P&O upgrade bidding - any good?

[sandancer]

On 11/8/2023 at 12:50 PM, tring said:

 

From what I had understood, you can only bid for a specific type of cabin, (i.e. outside, balcony, deluxe balcony, type pf suite).  Am I wrong on that, so you can actually bid on a specific grade within the type of cabin and even the position of a cabin you wish to bid for?  Or is your post incorrect about that? 

 

Would be interesting to know if you can indeed choose a position of a cabin when bidding for an upgrade, as it may make a difference on our thoughts about paying full price for an upgrade on a cruise we have booked.

 

I do agree that someone who has ticked "no automatic upgrade" should still be given the option to go into the upgrade bidding system.  The "no upgrade" request has not been ignored unless they move someone to another cabin without their wish.

 

Just had the upgrade email for our NYE cruise. They point out that once your bid is accepted and you are allocated a new cabin you have to accept it. The cabin booked originally will no longer be available. That makes me nervous. Don’t want to end up in a less desirable location and we usually say “no upgrade”. This time we booked late although still Select and had very little choice of cabin. Now there are only inside cabins available so how would it be possible to bid for an upgrade. 

[Annemarshall1952]

We recently booked the Iona New Year cruise and could only get an inside cabin as the other categories were sold out. We have now been invited to bid for an upgrade! 
How can this be? We would have booked a balcony if they had been available!

 

 

[molecrochip]

People drop out due to illness / personal circumstances. It doesn’t mean that there is capacity which has been held back.

[majortom10]

We are due soon on Cunard's QV in Princess Grill and a while back received an e mail asking if we wanted to bid for upgrade to Queens Grill. There was a minimum bid for different grades and we made a bid. The e-mail stated there was no guarantee and at the time QG was sold out. There has never been any availability since then always showing as sold out but have received e-mail saying our bid had been accepted and we have been upgraded.

 

[Son of Anarchy]

1 hour ago, molecrochip said:

People drop out due to illness / personal circumstances. It doesn’t mean that there is capacity which has been held back.

 

6 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

We are due soon on Cunard's QV in Princess Grill and a while back received an e mail asking if we wanted to bid for upgrade to Queens Grill. There was a minimum bid for different grades and we made a bid. The e-mail stated there was no guarantee and at the time QG was sold out. There has never been any availability since then always showing as sold out but have received e-mail saying our bid had been accepted and we have been upgraded.

 

 

Still hope for us then on Ventura next month! 

 

Our Late Saver cabin has already been allocated.  We're happy with it, a small upgrade within category already.  We won't be disappointed if in all liklihood our bid isn't successful.

[sandancer]

2 hours ago, Annemarshall1952 said:

We recently booked the Iona New Year cruise and could only get an inside cabin as the other categories were sold out. We have now been invited to bid for an upgrade! 
How can this be? We would have booked a balcony if they had been available!

 

 

We are on the same cruise and had the same email. We are waitlisted for an accessible cabin. Nothing available when we booked. Our TA called P&O yesterday and was told the ship is completely sold out. Like yourself I did wonder why they would bother sending the upgrade email but I presume it is probably sent automatically when the cruise gets closer. As molecochip says, there is always the chance of last minute cancellations. 

[Annemarshall1952]

Yes I would think that it is the IT department sending this out automatically. I won’t bid as you say it is sold out. The only hope be someone dropping out which could well happen.

We had this cruise booked in a balcony cabin but had to cancel as our Japanese friends were coming over to visit. However this is now not happening.

No problem as we will enjoy the cruise. 
 

[sandancer]

We are in a standard balcony which is not ideal as there doesn’t appear to be anywhere suitable to stow the wheelchair. We were on Azura recently and the wardrobe area was ideal as it is a hanging rail without doors and the chair fitted in there really well. I watched a U tube video of a cabin the same as ours and it’s definitely going to be a little hiccup. We can’t leave it outside the cabin for obvious reasons. Please don’t take this as a complaint, far from it, we booked late and knew we would have to take what was available even though it was not a saver fare. We will manage and it won’t stop us enjoying our cruise. Still, it would be good if we could get a bigger cabin, possibly paying more but def not bidding. 

