Cabin availability on B2B cruises

[joe d]

We generally book B2B cruises in the Caribbean in winter. We prefer an interior cabin on the middle decks but I have noticed that Princess seems to make very few of these cabins available for a 14 day booking. As an example, I am looking at interior cabins in the forward section for January 2020. There are only 5 cabins available for the 14 day cruise. Four are sideways cabins and the other is at the extreme front. Meanwhile, there are 60 preferable cabins available for both weeks. I have considered booking two individual weeks but the price is higher, I only have 1FCC left, and my Shareholders credit would be worth less.

Has anyone ever had success in getting any of these other cabins to open up?

[-Lew-]

Do you work with a TA? If so, ask them to contact Princess to request they convert a cabin showing availability for two 7-day B2B to a 14-day booking. My TA has done a variant of this for us a number of times.

[moki'smommy]

Lew got it right and said it almost exactly as I was thinking--your TA should be able to work this out for you with no difficulty. You likely won't be able to do it on the phone with a Princess rep as they often don't know what they are doing. Give your TA a list or range of cabins that you'd consider OK and see what they can do for you.

[Mapu]

Lew got it right and said it almost exactly as I was thinking--your TA should be able to work this out for you with no difficulty. You likely won't be able to do it on the phone with a Princess rep as they often don't know what they are doing. Give your TA a list or range of cabins that you'd consider OK and see what they can do for you.

Ditto! From experience your travel agent needs to call Princess and request that "yield management" be contacted on your behalf to make it happen.

[Mindy43]

We have a 14 day b2b booked for January and we also wanted it booked b2b rather than 2 consecutive cruises but were unable to get the cabin we wanted even though each segment showed as available. Our travel agent called Princess and she was told it was a computer thing and it was not possible to override the program. (We decided Due to shareholders credits and Military credits it was better to book it as a 14 day.). The room we have will be fine but I don’t understand Princess reasoning.

[koolforkatz]

I was able to do this on a b2b and I had a cabin in mind I wanted. I had booked directly with Princess so spoke to somewhere there who was super helpful. He couldn't do it himself, but got back to me the next day to tell me it had been taken care of.

 

 

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[voljeep]

We have a 14 day b2b booked for January and we also wanted it booked b2b rather than 2 consecutive cruises but were unable to get the cabin we wanted even though each segment showed as available. Our travel agent called Princess and she was told it was a computer thing and it was not possible to override the program. (We decided Due to shareholders credits and Military credits it was better to book it as a 14 day.). The room we have will be fine but I don’t understand Princess reasoning.

 

Mindy, you 'may' want to consider using a new TA if they accepted the answer that the computer couldn't be overridden ... maybe not by the first person that answered the TA's call to Princess...but certainly can be by a supervisor..:halo:

 

your TA 'did' call Princess, right??

[Reina del Mar]

Our travel agent was unable to contact Princess USA to swap 2 x 7 night to a 14 night, when I wanted to book, due to time difference.

 

Obviously she wanted the booking, so she offered the next grade Balcony cabin (From mid aft to midships) , without incurring extra cost to us.

[Mindy43]

Mindy, you 'may' want to consider using a new TA if they accepted the answer that the computer couldn't be overridden ... maybe not by the first person that answered the TA's call to Princess...but certainly can be by a supervisor..:halo:

 

your TA 'did' call Princess, right??

 

She is a good travel agent and she did call Princess. She too was a little frustrated.

[rcp6146]

I had the same issue. The cabin I wanted was not available for a 20 day booking but it did show in both 10 day. I called Princess and they were so nice. She could not do it herself but put me on hold while she contacted Customer Service. They couldn't do it either and she put me back on hold and contacted Customer Relations. Done Deal! The cabin I wanted was re-allocated to the inventory of the 20 day cruise. Princess is the Best ! :)

[moki'smommy]

I really don't understand why they would not re-allocate a cabin if they have a passenger who wants to book it. But they do have some rather weird policies at times. We were told once that it "couldn't be done." OK, we didn't book.

[shepp]

I was facing the same dilemma with booking an obstructed OV on a long Japan cruise that's also a b-2-b. One long cruise would have gotten me more OBC and was slightly cheaper. But my TA, whose very experienced with Princess and has worked a few semi-miracles for me, said that she couldn't override the advertised availability, (She said that in similar circumstances, only booking a wheelchair cabin would work.) So I went ahead and booked the same cabin for both legs, with the understanding that an upgrade, should one appear, might only apply to one of the two bookings.

 

But maybe I should have called Princess directly?

[IECalCruiser]

We had a cruise with two legs booked as a single cruise. With the Time Away Sale booking the individual cruises the cruise fare alone was almost 20% less. Our DD was across from our balcony cabin in a inside. There was no combination of a balcony and inside close to each other available. I called Princess and was able to get our current cabin opened to book as two cruises and we were able to save the money with the sale. Interestingly, DD’s inside was cheaper for the 28 day cruise with the free gratuities so we didn’t change her booking. I have been able to address several other item successfully without involving my TA. I mainly use my current TA for the 7-10% cruise fare savings she can provide.

 

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Edited May 21, 2018 by IECalCruiser

[caribill]

The room we have will be fine but I don’t understand Princess reasoning.

 

At leat for your cruise chancesd are all the cabins will be sold, either separately or for the combined B2B.

 

I was on one Princess Trans-Atlantic. It started in Houston and then picked up more passengers in Fort Lauderdale. Cabins were allocated to either Houston to Southampton or Fort Lauderdale to Southampton. If a cabin that was allocated for starting in Fort Lauderdale was wanted by someone boarding in Houston, Princess would not make it possible.

 

 

Since nobody could legally book a cabin from Houston to Fort Lauderdale, Princess would rather have the cabin vacant for that portion of the cruise than allow the cabin to be booked from Houston to Southampton.