Upgrade bid to worst cabins on ship?

[SwimCarrie]

I'm contemplating doing an upgrade bid from a perfectly good mid ship interior to a balcony for a minimum of $610 total. I'm worried, though, that they will assign a cabin at the very front of the ship, below the pool, or above a theater. Beggars can't be choosers, right? A sailing that costs $3000 normally and the offer is $610 isn't going to be the cream of the crop, right? What has your experience been? 

[startedwithamouse]

You're rolling the dice.

 

We don't bid - we book guarantee and always end up with an A or B placement. 

 

Be prepared to have a great location or a not so great location.  You need to be happy with anywhere - will you be happy with deck chair movement at all hours?  Only you can answer that. 

[SwimCarrie]

If you don't like it and you want to go back to the same category, is it specific, like "inside, mid" still or just any inside? 

[mtnesterz]

Our experience? A forward facing balcony is usually an Obstructed Balcony category, meaning a metal railing or something. If you bid on a standard balcony, you won't, make that shouldn't, get an Obstructed Balcony cabin; a different category.

As startedwithamouse said, we haven't done this bidding, so don't know the details of how a selection is made, or if you can refuse and go back. We live in hope the upgrade fairy will return someday. 😁

Also in our experience, pools are on the middle of the ship, lengthwise. Balcony cabins are on the perimeter. Our last cruise we were one deck from the theater, and we usually turn in early. Couldn't hear anything but the usual ship noise. I wouldn't worry about it.

[Sea Hag]

I don't plan to bid, but if I change my mind, I'll go to my method for deciding whether to get a guarantee. I look at the deck plans, and if there's even one cabin in the category or above that I wouldn't want, then I don't book a guarantee. As you can imagine, I never end up booking a guarantee. But this is the method I would use on deciding whether or not to bid.

[GoDucksNation]

We recently had an insde guarantee on the Crown and about 2 weeks out bid $250 each and got a B2 balcony C250 (with the bigger balcony).  Took a gamble and it paid off!

[Torfamm]

2 hours ago, SwimCarrie said:

If you don't like it and you want to go back to the same category, is it specific, like "inside, mid" still or just any inside? 

If your bid is accepted, your credit card is automatically charged and you are assigned a new cabin. If you don’t like the location, you can ask for a different cabin in the same category if there is one available. If not, I don’t know if you can move to a lower category, assuming there is availability. I’ve never tried that.

[bjkTX]

Since it is past final payment date and no one wanted the empty cabins I'd be suspicious of any of them unless I just didn't care where I ended up 🙂

[Torfamm]

7 minutes ago, bjkTX said:

Since it is past final payment date and no one wanted the empty cabins I'd be suspicious of any of them unless I just didn't care where I ended up 🙂

Some great cabins open up as people cancel or have bids accepted. It’s unpredictable. You are right though, if you aren’t willing to take any cabin in the new category, bidding is a bad idea.