Obstructed balcony guarantee

[a.madruga]

23 hours ago, RClark6369@aol.com said:

Here is a new one.    Read completely before you slam an opinion on me ... !

 

-Booked obstructed balcony guarantee.    

-Sailing is 49 days away.

-Received a cabin assignment yesterday! - I am assigned one of the MOST obstructed view balcony cabins on deck 4.   You say, well you booked a guarantee, so thats the risk.......right?....Read on please !

 

-The sailing is closed for further bookings.

-I received an upgrade offer today for $399 per person to "upgrade" out of obstructed view cabin asssignment to non-obstructed view balcony. I called the offer number at HAL and  was offered a sampling of 10+ cabins all over the ship that are non-obstructed view, so there are many balcony cabins across the ship still available.

 

Here is my problem: HAL sold me a "guarantee" - which I verified the meaning of a guarantee with HAL -- You will be assigned a cabin 7-10 days prior to sailing. Instead, you assigned me the worst cabin 49 days out.   One would assume that if there are unobstructed cabins available, that I should be eligible for the cabin without having to pay an additional fee.

 I get it... if the ship is sold out, then you get obstructed, you paid for nothing more, so get over it !  But that is NOT the case.  To me, this is deceptive advertising.  You intentionally assigned me a horrible obstructed view so that you could attempt to collect an additional $399 per person from  me.

 

LESSON - I have never booked a guarantee in the past because I have always been afraid of getting a cabin above "BillBoard" or the casino or under the lido.   Never occurred to me that I would be intentionally assigned the worst obstructed view VF and swindled for $399 to book out of that category assignment.   This is just WRONG in my opinion.   I am a 3 star mariner with HAL.   That status obviously means ZERO !

 

Cheers !! 

 

 

welcome to the world of loyalty don't mean a thing sorry that's happened but we've always cruised by itinerary and who gives more bang for our hard earn money   some may feel different but this is todays world of travel....remember when luggage was free ....just a thought

[lpmpsail]

I totally understand your frustration.  One of our cruises we chose a guarantee Obstructed room and were placed right above the Billboard & BB King area and heard the "thump, thump, thump" all night long.  I went downstairs to see if there were any options to be moved - the Customer Service lady came upstairs to my room and acted surprised at the noise level.  Luckily, we were able to move to another room at the Aft area the next day. 

I kept being reassured by my CC that we'd get a free upgrade since we're 4-star Mariners.  Nope!  I was really upset with him for that.

If I were you, I'd pay for any upgrade you can to get away from it.  We'll never do Guarantee room again - I'll always pick my room.

Edited August 19 by lpmpsail

[3rdGenCunarder]

5 minutes ago, lpmpsail said:

I totally understand your frustration.  One of our cruises we chose a guarantee Obstructed room and were placed right above the Billboard & BB King area and heard the "thump, thump, thump" all night long.  I went downstairs to see if there were any options to be moved - the Customer Service lady came upstairs to my room and acted surprised at the noise level.  Luckily, we were able to move to another room at the Aft area the next day. 

I kept being reassured by my CC that we'd get a free upgrade since we're 4-star Mariners.  Nope!  I was really upset with him for that.

If I were you, I'd pay for any upgrade you can to get away from it.  We'll never do Guarantee room again - I'll always pick my room.

 

Cruise lines have always dangled that hope of an upgrade when they sell guarantees. Sometimes people are lucky, sometimes not. You were lucky that they were able to move you. 

 

I don't do guarantees, either. To me it's worth the cost to know where I'll be.

[CNSJ]

On 8/17/2024 at 11:52 AM, leerathje said:

I too am a 3* mariner. I've never understood those who think they should be treated differently for their star status.

HAL does treat you different based on one's Mariner Status, they give free perks and discounts.  How do you say Free Laundry or 50% off Specialty Dining or Priority Tendering?

 

As for the OP.  I did read completely and do NOT understand your issue.

 

 

[CNSJ]

On 8/17/2024 at 2:18 PM, *Miss G* said:

 

It was a 14-day sailing on April 13th of this year.  This was the final offer, of three sent, received nine days prior to sailing.  I never took them up on it because I believed my PCC when he said if I didn’t purchase an offer he would still get me a great room anyway.  (And we were fine with an obstructed so I wasn’t going to bite anyway.)

 

Once the final offers were finished, we were assigned an unobstructed on Deck 7 (from obstructed).  I cut off the last screenshot so here was the final offer:

 

 

 

 

I love receiving the offers, as they are my only route to a Neptune Suite.

 

 

In all the years that I used a TA, I never received a single offer.  Once I started using a PCC, I began receiving them for almost every single booking.

Obstructed to Signature on 14 days for US$388.pp  Sign me up any day!