Guaranteed stateroom

[bowlcoach]

We have not sailed on HAL for 13 years. We just booked a cruise today and we are not allowed to select our cabin. It is guaranteed only. This will be our 22nd cruise and this has never happened before. Does anyone know why? The cruise we booked is 3/15/08 - still 8 months away.

[lvtotrvl1]

I see that there are no inside rooms available on that sailing....There are some oceanview that have room assignments...What category are you booked in?

[bowlcoach]

It is a category F. I tried to get an inside but they were gone the day after we received their mailing. It just seems strange that this is the first time we could not select our cabin number and deck.

[lvtotrvl1]

There are no cat F's avail anymore either. Cat DD has two room assignments available. With limited availability , cruiselines are going to guaranteed staterooms so they have the leeway of moving people around.

[Mary Ellen]

You just booked with limited availability. Cruise lines (like airlines) 'over book' in order to fill EVERY cabin. They make $$$ with passengers onboard (casino/bars/shore ex), every empty cabin is a loss of that revenue. You WILL have a cabin, maybe even a verandah, you just don't know which cabin until later. If by some chance, the cruise line doesn't get enough cancellations to cover the over booking, they will contact TAs/passengers to offer incentives to take a different cruise - this is voluntary! They just keep upping the incentives until they get enough takers.

 

I noticed another thread on this forum about 'why book early?'. This is one of the reasons. We like to select our own cabin location.

[wrp96]

Your cruise is during spring break time, I'm assuming out of South Florida. For Spring Break weeks, all cruise ships tend to fill up pretty fast, especially in the less expensive inside cabins. There also might be a group onboard your sailing. You might check out the roll call for that sailing to see what kind of activity there is on it, and what other people are saying about the sailing.

[bowlcoach]

Thanks for your replies everyone. After all these years of cruising I was just curious as to why this had never happened before.