Stage Release Cabins?

Do Celebrity release cabins for sale at different stages in the year? We are looking at a cruise in late 2019 and I was surprised at how many cabins are not available for booking already. I understand that some destinations are more popular than others, and so it may actually be booked up so far in advance. I am also booking on the UK website and wondered if we see the same cabin availability as the US websites does?

You may be right. New website offers you cabins that you can book. I assumed that the cabins that show unavailable are already booked. That was until I booked a guarantee. It was not one of the cabins showing available. If you see a huge number of cabins open, you may wait to book. If there are only a few cabins showing, you may tend to book quickly. The hotel booking sites often show "only 2 left" or "last one at this price." Don't believe it. There are websites that really show the booked cabins. I don't book with them. I do look at them to see which cabins are available.

This may also have to do with occupancy-locking. If you're a group of 2, for example, and Celebrity would rather have 3 or 4 people in a given cabin, they'll often block that cabin from showing as available for smaller groups until a date closer to the sailing. That was the case with our sailing, at least.

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I have seen that a category that has more than 50 cabins always has 50 for sale, example in the Eclipse C3 has 144 cabins but there are always only 50 available. Already when the sales of this category exceeds 95 the system will show 49 and so will go down to 0.

Sometimes you can see more available cabins on online TA websites than are shown on Celebrity's website. So you might wish to go partway into a mock booking to check out the available cabins on such sites.

"Do Celebrity release cabins for sale at different stages in the year? "

Not really. The new itineraries are announced in November and December.

After that, the only new release would be immediately following each cruise's Final Payment date, which is the last time people can cancel without penalty. From that point, unsold cabins which had previously been held in passenger bookings or Travel Agency blocks are then released.

Cruisestitch touched on another point. There are a lot of large TAs and booking agencies that lock up blocks of rooms to sell on their own sites. These won't show as available on the cruise line's website until the unsold cabins are released back to them.

Are you trying to book for 2 passengers in one stateroom? Do a dummy booking for 3 or 4 in a stateroom and the staterooms that have a little triangle or square might open up. A year or more before the cruise, they might try to steer the passengers who are booking for 2 to staterooms that only sleep 2. If you find the cabin you want is available, call Celebrity or your TA.

I have seen that a category that has more than 50 cabins always has 50 for sale, example in the Eclipse C3 has 144 cabins but there are always only 50 available. Already when the sales of this category exceeds 95 the system will show 49 and so will go down to 0.

Cruisestitch touched on another point. There are a lot of large TAs and booking agencies that lock up blocks of rooms to sell on their own sites. These won't show as available on the cruise line's website until the unsold cabins are released back to them.

I have often wondered if this is actual true. You seem confident that it is actually true. What makes you believe that it is true?

I understand that TAs have group rates for a certain number of cabins, but does Celebrity actually remove specific cabins numbers from other bookings? For instance, Celebrity could just allocate a certain number of cabins (and only sell so many of a category) without actually allocating specific cabin numbers to a TA. This would make more sense to me.

I have never been able to see every single available cabin within a category on the Celebrity site. I scan the seas to see which cabins are not booked.

I have often wondered if this is actual true. You seem confident that it is actually true. What makes you believe that it is true?

This was told to me by my TA, who I have been using for over 10 years. I've never known him to lie to me. In fact he has disabused us of several cruise myths in the past. If you can find a credible source to the contrary, I'd be interested to hear it.

Cruisestitch touched on another point. There are a lot of large TAs and booking agencies that lock up blocks of rooms to sell on their own sites. These won't show as available on the cruise line's website until the unsold cabins are released back to them.

I can't speak for all of them, but we use one of the big online travel agencys, and I know for a fact that they don't book individual cabins, they book set quantities say 50 or 100 and they aren't tied to any single category such as insides or balconys. Depending on the quantity they are given a percentage discount that they can pass on to the customer no matter what category they choose. I would also think that if they didn't sell their allotment, the discounts for everybody would go away. I would guess they are super conservative in requesting cabins so that would never happen.

We've been fortunate to participate in several of these group bookings, not recently, but the savings were in the 15%+ range. When these arose, I went to their website and tried to pick certain cabins, wrote them down the ones I might be interested in and went to the uk website. Those cabins showed up there too as well as some better cabins. The cabins also showed up on the sites of a couple of other agencys that I price through.

I was in a group that did block specific cabins so that the entire group would be side by side by side in one corridor. When someone else wanted to join the group after all those cabins were sold, the TA pointed out that the only cabins left on the ship were not in that block of rooms and that passenger would be away from everyone else. I never knew that it mattered that the entire group was in the same area, but apparently it did matter to that group's organizer.

This was told to me by my TA, who I have been using for over 10 years. I've never known him to lie to me. In fact he has disabused us of several cruise myths in the past. If you can find a credible source to the contrary, I'd be interested to hear it.

I was just curious as it seems like a potential cruise line policy. Just to be clear, your TA told you that they they have reserved and taken Celebrity cabins out of inventory for potential future bookings? This would be without a deposit being applied to each cabin? If true, it is hard to argue that it does not happen.

Thank you for the explanation.

 

I have never been able to see every single available cabin within a category on the Celebrity site. I scan the seas to see which cabins are not booked.

Excellent advice... I do the same all of the time. Based on the number of cabins remaining vs. the number of days left until sail away, you can accurately predict if prices will rise, fall or remain the same. ;)

Years ago we booked with an agency that had a large group sailing on Azamara, and they did have specific cabins blocked out, and we had to choose one of their available cabins. But when I booked our upcoming Reflection cruise with an online agency, they had a group rate for Aqua that was almost $200/pp less than Celebrity's online rate, and I was able to choose any available cabin.

I don't know how it works, but I'm for anything that saves us money.

TAs will certainly block-book a number of cabins for a hefty discount. That's why they can often sell them on with better prices and perks than the Cruise line. They do exactly the same thing with holiday hotels.

I find it hard to believe though, that they would book specific cabins without some special reason like a group.