Gty stateroom now available?

[CruiseOrRust]

We booked a stateroom on Regatta (Perth-Sydney, Jan 11, 2025) in February of 2023.  This is our first Oceania cruise.  The category (A2) was listed as GTY so we booked under that category.  A2 is now listed on the O website as "Available".  Since, unlike other lines, Oceania offers no discount for booking GTY shouldn't we now be assigned a specific stateroom?  Or is that not how it works?

 

Ken

[mauibabes]

Call O or TA and book one of the A-2 rooms available so you are not waiting until the last minute to be “assigned” a room. You are just Guaranteed you will be on the cruise, what you might be thinking of is being Waitlisted on O. Having a specific room locked in, you can be more comfortable booking your flights and set aside any anxiety you may feel for the trip. 
Great itinerary and enjoy OZ, wonderful land and people. 
Mauibabes 

[CruiseOrRust]

39 minutes ago, mauibabes said:

Call O or TA and book one of the A-2 rooms available so you are not waiting until the last minute to be “assigned” a room. You are just Guaranteed you will be on the cruise, what you might be thinking of is being Waitlisted on O. Having a specific room locked in, you can be more comfortable booking your flights and set aside any anxiety you may feel for the trip. 
Great itinerary and enjoy OZ, wonderful land and people. 
Mauibabes 

Thanks.  I just tried that with the O booking agent and was told that I have to wait until Monday when the Inventory Team is available, otherwise the stateroom assignment would cause a fare readjustment to the current fare for the stateroom.  Of course, the six available staterooms could be gone by Monday.  Heck of a way to run a railroad...

Edited Saturday at 06:17 PM by CruiseOrRust

[jagoffee]

9 hours ago, CruiseOrRust said:

Thanks.  I just tried that with the O booking agent and was told that I have to wait until Monday when the Inventory Team is available, otherwise the stateroom assignment would cause a fare readjustment to the current fare for the stateroom.  Of course, the six available staterooms could be gone by Monday.  Heck of a way to run a railroad...

I would think if you request an assignment, you still might  need to pay the prevailing rate.  It might depend  on how they are running the railroad.  

Edited Sunday at 03:19 AM by jagoffee

[GeezerCouple]

9 hours ago, mauibabes said:

Call O or TA and book one of the A-2 rooms available so you are not waiting until the last minute to be “assigned” a room. You are just Guaranteed you will be on the cruise, what you might be thinking of is being Waitlisted on O. Having a specific room locked in, you can be more comfortable booking your flights and set aside any anxiety you may feel for the trip. 
Great itinerary and enjoy OZ, wonderful land and people. 
Mauibabes 

 

As you mention, the "Guaranteed" status is *not* the same thing as being "Waitlisted".

OP:  If you have a "guarantee", you WILL get on that ship for that sailing, with only a minuscule chance of not.  Oceania will make all sorts of increasingly tempting offers to some with confirmed reservations to try to get them to switch to a different sailing/date/ship/itinerary until all of the Guarantees have a place on board.

And there is a chance you'd get a "better" category (but not something worse).

We are among those who were "tempted" with a remarkable "offer to switch", and I only wish we would have been able to make that change! 😉 

 

I wouldn't worry about booking flights with a Guarantee, and I tend to be ultra cautious.  I would definitely worry if it were a "waitlist" category!

 

And by the way, I would also have thought that as the category became available, they'd assign the guarantees.
But remember:  Those "guarantees" do allow a cruiseline to juggle assignments as the sailing approaches so that everyone needing a "place" gets one, and gets one "at least as good as what they planned and paid for".  It's just that on Oceania, that Guarantee category isn't any special bargain.  But one *does* get that "guarantee" of being ON that sailing!

 

Enjoy!!

 

GC

[CruiseOrRust]

9 hours ago, jagoffee said:

I would think if you request an assignment, you still might  need to pay the prevailing rate.  It might depend  on how they are running the railroad.  

