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Obstructed Balcony now part of "Interior" choices


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The other day I received a "Stand-by" promo email for a cruise I've been wanting to take. When I clicked on the link, it showed Balcony & Minis & Suites as sold out so I selected Oceanview. But apparently those were also sold out. I then selected Inside and up popped obstructed oceanview rooms, all within my price range. I am a very happy cruiser and a loyal Princess customer. If it has a negative impact on OBC or any other perks, I don't see it.

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Thank you, OP.

 

We had our TA check our B2B cruises on the Regal for October in an obstructed balcony. The first cruise was $50 more PP. The second cruise was $400 less PP.

 

We rebooked and lost our $200 PP OBC that was attached to some Princess sale perk. But we came out ahead by $483. The travel insurance also was less.

 

The OBC for our FCC remained the same.

 

Cheers, Denise

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think I've found a bug in how this new way of showing obstructed cabins works although if I have it right, it will only affect the Royal Class ships with both obstructed balconies and obstructed deluxe balconies. Specifically, if only obstructed deluxe balconies are available but obstructed balconies are sold out, the website will claim all are sold out when you try to select a cabin.

 

Testing with a far out cruise, after you select Interior, the next screen gives a choice of Inside or Balcony Obstructed. To get to Deluxe Balcony Obstructed, you select Balcony Obstructed.

 

For my upcoming TA cruise on Regal on 9/9, my TA's website, which shows real-time availability to the cabin level, is showing 6 Deluxe Balcony Obstructed DW cabins available. There are no Balcony Obstructed categories showing available. But on the Princess website, where the interface is different, when you select Interior, you get the expected next choice between Interior and Balcony Obstructed (which as my earlier testing has shown, should include the Deluxe ones as well) including with a "Select from" price. But when you select Balcony Obstructed, it then says "Balcony Obstructed Staterooms are currently SOLD OUT. Please select another stateroom type" and you can't get to the cabin selection deck plan to see the Deluxe cabins that are available.

 

If I have the other classes of ships right, obstructed cabins are all classed as "Oceanview Obstructed" with no regular and Deluxe difference. I'll bet when they changed the website to treat obstructed as Interior, they didn't think about the Royal class ships with multiple meta-categories of Obstructed.

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I discovered this change on all ships I've checked a couple of days ago & used their website's Site Feedback button to write that I didn't like the change. There have been many website improvements but having obstructed oceanview listed with insides is not a better way to find an OOV cabin.

 

I agree. I was looking at a cruise that my friend and I had booked in an obstructed Oceanview as someone was thinking of coming. I couldn't find the most recent prices so just hit every button until I found them.

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As of yesterday, I use a future cruise deposit to book an obstructed deluxe balcony on the Royal. I was given the $50.00 shipboard credit, which is what one should receive for seven days in a balcony. My cabin was not classed as an inside.

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The obstructed balcony cabins may not be "classed as an inside" however in order to locate one of these cabins (both regular obstructed balcony and deluxe obstructed balcony), one has to click on the "Interior" button in order to find them. You can no longer click on "Balcony" to locate and book any obstructed balcony cabins.

 

Like you, I too am glad that (so far!) Princess isn't actually treating the obstructed balcony type cabins the same as interior cabins other than grouping them with the inside cabins. DH and I really like these cabins and I had created this thread to help others find them since they had seemed to disappear :eek:

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The obstructed balcony cabins may not be "classed as an inside" however in order to locate one of these cabins (both regular obstructed balcony and deluxe obstructed balcony), one has to click on the "Interior" button in order to find them. You can no longer click on "Balcony" to locate and book any obstructed balcony cabins.

 

Like you, I too am glad that (so far!) Princess isn't actually treating the obstructed balcony type cabins the same as interior cabins other than grouping them with the inside cabins. DH and I really like these cabins and I had created this thread to help others find them since they had seemed to disappear :eek:

 

I wonder if Princess's IT department has fixed this because I was looking at balcony rooms when the obstructed deluxe balcony cabins showed up? Or maybe it shows up both ways now? I was only looking at the Royal, since that is the ship being deployed to the West Coast in 2019.

 

Thank you for your thread as it has been helpful to me in selecting my cabin.

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Curiosity made me go back and double check. When I selected an inside room, the obstructed balconies did come up to select. To get the obstructed deluxe balconies, I had to click on balcony. How confusing is this?:confused: I'm happy with my cabin though, but good information for future cruises.

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