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Guarantee Assignment?

SusieS

By SusieS,
in Princess Cruises

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SusieS

SusieS

Posted
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Hi everyone- We are booked on the Ruby Mexican Riviera Cruise, January 6-13, & still don’t have a room assignment. I’m hoping this means a good upgrade!! We’re booked for a forward inside room, as that is what was left at a very cheap rate! Fingers crossed.....one never knows!

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Thrak

Thrak

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You will either get exactly what you booked or an "upgrade" even it it's the cabin next door that's considered "better" because of the line of demarcation between forward and mid-forward. You might get a really nice surprise or.... not. We once booked a forward inside cabin on Crown and were automagically upgraded to a HC balcony cabin on Caribe deck. At least you will have a cabin and be cruising. Enjoy your cruise. :D

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voljeep

voljeep

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We have a cruise the week after you and are also waiting for a cabin.

 

I think more and more, Princess tries to fill out the ship by offering upsells rather than upgrades.

 

as they should and then upgrades to clear any waitlist for the lower priced cabins

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CMHCruiseCouple

CMHCruiseCouple

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My last guaranteed cabin experience was similar to Thrak's. I had a guaranteed cabin of the highest grade of on Ocean View. At the dock the "luggage master" informed me of my cabin assignment - a decent balcony. The suspense was killing my wife - she likes a sure thing.

 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Forums mobile app

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Mike45LC

Mike45LC

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I have only gotten a "real" upgrade once. Once I had an outside cabin (unobstructed) guarantee and I was upgraded to a balcony. I was not expecting that because there were no balcony cabins available when I booked.

 

Otherwise, I have always been given what I booked. I don't count position of the cabin. If I was guaranteed an unobstructed outside, and they want to tell me that I was upgraded to an amidship outside, BFD, it is still what I booked!

 

The latest I was ever given my assignment was the night before. I don't think I'd be happy not knowing until I got to the pier!!

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kms5555

kms5555

Posted
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We booked 4 guarantee OZ obstructed view (lowest category) cabins for our family of 8. After final payment, they gave us our cabin assignments that day. Two OC and one OF cabins on deck 5 and one OV on deck 8. One of the OC unobstructed cabins was for 4 so the overhead bunks were a BAD upgrade so I called and they would only give us another cabin in OZ what we paid for. There was 1 cabin open in OZ at the time of calling in so we switched out that room to a 2 person room on deck 8 in the OZ category (a big downgrade). My son would rather have an obstructed view over looking a tender than bunk beds in the way. Our OV obstructed category room is next to the panoramic elevators mid ship. Hopefully that will not be a mistake. The OF Unobstructed category room is one of the smaller rooms front of ship with only one side table and the beds really only work as twins. We kept the other OC room as it does look to be a solid 2 person UNobstructed room. So Yes we were given "upgrade rooms" but none of them are rooms that would be booked by anyone if a room were to be chosen. All of our family is situated away from each other on different sides of the ship. Guarantee cabins not the best for us. All of these rooms that were given are rooms that are the last to go on most cruises. Does not matter if you are a past cruiser, shareholder or new cruiser, The computer puts you where it wants to and for the most part you are stuck with it unless you want to pay more. If I wanted to move my OV to an OC and be with the family closer it would cost us $300 more per person, but moving from OC to OZ we were given nothing because that is what we paid for. They would only let us move back to an OZ if we did not like any room. So it does not matter if you know about your room or not, you will get a room.

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clcmdse

clcmdse

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Well, we received our stateroom tonight just in advance of sailing tomorrow. We had booked a mini-suite guaranteed and tonight we were very pleasantly surprised to see that we had been upgraded to a suite. :D

 

I am also of the view that upsells, rather than upgrades, are the norm. No idea why we were selected, but we are quite excited.

 

 

 

Catherine

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lego606

lego606

Posted
Posted
Hi everyone- We are booked on the Ruby Mexican Riviera Cruise, January 6-13, & still don’t have a room assignment. I’m hoping this means a good upgrade!! We’re booked for a forward inside room, as that is what was left at a very cheap rate! Fingers crossed.....one never knows!

 

I’ll be joining you on that cruise! We’ve been in a BF Balcony guarantee for about a month or so if I’m not mistaken, still unassigned. Best of luck on the room!

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Knickearth

Knickearth

Posted
Posted
Hi everyone- We are booked on the Ruby Mexican Riviera Cruise, January 6-13, & still don’t have a room assignment. I’m hoping this means a good upgrade!! We’re booked for a forward inside room, as that is what was left at a very cheap rate! Fingers crossed.....one never knows!

 

Sorry to burst your bubble. We r booked for a dec. 30 cruise and got our cabin 9 days prior no upgrade.

:D

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socaljo

socaljo

Posted
Posted
Well, we received our stateroom tonight just in advance of sailing tomorrow. We had booked a mini-suite guaranteed and tonight we were very pleasantly surprised to see that we had been upgraded to a suite. :D

 

I am also of the view that upsells, rather than upgrades, are the norm. No idea why we were selected, but we are quite excited.

