Question about Booking a Guarantee

[innlady1]

I often see folks who book a guarantee rather than select a stateroom after pouring over the deck plans! I'm in the latter category, and was pleased with the one we selected on the Noordam. No complaints.

 

However, I still remain curious if it would be worth the surprise of having the upgrade fairy pay a visit!

 

Does anyone have any idea of the percentage of people who get upgrades by booking a guarantee?

[iliv2cruz]

It's a gamble, and to me depends on a few factors. For this trip, I was closely watching the balcony prices. When they came down to $1199 p.p., I quickly called. At that time, those were that price for GUAR only. If I wanted to pick out my own balcony the cost at that time was $1399. ($400 between the 2 of us!) My hubby and I aren't very fussy about where we are, we just didn't want a "steel" balcony. This was a chance we took though, and in our case lucked out. We are assigned VA8013 which looks pretty good to us (no one above us so the balcony will be pretty private!) There are some cautions to take into consideration: (is the time you're going school vacation time, is it a popular week where lots of people will probably go...if you know this then the GUAR assignment may not be that great, BUT, you'll still get your balcony somewhere on that ship. Hope this helps.

[debsjc]

I booked on a travel industry employee rate, so we were not able to book a specific cabin number, a GUAR was the only option.

 

Although I am pleased that we got have been assigned a VB from a VF GUAR, I am really worried about being so far forward and high up. :eek:

[jtl513]

However, I still remain curious if it would be worth the surprise of having the upgrade fairy pay a visit!

On our first four HAL cruises we booked a guarantee each time ... and were upgraded four times. On the vistas we paid for a VE each time and got a VA. For our next cruise we picked a specific cabin because I wanted to be on the port side for a one-way from Seward to Vancouver.

 

CC member kakalina has a terrific record on guarantees. I don't remember the exact number, but it's something like 12 out of 14 cruises that she has gotten more than she paid for!

Although I am pleased that we got have been assigned a VB from a VF GUAR, I am really worried about being so far forward and high up. :eek:

We were in 8010 for 10 days on the Baltic, and we had only a couple hour period where the motion bothered me a little ... and it didn't bother my DW at all.

[sanibelsandals]

We sail Sun mar 4 on the W'dam and we booked a VB AFT cabin back in the fall, I just got a call from TA that HAL is offering us a Suite Guar for $90 more pp. We took it! Even though it means we will not be 3 cabins away from our daughter, sil, and adorable little granddaughters! We figured the treat will be nice! I certainly hope we aren't all the way up front - we will be doing lots of walking!