124 Cabins left ... next day only suites?

[Roxxy]

Anyone have any idea or seen this in the past?  Looking one day at balcony rooms only and able to spot more than 100.  Looked again 3 days later and only showing Grand Suites! 3 weeks later and still only showing a handful of Suites.

A little concerned as I am booked in a GTY Balcony room for this October Mediterranean sailing on VOTS.

 

[Starry Eyes]

Just a guess…they may have accumulated enough bookings that gty guests will eventually fill all those (previously available) balcony cabins, so they stopped taking balcony reservations.  If people cancel or upgrade, the category may open again.

[Ourusualbeach]

40 minutes ago, Roxxy said:

Anyone have any idea or seen this in the past?  Looking one day at balcony rooms only and able to spot more than 100.  Looked again 3 days later and only showing Grand Suites! 3 weeks later and still only showing a handful of Suites.

A little concerned as I am booked in a GTY Balcony room for this October Mediterranean sailing on VOTS.

 

Either to fill gty bookings or they have been pulled for Royal up allocation..

 

You have nothing to be concerned about.

[Starry Eyes]

38 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Either to fill gty bookings or they have been pulled for Royal up allocation..

 

You have nothing to be concerned about.

Do you think they are doing large numbers of RoyalUp allocations five months out?  I don’t think I usually even have bidding offers then.

Edited May 28 by Starry Eyes

[cruiseguy1016]

If all of the balcony cabins are sold out, they'll have to upgrade your balcony GTY to a suite. 😁

[taglovestocruise]

3 hours ago, cruiseguy1016 said:

If all of the balcony cabins are sold out, they'll have to upgrade your balcony GTY to a suite. 😁

[Another_Critic]

1 hour ago, taglovestocruise said:

I was actually upgraded from two [deck 2] oceanview cabins to a 2BR GS.

 

Disclaimer:  This was 7 years ago.

[BirdTravels]

8 hours ago, Roxxy said:

A little concerned as I am booked in a GTY Balcony room for this October Mediterranean sailing on VOTS.

There is commotion over on NCL because one of their ships was oversold and GTY passenger denied boarding and left behind on embarkation day this past weekend. 

Edited May 29 by BirdTravels

[nelblu]

Funny, yesterday I was doing a mock booking for Utopia August 26 sail and there were a ton of interiors and Ocean View balconies, as of now they are all sold out.  Personally, I think it's an IT issue.

 

Will try again later today.

Edited May 29 by nelblu

[FOXTROT]

Don't worry you will have a cabin on the ship. You booked a GTY balcony & that is the least you will get. 

[Biker19]

Just now, FOXTROT said:

Don't worry you will have a cabin on the ship. You booked a GTY balcony & that is the least you will get. 

While very rare, folks have been bumped on oversold sailings- folks with a GTY booking might have a slightly higher chance of being bumped in such a scenario. 

[FOXTROT]

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

While very rare, folks have been bumped on oversold sailings- folks with a GTY booking might have a slightly higher chance of being bumped in such a scenario. 

Very rare???? There are several examples. Why worry about something that almost never happens??

 

Edited May 29 by FOXTROT

[Biker19]

21 minutes ago, FOXTROT said:

Why worry about something that almost never happens??

If you read enough threads on CC, you realize that is not rare - people worrying about very rare events. 

[FOXTROT]

18 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

If you read enough threads on CC, you realize that is not rare - people worrying about very rare events. 

The article about getting bumped due to being over sold states "Instances of these are "so rare, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it," Scholes said. But, "If you want to be absolutely safe than sorry, pay for the guaranteed cabin numbers". I always try to calm people down. Maybe we should try to make people worry. Lets, worry about my ship losing all power, getting hit by an iceberg or getting hit by another ship. 

 

[Biker19]

59 minutes ago, FOXTROT said:

But, "If you want to be absolutely safe than sorry, pay for the guaranteed cabin numbers".

That doesn’t work - people have bumped even if they didn’t book GTY.  

[Oceansaway17]

14 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

There is commotion over on NCL because one of their ships was oversold and GTY passenger denied boarding and left behind on embarkation day this past weekend. 

while I know this can happen, it should NOT.  Everyone should have an assigned room and any names left over should have been contacted at a minimum of 5 days before the cruise

Just disgusting to do this.

