on day of boarding, as they close the manifest 72 hours before sailing. Follow the prices, it may be worth the change fees. We also successfully changed our booking back into Royal Caribbean's control once because the "travel agent" was not responding to us. It was convoluted and not easily done, but it was worth the effort.

[gmerick]

If your hearts are set on having separate cabins, do nothing with the first cabin, and simply book a second cabin.  You don't even need to change names of the guests for the second cabin.  With your disappointment with the big box agent, for the second cabin just book directly with RCCL.  Once you have that second booking, it will be easier for you to book dining, drinks excursions, directly through the planner.  Those purchases can be made for both reservations.  The only caveat would be if you are purchasing the DBP for all 4, you will want to do that for the 4-person cabin, not the 2.

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, gidget19 said:

We sail on 4/9 and have a cabin for 4.  We wanted to change this to 2 cabins with 2 people each

There was supposed to be a Royal Up feature to bid on a second cabin but don’t recall that being available yet - ask RCI about that. 

[LisaDee]

2 hours ago, gidget19 said:

We made the mistake of booking with a "big box" travel agency that is nearly impossible to get on the phone 

 

This must be the same TA I’ve been calling several times a day and keep getting the message that they’re too busy to pick up.  Their gift card kick-back is generous but I’ll rethink using them in the future.  This is an expensive B2B in suites and I want to change our cabin.  I don’t want to make the request online with their form because I want to make sure both weeks are still available in the new cabin by the time they get around to processing my request.   😠 😡