Guarantee Balcony on Princess Cruises

[mrav8tr]

I wasn't able to find a past thread on this for Princess Cruises.  Can you share your experience when choosing a Guarantee Balcony with Princess Cruises.  I have never done this before but the price is significantly lower.  Would like to know the full spectrum of what we could end up with, i.e., Obstructed, Mini Suite, etc. and how it worked out for you. Good or Bad.

 

Thanks so much!

[thinfool]

Just now, mrav8tr said:

I wasn't able to find a past thread on this for Princess Cruises.  Can you share your experience when choosing a Guarantee Balcony with Princess Cruises.  I have never done this before but the price is significantly lower.  Would like to know the full spectrum of what we could end up with, i.e., Obstructed, Mini Suite, etc. and how it worked out for you. Good or Bad.

 

Thanks so much!

Our TA booked us on a BD guarantee, we actually got a BB room.  Great location on the Caribe deck, Emerald Princess.  (Caribbean cruise a few years ago.)  You will never be assigned a cabin of a lesser grade than the level of guarantee that you booked.

Also, you may not know what/where your room is until the last week before you sail.

[2theship]

For the most part, our experience has been the same as thinfool. We pay for the lowest type of cabin we are willing to accept and have always gotten something better. The one exception was on the Royal where we paid for an unobstructed premium deluxe balcony guarantee and got an awful cabin. Our feelings may have been colored by the fact that we did not care for the ship in general and the Royal's tiny balconies. But, we had a cabin with a giant outdoor clock hung right outside that was brightly lit at all hours. It also overlooked a crew area where there were loud voices also at all hours. It was the Royal's first transatlantic so there wasn't much information about that class of ship but you can find out a lot more now. Once you have a cabin assigned, do some research and see if you can get changed if it's not to your liking.

[deultgen]

We have booked a "guarantee balcony" many times.  Sometimes a very good balcony room, sometimes a room which is just fine considering what we paid, and other times we have had a room which I would have NEVER chosen ourselves but been ok with.   

 

As long as you are ok with the potential of being assigned one of the "least desirable" balcony cabins you should be fine.  Anything above that is a bonus.

 

With the current Princess push to upsell rooms, your chance at a suite is small, but possible.  

 

In my opinion, you are most likely going to get a balcony room ....... but one nobody else wanted to choose.  Maybe a room with a slight obstruction (like above), or a balcony near an outdoor public smoking section, or maybe a balcony room with something directly above your room like the fitness center (treadmills) or the children's "club" or with the pizza or burger station with tables and chairs above.  

 

In general, if it is a good price, we have always been ok with the room we were assigned.  And as others have said, you may get an assignment early, you may get a room assigned right before you depart.  

[thinfool]

The above comments are correct, however, you can book a guarantee at a level that has no objectionable cabins.  

If you book the cheapest level guarantee balcony, then, yes...you could get the bottom of the barrel.  But if you book a BC guarantee you will always get, at least, a BC.

 

[Georgie562]

On our upcoming cruise, my sister booked a Guarantee BY -Balcony (Obstructed) on Royal Princess

Just a few weeks ago they got upgraded (complimentary) to Category DE- Deluxe Balcony  and got assigned their stateroom as well.

[minabruuke]

I actually really like guarantees.  Checking the cruise personalizer for a cabin assignment just adds a little excitement for me.  It helps that we are not picky about location.  I feel like we've been quite lucky with our guarantees. For our upcoming cruise we booked a BY guarantee (obstructed balcony) and we were assigned to a DC (deluxe unobstructed balcony).  

 

We often book after final payment and thus typically the best cabins have already been picked up and the remaining cabins have nothing particularly special that would make me book one over the other (none with a larger room, larger balcony, unique & preferable layout, etc.).  Under those circumstances I will go with a guarantee cabin when the option is available.  

[Colo Cruiser]

I agree, if you are not concerned about being randomly assigned a cabin up to a day or 2 before your sail date then go for it.

You are guaranteed a cabin in the cat you chose or higher.

 

There are always posters here on CC that are really dissatisfied with their cabin assignment and also upset that post.........

HELP!  "it is really close to my cruise and I don't have an assignment yet"! 

or "I was assigned cabin ****, it is close to so and so or such and such etc.

 

 

[Qcruise]

Our experience was not good the one time we booked a "guarantee" balcony on Princess.  While they assigned us a Caribe deck balcony which has the larger balconies,  this one was directly behind the bridge starboard side on the Crown.  It was a Caribbean cruise and the first two days happened to be high seas.....being that far forward made our life in that cabin challenging at best.  Imagine your floor dropping out from under you some forty feet,  then pushing back upward that far.  Never again ....we pay for a cabin in midship area we want.  Good luck.

[memoak]

As long as you are willing to have a balcony in an area that you really don't want to have (for me that would be extreme forward  then you can save some money this way - Personally I am willing to pay more to get the area of the ship that I like.  A far as upsells go I would not expect an upsell to a full suite those will go to people in mini suites first.  Then you may be offered an upsell to a mini suite.

[BuckGood]

We booked our 19 night HKG-SYD for September last November and the Only balconies available were GTY BF category on the Sun Princess, we know this category is on R deck front of ship and we are ok, currently there are No balcony available so we will see what we get, I’m sure after the final payment is due on June 28th things will change but we will see! 🤞

[geoherb]

We haven't had a bad balcony cabin guarantee assignment, but we're not picky about location.

[ohnonotmeagain]

Recently booked BF category and was given BD. Booked 6 months ago and was given cabin 2 weeks before sailing. We don't mind what location we are in and it saved approx £100 each at the time,so worth it for us.