[FangedRose]

4 minutes ago, sandancer said:

We are in a standard balcony which is not ideal as there doesn’t appear to be anywhere suitable to stow the wheelchair. We were on Azura recently and the wardrobe area was ideal as it is a hanging rail without doors and the chair fitted in there really well. I watched a U tube video of a cabin the same as ours and it’s definitely going to be a little hiccup. We can’t leave it outside the cabin for obvious reasons. Please don’t take this as a complaint, far from it, we booked late and knew we would have to take what was available even though it was not a saver fare. We will manage and it won’t stop us enjoying our cruise. Still, it would be good if we could get a bigger cabin, possibly paying more but def not bidding. 

Really! You were allowed to book a standard cabin with a wheelchair? This forum is full of complaints from wheelchair users that they were being forced to book accessible cabins.

[sandancer]

They asked if it was a foldable wheelchair and if it was needed to move around the cabin. It is and no, not in the cabin. The accessibility form was completed. I have to admit that I haven’t seen any posts about people being forced into booking an accessible cabin. This is the email response to the completed form. 
 

I have added the use and measurements of your manual wheelchair to both bookings.

 

Please be aware that mobility aids must be stored safely away from the cabin door inside the cabin when not in use, which will reduce the floor space available.

Public walkways and stairwells must be kept clear in case of emergency.　

 

Edited November 17, 2023 by sandancer

[Interestedcruisefan]

9 hours ago, Annemarshall1952 said:

We recently booked the Iona New Year cruise and could only get an inside cabin as the other categories were sold out. We have now been invited to bid for an upgrade! 
How can this be? We would have booked a balcony if they had been available!

 

 

Maybe people with balconies bid and win suites as well?

[terrierjohn]

2 hours ago, FangedRose said:

Really! You were allowed to book a standard cabin with a wheelchair? This forum is full of complaints from wheelchair users that they were being forced to book accessible cabins.

I think it is only motorised scooters or wheelchairs where you have to book an adapted cabin. A folding manual wheelchair is OK in a standard cabin.

 

[FangedRose]

1 hour ago, sandancer said:

They asked if it was a foldable wheelchair and if it was needed to move around the cabin. It is and no, not in the cabin. The accessibility form was completed. I have to admit that I haven’t seen any posts about people being forced into booking an accessible cabin. This is the email response to the completed form. 
 

I have added the use and measurements of your manual wheelchair to both bookings.

 

Please be aware that mobility aids must be stored safely away from the cabin door inside the cabin when not in use, which will reduce the floor space available.

Public walkways and stairwells must be kept clear in case of emergency.　

 

Ah. Ok. I must have missed that bit.

[sandancer]

20 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

I think it is only motorised scooters or wheelchairs where you have to book an adapted cabin. A folding manual wheelchair is OK in a standard cabin.

 

Thinking back I’m pretty sure I was told at one point that only people with motorised scooters/chairs can book an assistance cabin. I hope I’m wrong. Anyone else hear this?  

[terrierjohn]

Just now, sandancer said:

Thinking back I’m pretty sure I was told at one point that only people with motorised scooters/chairs can book an assistance cabin. I hope I’m wrong. Anyone else hear this?  

No that's wrong, we only have a manual folding wheelchair and always have an adapted cabin.

However motorised scooter and chair users do have to book an adapted cabin, even if their chair can be folded, which does seem way too pedantic on P&Os part.

 

[purplesea]

3 hours ago, sandancer said:

We are in a standard balcony which is not ideal as there doesn’t appear to be anywhere suitable to stow the wheelchair. We were on Azura recently and the wardrobe area was ideal as it is a hanging rail without doors and the chair fitted in there really well. I watched a U tube video of a cabin the same as ours and it’s definitely going to be a little hiccup. We can’t leave it outside the cabin for obvious reasons. Please don’t take this as a complaint, far from it, we booked late and knew we would have to take what was available even though it was not a saver fare. We will manage and it won’t stop us enjoying our cruise. Still, it would be good if we could get a bigger cabin, possibly paying more but def not bidding. 