If I had been offered a discount to accept a guarantee, as is the practice with other cruise lines, I would agree with you. Waitlisted customers are, in fact, assessed the prevailing rate when their category opens up. However, I booked a guarantee only because there were no A1 staterooms available at the time. I booked at the same fare as I would have had a stateroom been available. In fact, there were no staterooms of any kind available and we really wanted the itinerary.  Now that staterooms are available in several categories I would expect Oceania to honor the outstanding guarantees first. But we are new to Oceania and perhaps I’m misunderstanding Oceania’s philosophy with respect to stateroom guarantees. Perhaps they manipulate “Available”, “Guarantee” and “Waitlist” in order to ensure a pool of overbooked passengers with the objective of maximizing occupancy. 
Thanks for commenting. 
Ken

[CruiseOrRust]

9 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

As you mention, the "Guaranteed" status is *not* the same thing as being "Waitlisted".

OP:  If you have a "guarantee", you WILL get on that ship for that sailing, with only a minuscule chance of not.  Oceania will make all sorts of increasingly tempting offers to some with confirmed reservations to try to get them to switch to a different sailing/date/ship/itinerary until all of the Guarantees have a place on board.

And there is a chance you'd get a "better" category (but not something worse).

We are among those who were "tempted" with a remarkable "offer to switch", and I only wish we would have been able to make that change! 😉 

 

I wouldn't worry about booking flights with a Guarantee, and I tend to be ultra cautious.  I would definitely worry if it were a "waitlist" category!

 

And by the way, I would also have thought that as the category became available, they'd assign the guarantees.
But remember:  Those "guarantees" do allow a cruiseline to juggle assignments as the sailing approaches so that everyone needing a "place" gets one, and gets one "at least as good as what they planned and paid for".  It's just that on Oceania, that Guarantee category isn't any special bargain.  But one *does* get that "guarantee" of being ON that sailing!

 

Enjoy!!

 

GC

Thank you for your commentary. I tend to be cautious also. However, I’m trusting the “guarantee” and the counsel of so many CruiseCritic regulars who have posted on this topic in this forum previously. In fact, our flights are long booked and we have a New Zealand cruise on Celebrity booked out of Sydney two days after the Oceania cruise disembarks. We also have a family visit scheduled in Brisbane before the cruise and a week of land travel in New Zealand planned after the second cruise.  Separate car rentals in Australia and New Zealand, half a dozen hotel bookings, numerous reservations at tourist sites, etc. Were Oceania to deny us boarding we would have to make other arrangements but it’s way too late to cancel the entire six week trip. 

[mhdesno2]

I have recent experience with a guarantee becoming available. 2 months ago, our popular May 2025 transatlantic PH2 guaranty showed availability which I noticed on a weekend. I emailed my TA who promptly answered back that she would take care of it on the following Monday morning. We obtained the available cabin without any problems. There was no charge or change in fare. A couple of weeks later, a better cabin (in my opinion, of course) became available. I emailed my TA once more and we were moved to this newly available cabin, again with no charge. Since it was still a PH2, there was no change in fare either.

[CruiseOrRust]

I contacted Guest Services this morning (don't have a TA).  The agent was able to make a stateroom assignment after involving a "supervisor".  It was actually a (slight) upgrade to an A1, which is strange because that category is, and has been for some time, listed as "Guaranteed" on the booking site. 

I think the bottom line here is that guests with a GTY should monitor the website for the status of their stateroom category to change to "Available" and, if it does, contact O to request a stateroom assignment.  I doubt it will ever happen automatically several months out.

Thanks for the discussion.

 

Ken

[EJL2023]

52 minutes ago, CruiseOrRust said:

I contacted Guest Services this morning (don't have a TA).  The agent was able to make a stateroom assignment after involving a "supervisor".  It was actually a (slight) upgrade to an A1, which is strange because that category is, and has been for some time, listed as "Guaranteed" on the booking site. 

I think the bottom line here is that guests with a GTY should monitor the website for the status of their stateroom category to change to "Available" and, if it does, contact O to request a stateroom assignment.  I doubt it will ever happen automatically several months out.

