Zuiderdam Booking a Cat. BC Guar

[Thumpr]

Just wanted know if anyone has booked any

guar rooms and did they get upgraded to better rooms. Me and my wife are going on our 3rd cruise, first time to book a balcony guarantee

 

Any help will be great!!

[PoohUnderstands]

We initially booked a BC Guarantee for our Western Cruise on the "Z" on 5/29. About 3 weeks or so before leaving, HAL fax'd my TA offering us an upgrade to an "SS" suite(and pick the room) for about $200 per person more. We grabbed it and were in room 6103. It was fantastic. So we never found out where they would have put us. Since there are so many levels of regular balconies, from our cruise, the people usually got a 2-4 level upgrade. I even read on these boards that a few, very few, got an upgrade to an "SS" free but those usually had already booked and paid for an "A" or "AA". IMHO, if you get the chance to upgrade to an "SS" go for it!!!

[Thumpr]

just bumping up thanks for the info poohunerstands

 

Almost time!!!!

 

[gilligan6143]

If you do not have a specific location you wish on the ship, booking a BC Guarantee will get you in a at decent initial price. Then, you may have a chance to upgrade for $200 or so to an ss or s closer to sailing.

[Thumpr]

just need to know more info

[ASM]

I think the key is to book a category you'll be happy with and wait and see. We booked a BB guarantee last summer on the Zuiderdam and were upgraded to an A. We were then offered an SS for $150 more and took it. Had a wonderful time. Good luck!

[Mary Ann 2]

I hope you are as lucky as these people that have posted. We booked a BC guarantee on our recent Zuiderdam cruise and were excited to find that we had been upgraded to a B until we discovered that it was on the front of the ship on deck 4 where the balconies have solid steel instead of plexiglass. So we couldn't see anything sitting down. They never notified us that we had been assigned a room - we just discovered it filling out the immigration stuff- and by that time, the ship was totally booked and there was no changing rooms. I will never understand how these rooms are supposed to be at a B level. They are the worst balconies on the ship in my opinion. We usually sit out on our balcony for hours and enjoy the sea, but not on this trip.

[ASM]

I actually booked through a HAL personal rep, not a TA. I have no idea if that made a difference. I'm using the same rep this time. We'll see what happens ( although not a guarantee cabin this time).

[stillfrantic]

Oh Mary Ann, so those balconies were bad? They should not be 'B' since so different from what they advertise. I'm sorry you were not able to switch to a clear balcony. Please tell me about the rest of the trip as we'll be going in a couple of months.

[Mary Ann 2]

If you will read the thread I started entitled "I now understand negative reviews" you will find out all about our cruise. If you have any other questions, let me know. We will have our website with pictures hopefully done by the end of this weekend.

[darnapar]

That is one of the negatives of not booking a specific room vs a guarantee. You can wind up with a great upgrade or a poor one. It is a crapshoot.

[SHayesShip]

In April I had a BC guarantee and was upgraded to an A category.

 

Steve Hayes

 

Just wanted know if anyone has booked any

guar rooms and did they get upgraded to better rooms. Me and my wife are going on our 3rd cruise, first time to book a balcony guarantee

 

Any help will be great!!

[Mary Ann 2]

We finished the website for our June 12 Zuiderdam cruise as I mentioned above:

 

http://gallery.scrapboxlabs.com/zuiderdam

 

if anyone was interested. My hubby actually didn't end up including any pictures of the cabin though.

[stillfrantic]

What wonderful photos, Mary Ann! Beautiful pictures of the ship.

[gliles]

Mary Ann-

Did you take any pictures of the cabin? We booked a BC guarantee for October and feel like if we are lucky enough to get an upgrade, it will probably be to another B with the solid steel but the BCs have the same and as always, we book what we would be happy with and take a chance that maybe we will get an upgrade. The BCs were so much less expensive than any other balcony so if we didn't do a guarantee, we would end up in an oceanview w/o balcony and I fiigure any balcony is better than none at all! Most of the time I spend sitting out there is reading so it doesn't matter that much and I am short so I find on other ships, the railing is right in my view when sitting anyway. Much as I would like to book one without the steel, again the BC guarantees are dirt cheap so I can't complain.

[gliles]

Oops, I just saw that you didn't take cabin pictures, sorry :rolleyes:

[Mary Ann 2]

We do have cabin pictures, we just didn't put any on the website, but realized that we never took a picture of the steel balcony - probably because we never wanted to see it again -LOL!!! But it would have been a good idea; sorry I didn't think of it...

 

Could add a cabin picture if anyone really wants to see one.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Mary Ann, thanks for sharing your Zuirderdam pictures. What was funny is while we were on the Oosterdam this past May we just could not see much difference between the 2 ships. In reviewing your pictures I know can see that the colors are a lot more vivid on the Zuirderdam. I am not saying that is bad we loved the Zuirderdam but it is funny I can now notice the difference.

 

I have one question. The Sting Ray excursion you did was that booked from the ship?

 

Thanks again for sharing, you took some great pictures.:cool:

[dst]

WOW - what great pics, we leave for the "Z" in a few weeks and now I feel like i know the ship. It looks beautiful.....thanks for taking the time to post these!

 

Can you tell me what type of cabin you had, we are in 7070

[Mary Ann 2]

dst- we had 4035; the solid balcony is only a problem on the 4th deck on the front

 

laffnvegas -yes, we took the ship's excursion and were very pleased with it; I had read all about other options here and considered them, but really prefer not worrying about unforseen occurances and missing the ship. We stayed longer than any of the other ships, even the little private ones, and they made sure everyone had an opportunity to hold the stingray and feed them if you wanted.

 

thanks all for the compliments