My mother uses a folding wheelchair and we had standard cabins on Britannia and Iona. On Britannia we stored the wheelchair in the wardrobe and on Iona it was stored between the sofa and the balcony (but that would depend on the layout of the room as some cabins have the bed nearer the balcony door)

 

 

[sandancer]

Thanks for that. Fingers crossed we have the sofa near the balcony. I’m sure we’ll manage whatever we get. We are pretty good at making the best of things. 

[PRINCESSTHE BEST]

I have received an email from P&O regarding my forthcoming cruise:

 

We hope you're excited about your upcoming cruise – we can't wait to welcome you on board.

‘There's still time to upgrade your accommodation through P&O Cruises Upgrade if you'd like to make your holiday even more special. Simply place an offer below on the type of cabin you'd like to upgrade to and we'll let you know if it's accepted.’

 

Has anyone else received one of these emails and better still, got a bargain upgrade?

[Bin man]

Have a look at page 3 on site subject Are upgrades any good a few replies on there 

[Technoman2]

We are now 10 days from our trip on Brittania and we have not got our cabin allocation yet. With this new upgrade bidding palava i guess it will happen next week but looking at the cabins available at the moment (looked at by doing a dummy select booking) there are more than 50 standard balcony cabins available. In some ways i guess it will also depend on the flights available for the two days the ship is in port loading. We did get an inside upgrade on our last trip on Arvia to midship but it was below the dome and you could hear the entertainment through the floor but only til 11pm and it was not too bad.

We have already paid around £300 more when we booked the early saver than the price available now so hopefully we may get a cabin with a sofa woo hoo.

Having not done the carribean in a balcony cabin before , for all you seasoned travellers whats the position with Mosquitos , leaving cabin doors open etc. This is probably a stupid question but do we not have to bother about them whilst the ship is at sea. Think i will take Raid, Plug in adapters and body spray just in case. When my wife gets bitten they can cause awful swelling. Aparently drinking beer helps as they dont like the smell off the skin so i may have to try out that theory on a daily basis, just for research of course.😊

[Interestedcruisefan]

Never had any issues with mosquitos on numerous previous Caribbean cruises we've done (including 2 where we had balconies). 

 

Just came back from a land based Caribbean holiday in Jamaica where we had many issues from them despite using loads of repellent and trying the wrist/ankle bands Tui promote heavily on their flights now

 

I think if you have an overnight in Barbados and go off ship in the evening that might be a time  to use mosquito repellant

 

I just assume when you are on the cruise they aren't around?

 

Unless we've been incredibly lucky time and again?

 

It's evenings when you normally need to watch out on land holidays from my experience 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Interestedcruisefan

[uk338]

Does anyone know the criteria for offering upgrade bidding?

 

I was surprised to learn that it's available for some passengers on our upcoming cruise, but not us (we booked direct).

 

Doesn't make a difference to us, just curious.

[purplesea]

I get badly bitten and reactions every time when we visit relations in Sicily, but on all of the cruises I've taken do the Caribbean I rarely get bitten, and if I do, I haven't had a bad reaction to the bite.

My doctor advised me to start taking anti-histamine tablets before my visits to Sicily, instead of taking them once I had been bitten, to be more effective.

[sandancer]

2 hours ago, uk338 said:

Does anyone know the criteria for offering upgrade bidding?

 

I was surprised to learn that it's available for some passengers on our upcoming cruise, but not us (we booked direct).

 

Doesn't make a difference to us, just curious.

That’s odd. I thought everyone got it. If you are already in a higher grade cabin or suite then there might not be anywhere to move to. We had this email for our NYE cruise on Iona even though the ship is sold out. Can only think they anticipate a few cancellations. We are waitlisted for an assistance room so didn’t bid. Our TA is of the opinion that we don’t stand much chance. 

[PRINCESSTHE BEST]

20 minutes ago, sandancer said:

That’s odd. I thought everyone got it. If you are already in a higher grade cabin or suite then there might not be anywhere to move to. We had this email for our NYE cruise on Iona even though the ship is sold out. Can only think they anticipate a few cancellations. We are waitlisted for an assistance room so didn’t bid. Our TA is of the opinion that we don’t stand much chance. 

This is the first time I have received one so I have applied for a mini suite. I’ll let you know if my bid is successful.