RoyalUP? (Bid for stateroom upgrade)

[barry1984]

Not much recent activity on this thread but wanted to share my first ever successful experience of RoyalUp.

 

Booked an interior mid ship deck 6 stateroom on Harmony sailing July 2023. RoyalUp opened just over a month before sailing and I put bids on most categories from Oceanview Balcony down to Spacious Interior.

A little over 3 weeks prior to sailing, I received the success message and reissued booking confirmation. My “weak” bid of £255pp for an oceanview balcony was accepted! Very happy with the cabin location too - mid ship, mid deck.

 

I have no idea how this happened - the sailing is virtually full with only one OV balcony for sale at more than 3 times the price I paid.

 

Pleasantly surprised to say the least!

[BBQ Bacon]

My question then is do you get the upgraded points for the higher category room?

 

[Biker19]

9 minutes ago, BBQ Bacon said:

My question then is do you get the upgraded points for the higher category room?

 

No.

[gavvy]

My anthem trip in September just opened up. Some really low upgrade min bids. I'm in oceanview and it's a min of $50pp for a balcony 55 for restricted view balcony and $200 for a jr suite. 

Edited June 23, 2023 by gavvy

[Ready2SailAway]

22 hours ago, barry1984 said:

Not much recent activity on this thread but wanted to share my first ever successful experience of RoyalUp.

 

Booked an interior mid ship deck 6 stateroom on Harmony sailing July 2023. RoyalUp opened just over a month before sailing and I put bids on most categories from Oceanview Balcony down to Spacious Interior.

A little over 3 weeks prior to sailing, I received the success message and reissued booking confirmation. My “weak” bid of £255pp for an oceanview balcony was accepted! Very happy with the cabin location too - mid ship, mid deck.

 

I have no idea how this happened - the sailing is virtually full with only one OV balcony for sale at more than 3 times the price I paid.

 

Pleasantly surprised to say the least!

 

Well played - congrats!

 

[KKB]

17 hours ago, gavvy said:

My anthem trip in September just opened up. Some really low upgrade min bids. I'm in oceanview and it's a min of $50pp for a balcony 55 for restricted view balcony and $200 for a jr suite. 

When in Sept--I sail the Quantum in Sept as well. GREAT opening bids!

Did you get an email?

Edited June 24, 2023 by KKB

[Ready2SailAway]

On 6/22/2023 at 4:23 PM, barry1984 said:

A little over 3 weeks prior to sailing, I received the success message and reissued booking confirmation. My “weak” bid of £255pp for an oceanview balcony was accepted! Very happy with the cabin location too - mid ship, mid deck.

 

I have no idea how this happened - the sailing is virtually full with only one OV balcony for sale at more than 3 times the price I paid.

 

Pleasantly surprised to say the least!

 

One tip I just learned - when you check for remaining rooms available on your cruise by searching with the default 1room/2ppl, it only shows double occupancy staterooms.  Instead try searching with 3 or 4ppl per room selected.

 

I tried this for our upcoming sailing: Searching with 2ppl selected only showed 1 Interior available - no OV or higher categories.  But when I changed my search to 3-4ppl, suddenly the RCCL website showed a lot of OV and Balcony inventory available for booking.

 

So besides last minute cancellations, this is another reason why staterooms become available for RoyalUP: 2ppl are allowed to upgrade into a room normally reserved for 3-4 guests.

 

Check it out and let me know!

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Ready2SailAway

[barry1984]

4 hours ago, Ready2SailAway said:

 

One tip I just learned - when you check for remaining rooms available on your cruise by searching with the default 1room/2ppl, it only shows double occupancy staterooms.  Instead try searching with 3 or 4ppl per room selected.

 

I tried this for our upcoming sailing: Searching with 2ppl selected only showed 1 Interior available - no OV or higher categories.  But when I changed my search to 3-4ppl, suddenly the RCCL website showed a lot of OV and Balcony inventory available for booking.

 

So besides last minute cancellations, this is another reason why staterooms become available for RoyalUP: 2ppl are allowed to upgrade into a room normally reserved for 3-4 guests.

 

Check it out and let me know!

 

Nice tip!

Gave this a go for my sailing and there’s no balcony cabins left at all for 1/2/3/4 people! Guess it’ll be a busy cruise!

[gavvy]

On 6/24/2023 at 3:47 PM, KKB said:

When in Sept--I sail the Quantum in Sept as well. GREAT opening bids!

Did you get an email?

 

September 5. I was surprised how low they are 

[Jbluebird]

On 6/25/2023 at 11:35 AM, Ready2SailAway said:

 

One tip I just learned - when you check for remaining rooms available on your cruise by searching with the default 1room/2ppl, it only shows double occupancy staterooms.  Instead try searching with 3 or 4ppl per room selected.

 

I tried this for our upcoming sailing: Searching with 2ppl selected only showed 1 Interior available - no OV or higher categories.  But when I changed my search to 3-4ppl, suddenly the RCCL website showed a lot of OV and Balcony inventory available for booking.

 

So besides last minute cancellations, this is another reason why staterooms become available for RoyalUP: 2ppl are allowed to upgrade into a room normally reserved for 3-4 guests.

 

Check it out and let me know!