[ocdb8r]

I don't think it's an IT issue and this has been the norm lately, rather than the exception (maybe not this exact fact pattern, but massive swings in inventory starting 4-6 weeks before embarkation is now very common based on 6 different itineraries I have been tracking for the last couple of months). I also noticed lower tier rooms often reappeared at 3-4 weeks out. My thoughts:

 

1) RCCL are doing everything possible to fill ships; that means GTY bookings, overselling categories, RoyalUp...etc.  About 4-6 weeks out they start to better reconcile the bookings they have without a cabin assigned; during this time they take inventory offline while they shuffle everyone around and then put inventory back online;

 

2) Casino Royale offers have shifted to many more "close in" offers compared to before (I think because booking is generally up and so RCCL doesn't have confidence in what rooms might be "surplus" until closer in).  I spoke with many cruisers in the casino on our Icon sailing this month and many told me they got offers 4-6 weeks before the sailing that they booked.  Perhaps RCCL pulls this inventory when a Casino Royale offer goes out and "holds" it for a week or two to allow Casino Royale players to book these offers....and then releases the inventory back into the wild based on what bookings actually materialize.

 

Both purely my conjecture, but the inventory stays offline long enough that I don't think it's just an IT "glitch" (no way RCCL wouldn't notice this or would permit it given how hyper focused they are on booking volume right now).

 

Edited to add:

 

I just noticed this specific instance was looking at a cruise much further out.  I could add to the list, a higher volume of group bookings being made by agencies to try to get better pricing.  Typically these have to be filled 4-6 months out....so perhaps this also results in an inventory reconciliation that takes inventory offline for a week?

Edited May 29 by ocdb8r

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, Oceansaway17 said:

Everyone should have an assigned room and any names left over should have been contacted at a minimum of 5 days before the cruise

The cabins sometimes become unavailable as late as turnaround day. During COVID days this was normal as RCI would take the cabin of a COVID positive customer out of service for the next sailing. Many other things could take a cabin out of the inventory.

[FOXTROT]

This year over 36,000,000 people are expected to cruise. That works out to about 690,000 people per week or 345,000 cabins per week figuring double occupancy. It is very rare to hear about a cruise being cancelled because of being overbooked. We have a GTY Oceanview Balcony booked for July. I know we will not be worrying about being bumped.

[Oceansaway17]

19 hours ago, Biker19 said:

The cabins sometimes become unavailable as late as turnaround day. During COVID days this was normal as RCI would take the cabin of a COVID positive customer out of service for the next sailing. Many other things could take a cabin out of the inventory.

I think they should just do away with GTY rooms altogether.  Everyone should pick a room and be done with it.

[Roxxy]

20 hours ago, Biker19 said:

The cabins sometimes become unavailable as late as turnaround day. During COVID days this was normal as RCI would take the cabin of a COVID positive customer out of service for the next sailing. Many other things could take a cabin out of the inventory.

Could take "A" cabin or even a few out of service for one reason or another I could see, but we're talking over 100 cabins in 1 day, 5 months presail. Insides, ocean view and balcony.   I'm not worried about obtaining a cabin, I know that will happen 🙂 

[Biker19]

4 minutes ago, Roxxy said:

Could take "A" cabin or even a few out of service for one reason or another I could see, but we're talking over 100 cabins in 1 day, 5 months presail.

This is not a cabins becoming unavailable issue - this is likely just normal inventory management. Sometimes the whole sailing could be taken offline for inventory management. Eventually, inventory comes back. 

[taglovestocruise]

4 hours ago, Oceansaway17 said:

I think they should just do away with GTY rooms altogether.  Everyone should pick a room and be done with it.

A lot of people need the discount, or think they do, for a GTY. 

[Engineroom Snipe]

I watch specific cruises out of specific ports on a regular basis to get a "feel" about demand and occupancy.

 

Fluctuations all over the place with cabins appearing and disappearing within the same week.

 

My best advice is to look at travel sites that do group rates and look at their price fluctuations. The prices fluctuate less and are more stable in general. In most cases, the group rates allow you to reserve a refundable room for the price of a Royal website GTY which is a HUGE advantage.

 

I am not sure about when GTY cabins get assigned. I have benefited from interior GTY upgrades but they were rare.

 

Any more, I have specific room desires which I prefer to not leave for chance.

 

Everyone has their own style.

[cruisin from florida]

3 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

A lot of people need the discount, or think they do, for a GTY. 

We have done several JS guarantees. If booked early enough (and they go fast!) the savings are significant.