Barter for an upgrade onboard?

[swanseaboy]

Fellow Sailors!!

 

Have any of you successfully bartered for an upgrade onboard? I'm booked in the cheap seats (inside) for my next cruise and was thinking of popping to reception on day 2 to ask how much to upgrade to balcony. My buddy has done this from a standard balcony to a superior balcony. They wanted £450 but he got them down to £300. I know my ship is not sailing full as they are still selling all cabin types. I might be very cheeky and slip the receptionist £20 but I'd imagine I'll have to deal with the hotel manager? Your experiences please.....thanks!

Edited March 4, 2023 by swanseaboy

[david63]

On all the cruises I have done recently there has been a notice at reception that there are no vacant cabins (or something to that effect).

 

No harm in trying your luck.

[wowzz]

You can try, but why wait to day 2 ?

 

[TigerB]

51 minutes ago, swanseaboy said:

Fellow Sailors!!

 

Have any of you successfully bartered for an upgrade onboard? I'm booked in the cheap seats (inside) for my next cruise and was thinking of popping to reception on day 2 to ask how much to upgrade to balcony. My buddy has done this from a standard balcony to a superior balcony. They wanted £450 but he got them down to £300. I know my ship is not sailing full as they are still selling all cabin types. I might be very cheeky and slip the receptionist £20 but I'd imagine I'll have to deal with the hotel manager? Your experiences please.....thanks!

 

As wowzz writes, why wait until day 2? Go to reception as soon as you embark, while it is quiet.

 

We were on the maiden Caribbean cruise on Arvia in January, and had an inside accessible cabin on deck 9. There was nothing wrong with it, and although it had been downgraded to a partially accessible cabin, my wife managed fine in her wheelchair.

I called P&O four days before the cruise, I was told that the only available accessible higher grade cabins were a suite, for which there was a wait list, one GB and one GA. During that call, the price to upgrade to the GA from our PF inside would have been just short of £1200; and that was based on the price we paid when we booked our cruise; it would have been more if we had booked later. The advisor suggested I ask once we were onboard as things may have changed, and we may get a better price.

 

After embarkation, while it was quiet at reception, I took the opportunity to ask if there were any upgrades available, and more importantly, how much would they be. I had set myself an upper limit of £40 per night, but I really didn't expect there to be anything.

The next morning we had a letter outside our cabin, it informed us our upgrade request had been approved; we had been offered a mid-ship GA balcony on deck 11. The upgrade cost: a big fat £0.👍

 

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by TigerB

[swanseaboy]

Thanks very much for these replies. Really helpful. I'll make my way to reception as soon as I board 😃

[TigerB]

2 minutes ago, swanseaboy said:

Thanks very much for these replies. Really helpful. I'll make my way to reception as soon as I board 😃

 

You're welcome.🙂

Do as I did, and call ahead to check how much an upgrade would be for each of the cabin grades you fancy; then you can set yourself a limit for how much you are prepared to pay.

As I wrote, I was prepared to pay up to £40 per night; I felt very lucky to get it for nowt, and not sure it that will happen again. Our ship was at 80% capacity.