Do more cabins become available after final payment date?

[craig01020]

I've booked a lot of cruises, but usually many months in advance of the sailing date. I'm currently looking at a May 11 sailing out of Southampton, but the only balconies remaining are the "guaranteed" ones. Since I really prefer choosing my cabin, I'm wondering if more balcony cabins will become available after the final payment date of January 11.

 

Thoughts?

 

[www3traveler]

Sometimes    People will cancel a cruise just before their final payment date or traveel agents or big box cruise people release cabins.

[zqvol]

It’s not like they are keeping cabins back to release after final ,payment. If people cancel cabins will open up, if they don’t then they won’t. 

[Portia!]

In addition, cabins are released as people receive upgrades from bidding or other mechanisms. Of course, as with the cancellation possibility, you can't count on this and cabins may be released as guarantees. 

[phillygwm]

As @Portia!states, people with, say, a balcony today might upgrade to Club Balcony or Haven, thus freeing those up.  So not released, as such, but think of it as cruise ship Tetris 🙂

 

[cruiseny4life]

Try giving NCL a call. I bet they can find you a specific cabin. Or your local travel advisor. 

 

I see at least 100 BA category staterooms available on the site I use (not sharing it, sorry). 

[Turtles06]

7 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

Try giving NCL a call. I bet they can find you a specific cabin. Or your local travel advisor. 

 

I see at least 100 BA category staterooms available on the site I use (not sharing it, sorry). 

Assuming OP means the May 11, 2023 sailing of the Star, the site I use (not allowed to name on here) also shows available BA staterooms. But the OP is correct that NCL’S site only shows “guarantee” balconies available.  Weird.

 

I agree with the advice to the OP to call NCL or a travel agent. 

[kjquilts]

I've noticed that NCL often shows staterooms as "guarantee" when there are still bookable balconies available on various travel agency websites (the same balconies).  If you are talking about the Star on May 11, 2023 there are still some BA balconies available for booking without going the guarantee method and having NCL choose your stateroom.

 

I checked a couple travel agency websites and it looks like there are 14 on 10 and one

(11618) on deck 11.   The one on 11 would have a larger balcony than those on deck 10.  One of the websites used does not limit the amount of staterooms they show in a category and it is only showing 14 on 10.  However, numbers rise and fall as staterooms are booked and cancelled/released.  When we were going to do the Gem T/A followed by Gem Med cruise in April the number swing on BA availability was astounding on the April 30 cruise.

 

Take a look at TA sites and see if something appeals to you.  Then call NCL, give them the stateroom number and ask them to book it.  You can change stateroom number later in same category if one you like better appears.   I did this multiple times on the above mentioned Gem cruises.  

Edited December 21, 2022 by kjquilts

[craig01020]

I called NCL for a second time and gave the nice agent a specific cabin number that I saw on a third-party website. She was able to book it for me. Case closed! 🤗

[cruiseny4life]

31 minutes ago, craig01020 said:

I called NCL for a second time and gave the nice agent a specific cabin number that I saw on a third-party website. She was able to book it for me. Case closed! 🤗

YAY for happy endings!! Have a great March cruise.