Starry Eyes

Just take charge of the situation. Decide how late you are willing to wait for an upgrade. Let’s say you decide you want to know the night before, so you can easily re-do your luggage tags. If you have not received the upgrade by then cancel your bid. Your desperate friend might decide they want the shot at upgrade not matter how late it inconvenient…even if it comes after they are on board. Your friend won’t cancel his bids and might even check his stateroom phone for a message from guest services (he will almost certainly be disappointed, but that’s his problem) RoyalUp did not know which one of you would be willing to move even after boarding the ship. By canceling your bids, you told them you made it clear to them. If there was a last minute upgrade due to a cancellation, they would not bother you.

LOL. Somebody tried to take hubby’s card last year. An onlooker might have thought they were trying to take his first born🤣. The card is in DH’s card collection.

Oh, sorry to hear you are not enthusiastic about a possible upgrade. I’m not unhappy when I lose (most people do) and stay in my original cabin, but I do hope to win. Only you can know whether you should try to cancel the bid or not.

Do people on holiday sailings need to be careful with the UDP? If I recall correctly the fine print on the UDP excludes special occasion meals. Might Royal crank up the price of Chops on Christmas Eve and Day, while excluding UDP use?

I cannot make any promises (I do not work for RoyalUp!), but I do not believe RoyalUp intends to delay decision on your pending bid that long. Many pending bids (that cannot be modified or canceled) are processed within a day, though there have been reports of some staying in that status for a week or more. You said you are 18 days out; I will be very surprised if they do not make a decision on your bid within 15-16 days (and probably sooner). If you want the upgrade, being moved to that pending status is a positive sign. At least you seem to be in the running for the upgrade; that is more than most bidders can say right now. Good luck and let us know what happens.

Here’s my take: RoyalUp is considering your pending bid, and they’d rather you did not alter it while they do so. Disabling the online cancel/modify function, discourages you from doing so. (If your credit card has not been charged and you really want to cancel that bid, call immediately to try to cancel the bid). If you do win, your first indication will be credit card activity. Then the email from RoyalUp. As you can see 11 cabins, if you do win, there is a good chance it will be one of those 11, but it may be a different cabin entirely. You may be placed in a cabin just vacated by somebody who won a RoyalUp bid on a higher category (who is now in a cabin just vacated by somebody who won a RoyalUp bid on yet a higher category, etc). Thus you cannot know where RoyalUp will place you. Before bidding be sure you will be happy enough in any of the cabins in that category.

Somebody might cancel, freeing up a suite. Also, RoyalUp may cause multiple openings as people ladder up. For example, an available upper level may be won by a person in a mid level suite. That mid level category (previously sold out) now has a vacancy, which RoyalUp fills with a bid from a party in lower level suite. That creates a new vacancy for bidding…and so on down through lesser cabins.

I agree withTulsacoker that you ought not get your hopes up: at this point many are bidding, few CL are available, so few are winning. If you do win, you must be willing to take whatever CL you are assigned. Theoretically, if another CL you like better happens to still be available if and when you win, you might be able to swap, but, as the other CL’s are apt to be already be filled, you should not factor that into your bidding. If you would not be happy in the “worst” CL, you probably should not bid. I, for one, could be happy in any CL; others might only want a side facing CL.

Nobody looked at anything outside lately. Inside signage and personnel verbally separated passé into two security lines (regular vs suites+PC). As D+, we went through the regular security line (nothing new there; the special D/D+ security line was discontinued before the shut down). After security, personnel have recently been directing us to the suite/PC check in area, which was a shorter wait with perhaps a tad more space. Not a big deal; we go wherever they direct us.

That’s the way I see it, too. Of course, one of the nice things about the UDP is that you can go to more than one restaurant per night. So, you could, for example, have heavy appetizers at one restaurant (sushi at Izumi perhaps) then later go to Wonderland. If you are not very hungry, make selections with the waitstaff.

Yeah, I get it. I come from a long line of bargain hunters and took up the habit at an early age. My earlier post was not meant to be critical. Had the posters on the other site solicited advice sooner, no doubt you’d have suggested checking upgrade prices vs RoyalUp.

Well, I guess if those cruisers are posting their winning bids, they are happy. Frugal frequent cruisers may look differently at the situation than those non-frugal, non-frequent cruisers posting winning bids. Perhaps maximize their infrequent days on a ship is more important to them than getting a great deal. If they are happy, I’ll be happy for them (and as a shareholder, I should hope they spend freely on board, too)

Recently at Port Canaveral as D+ we have been directed by personnel to check in lines with the Pinnacles and Suites. The personnel do seem to be attentive to length of the various lines as they direct us, so YMMV not only by port but perhaps by happenstance. This happened at both T1 and T5.

I really varies. Tonight I paid 40% more to upgrade from my oceanview gty to a suite gty. Balconies are sold out on my cruise, so I called as soon as I saw a suite gty price appear for a nice price.

Yes, all are connecting staterooms in same category. I’m glad to hear the you suggest deck 4 rather than deck 3; I was unsure with public areas on deck 5. Thanks for the help.

We have not been on Radiance class or in an OV cabin for years, so I could use so help picking the best cabin from my list of options, please. My choices are: 3562, 3620, 4020, 4028, 4540, 4556, and 4058.

Well, standby is not the answer. I’ve been cruising for a while. Sometimes I waited, thinking a price would go down…sometimes it went up and sometimes it went down. Be especially careful if you want a balcony cabin. Royal Caribbean has a bidding program called RoyalUp. People booked in less expensive cabins can bid for upgrades. So people booked in an inside cabin can bid; if their bid is accepted they may fill the balcony cabins and inside cabins will be vacant instead.

I’m not aware of a standby list for Royal Caribbean. If the cruise you are interested in is inexpensive, why not go ahead and book it? If the price is attractive others might book it and prices might then rise. Also remember, just because you can select from 180 balcony cabins, they may not have that many to sell. There might be any number of guests holding guarantee balcony bookings who have not yet been assigned cabins.

Does your booking include FCC’s? My invoices seemed more complicated and I found it more challenging to figure out upgrade costs or price drops when I had FCC’s. Phone Reps also sometimes seemed to struggle with them (for example, one rep promised me a refund I later learned I was not due).

If your regular insurance provider could not give you the coverage you desired, why didn’t you buy Royal’s insurance instead (or in addition)? We generally only purchase travel medical and evaluation coverage. We assume cancellation risk ourselves. After many cruises without having to cancel, we have saved enough premiums to be ahead of the game. We will suck it up if we have to cancel some day.

As John and Pam already see a muster station and floor, odds are extremely high the bar code trick will work now if they try it.

OK, next explain the crockpots on Harmony’s naughty table. She is sailing in the Caribbean.

Quite possible. Nobody knows how Plusgrade determines bidding ranges. I recall a poster a few months ago whose max bid for JS to GS was startlingly low; that poster likely had plenty of company at max bid. I would think they would have a very high max bid, leaving room for the big spender who really wants the cabin if it opens up.

Now that the ships are sailing pretty full again, there is more luck involved. In fact, it may not only be your good luck in having your bid selected but also sometimes another party’s bad luck caused them to cancel, bring their cabin up for bidding. I’m in a balcony on my upcoming cruise. All the JS and suites have been booked for quite a while. A JS and GS made brief appearances, perhaps due to cancellations, but suite availability looked minimal for weeks. My odds of RoyalUp bid acceptance are low, though a cancellation is always possible so so leave the bids in place.

That is a wonderful upgrade, though I bet you started bidding from a very nice suite.