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Booked guarantee rate, cabin assigned, price went down - do I need to give up cabin?

MisterBill99
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MisterBill99

MisterBill99

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I booked a guarantee balcony (cat X) on Anthem in January. I was assigned a D7 cabin almost immediately and was able to switch it to something with a bigger balcony. Yesterday I noticed that the price of guarantee went down ($75 total for 2 people) so I asked my TA to get me the lower price. She said that I would need to give up my cabin and go back into guarantee state. Is that correct? I told her to do it, since I had read that others who booked cat X got better than the D7 I was assigned (although I was happy with the cabin I switched to).

 

BTW someone on our roll call thread called Royal and was told that they try to avoid giving DO (obstructed view) cabins for guarantee bookings. That was my original fear when booking the guarantee cabin to begin with, and was thrilled when I got the D7.

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MisterBill99

MisterBill99

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A guarantee is just that. A guarantee you will get that category cabin. You may do better or worse, but that's the chance you take when you re-price a booking.

I understand what a guarantee is. My question was whether I'd have to give up the cabin. I guess the question is, does re-pricing equal re-booking. If I re-price a normal non-guarantee rate, does my cabin get released and immediately re-assigned? I never thought that it did. Why would a guarantee work differently?

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Clarea

Clarea

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I understand what a guarantee is. My question was whether I'd have to give up the cabin. I guess the question is, does re-pricing equal re-booking. If I re-price a normal non-guarantee rate, does my cabin get released and immediately re-assigned? I never thought that it did. Why would a guarantee work differently?

If you re-price a non-guarantee booking, your stateroom does not get released, they just change the price. Unfortunately, I don't know the current policy on guarantee bookings.

Edited by clarea
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Royal2464

Royal2464

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I understand what a guarantee is. My question was whether I'd have to give up the cabin. I guess the question is, does re-pricing equal re-booking. If I re-price a normal non-guarantee rate, does my cabin get released and immediately re-assigned? I never thought that it did. Why would a guarantee work differently?

 

Sorry I was not clearer on the issue you questioned. Yes it is my understanding that when re-pricing a guarantee booking the room you currently have would be released and you would be reassigned a room when Royal chooses to make the assignment. This I based on personal experience, but we all know "your mileage may vary" when asking a question with Royal.

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MisterBill99

MisterBill99

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Sorry I was not clearer on the issue you questioned. Yes it is my understanding that when re-pricing a guarantee booking the room you currently have would be released and you would be reassigned a room when Royal chooses to make the assignment. This I based on personal experience, but we all know "your mileage may vary" when asking a question with Royal.

 

Thanks. I'm going to do it, since as I mentioned, others on my cruise have gotten better categories than me. I look at it as another roll of the dice :). Maybe I'll get luckier this time.

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Clarea

Clarea

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I ended up with a DO obstructed view cabin :(. I guess RCCL doesn't like me, even though I am Diamond. On the other hand, I did save $75.

Are there any other staterooms available in the same exact category that are not obstructed?

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MisterBill99

MisterBill99

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Are there any other staterooms available in the same exact category that are not obstructed?

By definition, all cabins in the DO category are obstructed. There are just different levels of obstruction.

 

I asked my TA if we could try switching back to cat X again, maybe tomorrow if the price does not go up, and see if I get luckier the second time. I actually have 3 cabins booked on the cruise and am probably only using 1 of them (my kids are almost definitely not going to be able to join us). If I'd realized that this could happen, I would have tried switching one of the cabins which I am likely to cancel, and when I saw it come up as DO I might have decided not to switch the others. They're all booked using a NextCruise certificate, so I'm pretty sure that I would need to sail on the main reservation to keep the OBC. All 3 got DO's.

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Clarea

Clarea

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By definition, all cabins in the DO category are obstructed. There are just different levels of obstruction.....

Oh wow, I was not familiar with that category. Sorry it didn't turn out better.

