Upgrade on Arrival On Board

[trilind]

We purchased an upgrade on our Mercury cruise out of San Francisco. We had booked a balcony and once on-board went to the concierge and put our name on the list. About an hour before sailing we received a call to meet someone at a Sky Suite and they would show it to us. We took it and it only cost $200 per person for the upgrade. We did not pay much for the cruise at the time but it was 2003.

[fleckle]

.............The second episode speaks to the issue of a completely sold out ship-half way thru the cruise the shower faucet broke and water blew everywhere, soaking the bathroom and pouring out onto most the carpeting in the room before we could get anyone from maintanence to come fix it. The cabin steward had his afternoon off that day so they did not come to soak up the drenched carpet until much later in the evening. There were no other cabins available to switch to, and the longer the wet carpet sat, the more it stank, and the more unpleasant the room became. We were forced to stay where we were for the remainder of the cruise. I ended up very ill, but made it home, and then was in the hospital with pneumonia for four days.

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Reading this rang a bell because we had a very similar experience on a Royal Caribbean cruise several years ago when a pipe in our bathroom burst.

 

We were given the same story, that there were no other cabins available and we would need to stay where we were. However, sleeping in the cabin with the drenched carpet was unacceptable to us, so we informed them that we were going to take our pillows and blankets and sleep on the couches out in the public atrium area.

 

It was absolutely amazing the way they miraculously managed to find another cabin for us when 5 minutes earlier there had been none available!

[cruiseerf]

Cruiselines just like hotels always have a few rooms on reserve as a just in case. That said if you have an issue with plumbing etc....and the reserve cabins are full...then the ship will indeed be full. There are many variables.

 

As far as upgrading at the pier, no upgrades sign in evidence. Last January I checked in for the Equinox Caribbean Ft. Lauderdale departure. I had a Celebrity suite and the man in front of me who was quite proudly announcing to the security people that he was in a celebrity suite. He checked in to my right....and I clearly heard the check in lady say "Well Mr. X, this is your lucky cruise, you have been upgraded to a Royal Suite" to which he let out a "whoop whoop" gave the woman then high five...and jumped up and down like he had hit big on price is right. He said to us as he passed, that he had the best travel agent and she "knew everybody".......lucky him. We received no upgrade and later in the cruise found out we had paid $1500 more than him for our cabin! Let me repeat the mantra! It is who you know!!!!!

 

Happy sails to all!

[islandgirlejfan]

Being upgraded to a suite can be very dangerous ;) and even though ours were on NCL, I'm sure it's true of any cruise line. Once it happens, it's hard to go back to what room you might have been happy with in the first place! Norwegian calls or emails to upgrade before sailing....I guess they figure if they can get X amount of dollars extra rather than leaving the room unsold, so it's good for them. On the first cruise, we got an email and it was a great price, so we went for it. The larger room and service sold both of us. Next cruise had us booking the lowest end aft suite (my favorite place on the ship!) and ended up being called for the owner's suite before sailing. We turned it down even though it was a great price because A) we would have had access to the Courtyard and that would have been opening another can of worms and B) We really love the aft. We were spoiled rotten that week! When we discussed the cruise we are currently booked on, we were initially booked on NCL, but in talking with friends that were Celebrity cruisers, they felt we had a service expectation which is how we ended up booking Celebrity.

 

Seriously, for what we spent on our last booking with NCL, we could have sailed twice AQ on Celebrity.....I have to admit that I'm sort of kicking myself over that part.:(

 

Just a side note, we usually pick the first week in December to cruise and all but this particular cruise were booked on have been soft sailings. Our Pearl cruise was not sold out....they were storing art in the suite next to us which was a prime aft location. We made a comment in passing to our room steward just asking him if the ship was full and he couldn't comment saying he didn't want to get in trouble. Of course we didn't press him about it, but we could tell that it wasn't. They were doing a lot of cleaning of empty rooms during the week we were aboard.

[Wineart]

If you want an upgrade, I would think your best bet would be to work with your travel agent shortly before departure rather than waiting until you get to the boat. However, it's not likely the upgrade will be free, unless you're a higher tier captain's club member or your travel agent does a lot of business with Celebrity!