Thanks for the discussion.

 

Ken

Definitely…have had the same happen to me. 

[mauibabes]

@CruiseOrRust

Glad to see you were successful with your follow up this a.m.  Getting an upgrade and not being stuck with paying the current rate was a real winner. Enjoy your cruise and when in doubt, call O and get your answers because sometimes info on this site can be accurate or inaccurate 😇👍 but there is never a loss for “opinions”. 

Mauibabes

[mhdesno2]

@CruiseOrRust

I am really happy that you now have a set cabin and that it was an upgrade to boot!

 

I don't understand Oceania's reservation system. For the cruise I described in my previous post, we were initially on a Priority Wait List. I believe we were #14 on the list. Low and behold, about a month later, I saw that a guaranty was available for our chosen category on the website. Mind you that we never got a phone call/email from Oceania notifying us of this despite being on a paid priority wait list. I contacted my TA and got the guaranty.

 

We are our own best advocates and we always have to be proactive.

 

 

[CruiseOrRust]

8 hours ago, mhdesno2 said:

@CruiseOrRust

I am really happy that you now have a set cabin and that it was an upgrade to boot!

 

I don't understand Oceania's reservation system. For the cruise I described in my previous post, we were initially on a Priority Wait List. I believe we were #14 on the list. Low and behold, about a month later, I saw that a guaranty was available for our chosen category on the website. Mind you that we never got a phone call/email from Oceania notifying us of this despite being on a paid priority wait list. I contacted my TA and got the guaranty.

 

We are our own best advocates and we always have to be proactive.

 

 

I don’t understand the website/reservation system either. As I mentioned earlier, we had a GTY for an A2 stateroom. When six A2 staterooms became available (according to the website) I requested a stateroom assignment. We were assigned an A1, a category

that the website still listed as “Guaranteed”. 
Oh, and the upgrade wasn’t free. I learned later in the day that our fare had increased by $200 pp. Our O cruise specialist offered to move us back to A2 but I declined since we really like the location of the assigned A1. 
 

[clo]

Every time this thread gets an update I hesitate to share something that happened last year. Not on Oceania. The Royal Caribbean ship was over booked and quite a few people with guaranteed bookings  were denied boarding.

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2023/11/30/royal-caribbean-passengers-denied-boarding/71749345007/

 

I caused a stir when I shared this and I'm not going to get into it again. Others said it has NEVER happened on Oceania. But our booking category (or whatever it's called) was guaranteed. I contacted my well-connected TA and she got us a confirmed cabin. 

I'm sure it's really, really rare but I think folks have a right to know that it is possible. (Again, I'm not getting into it with anyone.)

[ORV]

53 minutes ago, clo said:

(Again, I'm not getting into it with anyone.)

Then don't bring it up. Just like 90% of your posts here it's not about Oceania, so don't post it. 

[clo]

4 minutes ago, ORV said:

Then don't bring it up. Just like 90% of your posts here it's not about Oceania, so don't post it. 

See the subject line: GTY
 

[GeezerCouple]

45 minutes ago, ORV said:

Then don't bring it up. Just like 90% of your posts here it's not about Oceania, so don't post it. 

 

40 minutes ago, clo said:

See the subject line: GTY
 

See the subforum title:

 

 

• Oceania Cruises

 

If many CC members started commenting on each or many topics within each subforum about related issues *elsewhere*, it would quickly become quite difficult to find the *relevant* information...

... and that could also easily moot the entire purpose of the various sub-categories of forums/subforums/etc.

GC

[clo]

1 minute ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

See the subforum title:

 

 

• Oceania Cruises

 

If many CC members started commenting on each or many topics within each subforum about related issues *elsewhere*, it would quickly become quite difficult to find the *relevant* information...

... and that could also easily moot the entire purpose of the various sub-categories of forums/subforums/etc.

GC

Because I respect your posts I will reply 🙂 My only point is that the word "guarantee" isn't 100% what people think it is. It sure wasn't for me. All anyone has to do is read it one time and go 'oh, okay, good to know.'