 

 

 

Catherine

 

What a dream!! What a great chance to relax! Enjoy and come back & tell us how the suite life really is!! :D

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clcmdse

clcmdse

Posted
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What a dream!! What a great chance to relax! Enjoy and come back & tell us how the suite life really is!! :D

 

 

 

Thank you! We have boarded and are enjoying getting reacquainted with Princess. Embarkation was a breeze and we took advantage of a delightful club class dining lunch. None of which we would have had without this wonderful upgrade gift.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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WillandTam

WillandTam

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We booked a balcony guarantee on the Crown on January 20th and have received our assignment, with which we are pleased. It a BC category on the Riviera deck midship starboard. Considering we caught a sale and purchased the cabin for $229 pp a couple weeks ago we are ecstatic. This will be my 4th Princess cruise out of 19 and they seem to never disappoint!

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spersephone

spersephone

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Is there any benefit to booking an unknown cabin as opposed to selecting your cabin at booking? I'm travelling with my Mum, husband and children. We scoured the ship when booking (in January this year) and found two cabins next to each other, so snapped them up. They're not connected, but we thought that it would be great to be next door.

 

We have now been upgraded to one of the family suites which will be absolutely amazing, I'm sure. I believe they wanted our cabins to give to others who hadn't been allocated rooms yet. But I don't really know.

 

They also said there were additional benefits attached to being upgraded.

 

As more or less cruise virgins (I've had a two night mini cruise a few years ago only), will we even realise what we are entitled to enjoy? How will we know what special little benefits we can use that we wouldn't otherwise have had?

 

However, apart from that - why would you choose to not know where you'll be in advance? Is it just because there is more chance of you being offered an upgrade? I know our situation was a little different. We had contacted Princess and advised them that we were travelling together, and the rooms were chosen to be next to each other because of that reason. I guess that means they knew we'd jump at the suite upgrade. I was told that I had to decide, or else it was going to be offered to another group.

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nojoke

nojoke

Posted
Posted

About 10 days ago we caught an excellent price for a 10 day Caribbean cruise leaving in mid-January2018. We booked Gty balcony. A couple of days ago we were assigned a balcony BB category. We would have been happy with any balcony, but this is a very nice surprise. They called it an “upgrade “ from BE to B.B.

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runnerodb83

runnerodb83

Posted
Posted
Is there any benefit to booking an unknown cabin as opposed to selecting your cabin at booking? I'm travelling with my Mum, husband and children. We scoured the ship when booking (in January this year) and found two cabins next to each other, so snapped them up. They're not connected, but we thought that it would be great to be next door.

 

We have now been upgraded to one of the family suites which will be absolutely amazing, I'm sure. I believe they wanted our cabins to give to others who hadn't been allocated rooms yet. But I don't really know.

 

They also said there were additional benefits attached to being upgraded.

 

As more or less cruise virgins (I've had a two night mini cruise a few years ago only), will we even realise what we are entitled to enjoy? How will we know what special little benefits we can use that we wouldn't otherwise have had?

 

However, apart from that - why would you choose to not know where you'll be in advance? Is it just because there is more chance of you being offered an upgrade? I know our situation was a little different. We had contacted Princess and advised them that we were travelling together, and the rooms were chosen to be next to each other because of that reason. I guess that means they knew we'd jump at the suite upgrade. I was told that I had to decide, or else it was going to be offered to another group.

 

Most cabins are the same with the only difference in location among cabin categories. I think that the most people that let princess choose are either unaware that they can choose or don't care (newer cruisers) or folks wishing for a 'meta' upgrade to a different type (balcony to mini-suite, etc). While an upgrade of that caliber (or the one you got) is impossible to guarantee, its possible to tilt the odds in your favor. Generally, cruise lines like to upgrade new cruisers such as yourself. If the ship isn't selling well, upgrades occasionally will happen. Finally, if a cabin category is oversold, you may be bumped up. Suites and the lowest insides typically sell the quickest since they are the odd match of low supply and high demand, either for the nicest rooms on the ship, or the least expensive. Princess will usually sell more IF category cabins (inside) than are available, by people directly booking a cabin and then by guarantee assignments. People rarely book IB and IA cabins as they are typically around the same price as oceanview obstructed cabins so that provides room for the cruise line to upgrade people from IF to IA or IB, which are just in more "desirable" locations compared to the relative motion of the ship. Then folks get the "complimentary" upgrade email and get all excited like its christmas morning only to find out that an IA cabin is nearly identical to an IF cabin, but a bit further from things. Princess will do these "upgrade" waves as many times as needed where the IF cabins will be oversold, and then the next day, the IA and IB cabins are sold out and there are more IF cabin guarantees available.

 

However, if its a popular voyage, the algorithm that determines cabin prices and "upgrade waves" may

 

Moral of the story, if you want to play the guarantee game, book guarantee in categories with only a few cabins. We've begun the tedious task of counting cabins in each category on each ship to help folks. See more info here:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/princesscruisesfaq/home/cabin-upgrade-statistics/upgrade-tips

https://sites.google.com/site/princesscruisesfaq/home/cabin-upgrade-statistics

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