Guarantee Category Question?

[dbmiller1956]

My husband and I are booked on the CB for October 8. This is the first time I have booked a OV guarantee, so not sure how the cabin assignment works. I have been watching the personalizer to see if anything is listed but nothing so far.

 

In the meantime, I have been checking to see if the price has changed and noticed that there were no more cabins available in the category, only Guarantees. Doesn't that mean we should have been assigned a cabin or do they hold some in reserve? Friends of our traveling the same date and booked the same time, chose an IS Guarantee. They have already gotten their cabin assignment, several weeks ago.

 

Could really use some help understanding how this works. I don't like the idea of not knowing my room number but the price was great.

 

Deena

[hugger]

as we just received our cabin assignment for the Coral in Oct. We were upgraded to a mini suite AB :)

 

Sometimes you don't get your assignment until you get to the ship. You just never know - sometimes the longer it takes the better the cabin - but not always. It's good if the cat. that you booked is sold out as then you most likely will be upgraded somewhat.

 

Good luck and have a wonderful cruise.

[cherylandtk]

Don't worry, some times you won't get your assignment until much later. We had an outside guarantee and did not get the assignment until about a month before the cruise and then it was a two category upgrade. Since the category is nearly sold, they may end up bumping you up into a higher category if there are/were less of those sold than yours.

[DJ_Frustration]

Is there a reliable method for investigating whether a particular category is sold out?

[cherylandtk]

The closest I know of is when the online big agencies only show Guarantees left to choose from. This varies by category, but you don't know how close the ship is getting to that point until it shows up. Most sites only list a handful of cabins in a single category at any one time,even though many more are available at the beginning.

[spongerob]

Some agencies are allowed to "reserve" blocks of cabins for long periods of time, so it's possibly someone out there has several OV cabins that are not sold. These blocks are not specific cabins, just a number of cabins within the OV category. Until they are returned or all are sold, no assignments can be made.

 

RC/X have changed their policy recently and will only allow agencies to hold cabins in reserve for 90 days. Their reasoning is that big agencies could hold cabins out of inventory for up to a year, making it appear that there were few available and pushing costs up. There are a couple threads going about this on the Celebrity board.

 

Clear as mud, right?

[Murphey]

as we just received our cabin assignment for the Coral in Oct. We were upgraded to a mini suite AB :)

 

.

 

Congratulations on your upgrade:D :D :D :D

 

I have a question however, why would princess assign an upgrade so far in advance? Wouldn't they want to try to sell that cabin first? Just curious. We book guarantee's and rarely get an assignment until just before sailing!

[dbmiller1956]

Is there a reliable method for investigating whether a particular category is sold out?

 

I appreciate the explanations from everyone. As I said this has been somewhat frustrating. I realize that there is a possiblity that someone has some cabins held but hope there becomes a point where they are released to give us a better idea of what is going on. On our cruise last year, the friends traveling with us did a guarantee and we noticed that some cabins were released 90 days prior to sailing.

 

In answer to the question above, our TA is a long time friend and based upon information from several difference sources, including Princess, he stated to us that the category was sold out. I also noticed that when we checked online at several different Cruise purchasing venues that there were no cabins available.

 

Again, thanks for all the info. We are really looking forward to this trip since we have heard so much about the CB.

 

Deena:D

[lynwar]

Hi Deena,

We just got our cabin assignment for the Star today-I think. It was on the Personalizer. We'd booked a guaranteed BD category cabin with a balcony and were upgraded to a category BC. Both cabins appear to be the same, only we researched and saw that the BC cabin is $40 higher per person than the original one booked. It must be based on the location of the cabin. If we'd stayed with the Oct.8 cruise, we were in B-720, inside, but it turned out not to be guaranteed. This time we made sure we had a balcony rather than wish for one in an upgrade. Lynne