Guarantee Cabin Stories

[jc4me]

Greetings,

 

DH and I just booked on the Crown for Nov 2, 2008. We booked a guaranteed inside (J) cabin with the hope that we will be upgraded, but will be satified if we simply get what we have booked. We're not cruising to spend time in our room. This will be our 2nd Princess cruise. With that being said, I'd like to hear others experiences with a guaranteed cabin. In the past with other cruises we have been quite satisfied with a guarantee.

 

So, let me hear the good, the bad and the ugly....;)

 

Jennifer

[kaudrey]

Well, my story is still in progress...

 

I booked a JJ gty - Interior Cabin on the Coral to Alaska this summer. A few weeks ago I noticed that I had a cabin - category II, A431 - Interior.

 

But now, with the price drop everyone has been talking about, I called and got upgraded to HH - Oceanview Cabin. I am back to being a "guarantee", but in a better room, and for $100 less!

 

:)

[LuvTheGoodLife]

Every time I have booked a guarantee we got the exact level we booked - never an upgrade. After the 4th time, we started booking the exact cabin we wanted. On Princess, since they do not give you a price break when booking guarantee, I do not see the benefit if cabins are available in the level you want to book...

[jc4me]

Awesome. That's the sort of thing I'm hoping for. Check my prices daily!

[FLACRUISER99]

I usually book a GTY and have had a few great upgrades. If you look around sometimes the price is a lot less.:eek:

[Cozzette2]

We also booked a jj inside guarantee and I kept watching the prices and one day noticed that the ocean view was only a few dollars more than what we had paid for the inside cabin.

I contacted my travel agent and she said those were obstructed views but for no more money she had some really nice ocean view cabins that she would move us up to, wow, it was a great cabin with a huge window for the same price as our inside.

Like someone else said, watch the prices and ask your travel agent when you see the prices move, it worked for us;) Cozzette

[BJS]

Have booked several BE guarantees and received BA or BB or BC and we were never disappointed especially saving several hundred dollars. We have only done this when the BE has been much much lower than the other category. This has usually been close to or after final payment when they offer these cabins at a low price to help fill the ship.

 

.

[Toto2Kansas]

We have only booked guarantee staterooms a couple of times in our life. They were always AE mini suite gurantees.

One cruise, we saved close to $1500 by switching our booking to a guarantee AE from the original AB minisuite. We ended up in an AA mini on that cruise.

The other time we also booked an AE guarantee (this time because the ship was almost sold out and we did not like the location of what was left to choose from so it didn't matter to us where we ended up at that point). We received an AB in a great location that was not available when we booked, for that cruise.

Neither time were we upgraded to a better type of stateroom. Mini suite to Mini suite, which is the norm. Most upgrades are to the same type of stateroom, just a better location.

There are a few posts from those that got those fantastic upgrades, like an outside to a full suite, but they are so very rare anymore, it isn't worth even dreaming about something like that.

 

Always book the type of cabin you will be comfortable in. Never NEVER book something below what you want and HOPE for an upgrade to something better, as you will usually be very disappointed.