First time on Cunard - upgrade and occupancy questions

[Uffda1]

Hello-

 

I’m new to Cunard and leave a week from tomorrow for 25-day SFO-SYD. We booked a balcony stateroom that has yet to be assigned. Our travel agent ticked the box saying we’d take our chances at an upgrade instead of picking the cabin.

A couple of questions we have now:

 

- Is there any way to know how booked the cruise is? Prices dipped for a while and I heard it was pretty light. On some booking sights I only see the lesser cabins and the very highest level sold out. Would love to know if it’s 60, 70, 80% full. Do they typically oversell what they can and move people who purchased up as airlines do?

 

- The free upgrades are those usually within the same category but a better position on the ship - forward to midship, for instance, as opposed to balcony to balcony grill or princess grill?

 

- We’re really debating just buying up to princess grill and weighing if that’s the way to go. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. 

[david63]

10 minutes ago, Uffda1 said:

Is there any way to know how booked the cruise is?

As that tends to be sensitive commercial information it is not something that is normally available pre cruise - it may be available once onboard.

12 minutes ago, Uffda1 said:

The free upgrades are those usually within the same category but a better position on the ship - forward to midship, for instance, as opposed to balcony to balcony grill or princess grill?

A free upgrade (which these days is as rare as hens teeth) can literally be to any other higher grade cabin/suite although in practice it will normally only be one or two grades. It is highly unlikely that you would get an upgrade from an inside to a QG suite!

[BEAV]

Three of us are booked on the same voyage (3 seperate staterooms), and also are awaiting our cabin assignments.

 

At the moment, all categories are available for online booking on Cunard’s website. But as to specifics of how much is available is impossible to determine.

[3rdGenCunarder]

You can try doing a dummy booking on the Cunard site and see which cabin grades show as available and which are sold out. You can poke around looking at different areas and decks, but it may not show you everything that's available. If there are a lot of cabins available, the site may not show you only all of them. If you see just two or three, that usually means those are the only ones left. 

 

As for upgrades, I agree with @david63. They're rare, especially now that Cunard has started offering the bid to upgrade process. If they can make money from an upgrade, they won't give it away. 

 

If you're a week out, I would expect to see a cabin number soon. Check your booking online. Also check your luggage tags. Sometimes the cabin number shows up on the tags before anywhere else.

[Uffda1]

About two days ago they showed inside through balcony as soldout. Today when I looked they’re selling them all again. It reminds me of airlines that will keep selling economy so long as they can move some passengers to business and first to fill the plane. 
 

Thank you for all your helpful replies.

[3rdGenCunarder]

33 minutes ago, Uffda1 said:

About two days ago they showed inside through balcony as soldout. Today when I looked they’re selling them all again. It reminds me of airlines that will keep selling economy so long as they can move some passengers to business and first to fill the plane. 
 

Thank you for all your helpful replies.

 

Sometimes they show a whole category as sold out to temporarily block bookings while they assign guarantees, bid ups, and (maybe) upgrades. Once that's sorted, the category is unblocked if any cabins are left. 

Edited Saturday at 09:31 PM by 3rdGenCunarder

[BEAV]

35 minutes ago, Uffda1 said:

About two days ago they showed inside through balcony as soldout. Today when I looked they’re selling them all again. It reminds me of airlines that will keep selling economy so long as they can move some passengers to business and first to fill the plane. 
 

Thank you for all your helpful replies.

Even though SFO-SYD is one again showing available across a wide selection of categories, several weeks ago it displayed sold out even though you could book SFO-MEL (23 vs 25 days). 
 

Just the way the cruise lines allocate/manage inventory. So when you don’t see something you want, keep checking back as things are constantly changing. 
 

 

[Uffda1]

That all makes sense, thanks. They’re offering PG buy ups, and I went ahead and put in for it, but the site basically shows the cabins unavailable so sorting that all out could well be what’s happening now. Appreciate the explanations.

[3rdGenCunarder]

8 minutes ago, BEAV said:

Even though SFO-SYD is one again showing available across a wide selection of categories, several weeks ago it displayed sold out even though you could book SFO-MEL (23 vs 25 days). 
 

Just the way the cruise lines allocate/manage inventory. So when you don’t see something you want, keep checking back as things are constantly changing. 
 

 

 

Yes!

 

Cancellations happen. Cabins are reallocated. Sometimes when there are overlapping itineraries, some cabins are assigned to one itinerary and different cabins are assigned to the other one. This keeps Cunard from double-booking a cabin by mistake. 

[Caipi]

On 9/14/2024 at 9:43 PM, Uffda1 said:

 

- The free upgrades are those usually within the same category but a better position on the ship - forward to midship, for instance, as opposed to balcony to balcony grill or princess grill?

 

 

In August we first got an upgrade from a sheltered balcony staterom on deck 5 to a balcony stateroom on deck 11 and then to a Britannia Club Balcony Stateroom on deck 13. (But the second upgrade may have happened because I wrote to them that I don't like the connecting door of 11031, and they wrote back that I have to take it because I allowed upgrading, which was not true -  I was not asked about that at all, and I wrote that to them as well.)