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MisterBill99

MisterBill99

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Maybe you should use that $75 in the casino. ;)

I won $200 on Celebrity Summit in August on a penny slot machine using free credits, so I think I should stay away from casinos and not push my luck! Plus, that money is probably cursed given what they did with the cabin assignment!

 

I was able to move to cabin 6690 which has a huge balcony (it's right under a D1 cabin), so I'm sure I will survive. It's only 50% obstructed.

 

Oh and my TA said you cannot switch back to guarantee more than twice. Maybe to prevent people from doing what I had hoped to do, get another roll of the dice on cabin assignment.

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mrsbojamp

mrsbojamp

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Wow, your story is very similar to mine. I did this yesterday. I'm on the 1/25 sailing of the Anthem. I had a guarantee balcony that got assigned the day after I booked. It turned out to be a D4 which was on deck 13 forward. I was pretty happy about that. Then I saw the price went down yesterday, so I called to get the reduction. I was told I would have to give up that room and go back into the guarantee pool. I figured that I got lucky before and also had been told when I first booked that they don't usually give the obstructed view cabins to guarantee bookings - but, of course, there was no guarantee. So after changing the booking, I logged on to "my cruises" and saw "obstructed view balcony guarantee." I was SOOOO upset with myself. I called back and wanted to undo what I had just done, but that was not allowed. After a long conversation with the representative and me wanting to cancel, he finally convinced me to give it a few days and see what happens since I had until mid November to cancel. Lo and behold a few hours later I checked again and actually had been assigned a D1! I was hoping that the same might happen for you - but just re-reading your last post, I see that you do actually have a cabin assignment. I'm not going to push my luck anymore!!!

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MisterBill99

MisterBill99

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Lo and behold a few hours later I checked again and actually had been assigned a D1! I was hoping that the same might happen for you - but just re-reading your last post, I see that you do actually have a cabin assignment. I'm not going to push my luck anymore!!!

Wow, lucky you! I have 2 reservations that I did not touch the cabins on so we'll see if any of them get upgraded. Given that I got the D1-size balcony, I am not going to be that upset if we end up there.

 

And given that you have now booked guarantee twice, it would seem that you can't switch to it again, or so claims my TA. So no more pushing your lucky even if you wanted to!

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Starry Eyes

Starry Eyes

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Wow, lucky you! I have 2 reservations that I did not touch the cabins on so we'll see if any of them get upgraded. Given that I got the D1-size balcony, I am not going to be that upset if we end up there.

 

And given that you have now booked guarantee twice, it would seem that you can't switch to it again, or so claims my TA. So no more pushing your lucky even if you wanted to!

 

So, is your TA saying that if there is another price drop on balcony gty, then you cannot take advantage because you have been in the pool twice (at different price points each time)? Call me cynical, but that sounds like a don't-bug- me-all-the-time/labor-saver for the TA. It does not sound like a cruiseline policy (after all, if such a drop happens before final payment, under North American booking rules one could typically cancel the current reservation and re-book at a lower price...and I might just do that (booking direct) if the TA did not help me get a future price drop.

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John&LaLa "Live from...." Rare

John&LaLa

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Hey, if you walked into the casino and everyone was winning, and you won the first time, and the C&A rep told you that they try to let everyone win, wouldn't you?

 

I wouldn't gamble my cabin for $75.

However, as always, YMMV

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John&LaLa "Live from...." Rare

John&LaLa

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So, is your TA saying that if there is another price drop on balcony gty, then you cannot take advantage because you have been in the pool twice (at different price points each time)? Call me cynical, but that sounds like a don't-bug- me-all-the-time/labor-saver for the TA. It does not sound like a cruiseline policy (after all, if such a drop happens before final payment, under North American booking rules one could typically cancel the current reservation and re-book at a lower price...and I might just do that (booking direct) if the TA did not help me get a future price drop.

 

Pretty sure they meant they couldn't change cabins again, no mention of no price drops allowed

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