Cabin upgradeing available when you get on the boat ? Epic

[rckymtair]

Hi,

I am wondering if Ncl lets you upgrade your cabin when you check in do they have a upgrade option ?? We called about changing from the Spirit to the Epic and they tried charging a $250.00 per person fee, if you try to upgrade before you go do they still try to charge you that fee ?

[garycarla]

A few notes.

 

Any possible upgrade assumes they even have a cabin available. They work hard to fill the ships before they leave.

 

Any upgrade will often be at a price that is high. If you want a higher level cabin, I would book it upfront.

 

As to the note about changing from one ship to another. This is usually done via CANCEL of the first cruise, then booking a new one. If you are past the final payment due date, all bets are off and you most probably will lose your money.

[garycarla]

A few notes.

 

Any possible upgrade assumes they even have a cabin available. They work hard to fill the ships before they leave.

 

Any upgrade will often be at a price that is high. If you want a higher level cabin, I would book it upfront.

 

As to the note about changing from one ship to another. This is usually done via CANCEL of the first cruise, then booking a new one. If you are past the final payment due date, all bets are off and you most probably will lose your money.

[jame_g]

Every cruise I've been on has had a sign up at check in and at the customer desk on board indicating that the ship is sailing full and that no upgrades are available. This may not always be the case, but it often is.

[jdvmd]

When we were on the Epic in October, we asked about upgrading to a suite when we checked in and they told us we had to check once we got onboard. Up until the day before, there were no less than 28 suites available when I checked online.

 

We did go to the front desk and because the line was so long, there was a guest services lady standing at the back of the line, asking people what they were there for, i.e. trying to answer questions so you didn't have to stand in the line.

 

She asked what kind of room we were in and what kind of room did we want to switch to. We were in a balcony. She said no suites were available, only some balconies and insides. She indicated the first line behind her was for people who were upgrading/changing their cabins.

 

This was the first time in 45+ cruises that I have ever seen this. I, too, have always seen the sign saying "we are sailing full and changes couldn't be accommodated. There was also someone from our CC roll call, who changed cabins because their balcony was uncovered and as someone who had had melanoma, she needed to have a covered balcony.

 

As garycarla said, any possible upgrade assumes they even have a cabin available and it will be at a higher price. They work hard to fill the ships before they leave. That's what happened to all the suites the day before sailing.

[valleyvillage]

Somewhere on these boards, I could not find it, is a story about someone who wanted to upgrade so bad they brought a WAD OF CASH to the front desk and asked them to call a guest in an AB suite and offer to switch cabins!

They did!

[Tightwallet]

When we were on the Epic in October, we asked about upgrading to a suite when we checked in and they told us we had to check once we got onboard. Up until the day before, there were no less than 28 suites available when I checked online.

 

We did go to the front desk and because the line was so long, there was a guest services lady standing at the back of the line, asking people what they were there for, i.e. trying to answer questions so you didn't have to stand in the line.

 

She asked what kind of room we were in and what kind of room did we want to switch to. We were in a balcony. She said no suites were available, only some balconies and insides. She indicated the first line behind her was for people who were upgrading/changing their cabins.

 

This was the first time in 45+ cruises that I have ever seen this. I, too, have always seen the sign saying "we are sailing full and changes couldn't be accommodated. There was also someone from our CC roll call, who changed cabins because their balcony was uncovered and as someone who had had melanoma, she needed to have a covered balcony.

 

As garycarla said, any possible upgrade assumes they even have a cabin available and it will be at a higher price. They work hard to fill the ships before they leave. That's what happened to all the suites the day before sailing.

 

The Epic has not been sailing full to the Caribbean. Because we are booked for January I have been watching for price drops etc.

In fact our sail date of 1/15 still has quite a few cabins available including a couple of "aft" balconies.

NCL has purposely not been hitting the upsell button nor have they been discounting much as they know that it will cause a flood of calls for upgrades and price reductions by people that have been booked.

 

The present price drop for our category is about $100 since final payment was due in Nov. and personally not worth calling and making a stink over.

 

So I'm not surprised that they are lining up on the Epic to see if they can score upgrades.

 

I'm also glad to see NCL handling this as to not piss off those that have been booked for awhile.

[leeanninfla]

Sailing on the Epic Nov 27 I wen tto the desk to ask about a room change. We had a regular BG Balcony room, and wanted to see if there were any handicap rooms available. Yep, same category BG and the room would have been $250 to upgrade. We just left mom's scooter in the hallway instead..

[FLCRUISINGCPL]

We actually do best when we book directly with NCL. However, on tomorrows cruise we went through a TA to get a $100 OBC. Long story short, we had TA call today just as NCL was closing out the cruise and upgraded from an Inside (J) to a Balcony (BG) for $180 more per person.

 

Today, we paid the difference in price between our Inside and a Balcony Guarantee (BK), and within a couple of hours were assigned a BG midship deck 8.

 

Last November, we moved from and Inside to a Balcony for $40 on the Jewel about 2-3 days before the cruise.

 

In general, I have not had much luck doing upgrades at the Pier at Check In or at the Front Desk when boarding early. We have always done better trying to do this 1-3 days before sailing as they are getting ready to close out the sailing.

 

Today's upgrade was a little more than we wanted to pay. But since we sailed Oasis on October with a Balcony we wanted to do Epic as well. Even with our Diamond discount on Royal we still paid $400 more on Oasis than we did on Epic.

 

We will let you know if the $400 more on Oasis was worth it after we sail the Epic.