 

Tried this and so far no more suites available, but a lot more Spacious Ocean View Balconies.  I guess that's not a popular category to purchase.

[KKB]

1 hour ago, Jbluebird said:

Tried this and so far no more suites available, but a lot more Spacious Ocean View Balconies.  I guess that's not a popular category to purchase.

Remember--there are more balconies than any other category on virtually every ship.

 

[Ready2SailAway]

 

Just received my RoyalUP email 2mos prior to our 7nt cruise on Navigator.  Current available booking inventory for 2ppl is limited to Interior rooms (Interior & Interior w/Virtual Balcony Guarantee, and a dozen Connecting Promenade Interior), but for 3+ppl there’s a lot of Interior, OV, Balcony and Spacious OV Balcony rooms; unfortunately no Suites ☹️.  We originally booked a Balcony Guarantee, then two days later a Balcony stateroom became available in an ideal location but I could not snag it online.  So I called RCCL and they were able to book it for me – only cost an additional $40!

 

Here are the categories and bidding ranges I was offered for upgrades:

·         Spacious OV Balcony:  $75-630pp

·         Junior Suite:  $95-$700pp

·         Grand Suite 1bdrm:  $125-$790pp

·         Grand Suite 2bdrm:  $190-$1400pp

 

We like our Balcony location so not interested in bidding on the Spacious OV Balcony (spacious is only an add’l 5sqft according to the room description on RCCL website?).  We’ll be pleasantly surprised if we win an upgrade to a Suite since no available inventory is showing at this time…

 

[shilu]

Hi,

If I have been issued luggage tags, does that mean Royal Up has not worked for me, bid status says submitted, sailing on SotS 9th July

[Starry Eyes]

2 hours ago, shilu said:

Hi,

If I have been issued luggage tags, does that mean Royal Up has not worked for me, bid status says submitted, sailing on SotS 9th July

No, the luggage tags for your current cabin are unrelated to your bid.  Your chance of a successful bid is the same.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Starry Eyes

[shilu]

Thank you

[GCS2000]

Crossing fingers for my wife and daughter's cruise in Sept.  Low min bids for all the suites (what they want to move to from current balcony cab) so submitted an above average bid for Jr, lowish bids for all the others.  Would be amazing if one of the higher suites is accepted but in truth the wife would be super thrilled just get the Jr.  Max Jr bid was only $300 per person so not terrible IMHO.  And yes I know Jr suites are much of an upgrade but wife likes the larger cabin and tub so worth it to her.

 

[Cruise a holic]

18 hours ago, GCS2000 said:

Crossing fingers for my wife and daughter's cruise in Sept.  Low min bids for all the suites (what they want to move to from current balcony cab) so submitted an above average bid for Jr, lowish bids for all the others.  Would be amazing if one of the higher suites is accepted but in truth the wife would be super thrilled just get the Jr.  Max Jr bid was only $300 per person so not terrible IMHO.  And yes I know Jr suites are much of an upgrade but wife likes the larger cabin and tub so worth it to her.

 

Also a great huge closet.  

[BecciBoo]

I'm hoping we get one next month for our Allure Sept. 3rd sailing, but sailing out of Texas, not much chance they're always so full.  But hope to try anyways.  We've only gotten one and have tried on almost every cruise within the last 3 years.

[BecciBoo]

I just checked and on My Cruises the RU is available for our cruise already 59 days out so I put in 3 bids all of $120 2pps-total on 3 different oceanview cabins, we had an interior before.  Hoping to get the Spacious Ocean View.  We'll see.  The balconies were $175pp min. so Hubs wouldn't go that high.  This was a tween cruise so we took an interior to save bucks.  Won't be too bad if we at  least snag a window!  LOL

[JAMESCC]

We had two cruises last summer, first since the awful pandemic but we won both Royal UP bids at the minimum or just a hair over I think on one. 

Really, really hoping to win a suite for our cruise in October from a balcony GTY. 🤞

[Ready2SailAway]

10 minutes ago, JAMESCC said:

We had two cruises last summer, first since the awful pandemic but we won both Royal UP bids at the minimum or just a hair over I think on one. 

Really, really hoping to win a suite for our cruise in October from a balcony GTY. 🤞

 

Hoping you do, too! 

 

In the meantime recommend that you keep checking online to see if a better cabin becomes available at a reasonable price so you can self-upgrade.

 

Example: We originally booked a Balcony Guarantee for our cruise next month, then two days later a Balcony stateroom became available in an ideal location but I could not snag it online.  So I called RCCL and they were able to book it for us – only cost an additional $40!

 

[CCRUZER]

I'm participating in Royal Up for the first time for my upcoming Sept. cruise. I bid on a Jr. suite with the minimum bid. How often and when do you modify your bid as I think I might want to increase my bid to make it more attractive.

[Biker19]

1 hour ago, CCRUZER said:

How often and when do you modify your bid as I think I might want to increase my bid to make it more attractive?

You can modify your bid at anytime till about two days out when the initial denial email usually comes.

[BecciBoo]

Or not 😅  on one cruise we were still waiting in the Centrum almost to sailaway... never did get any notice at all, asked the Loyalty Amb. and she checked it....nope, sorry Charlie.

[Driftwoodgal]

Curious, do you get extra cruise points if you upgrade to a suite? Please forgive me it this has been asked before.