Booking a Guarentee...a few questions...

[chicagojayhawk]

What are the benefits about calling RCI to book a guarentee? Are the rates less expensive? Are you more likely to be upgraded? Do you risk getting a totally craptacular room location?

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. We're not sure how it works, but we'd like to consider it for booking our next cruise.

 

Thoughts?

[Coralc]

Guarantee cabins are not offered on all sailings. When they are offered, the price is usually less than choosing an assigned cabin. When choosing the guarantee option, you should be prepared to be assigned the worst cabin in the category. We tried guarantees a few times years ago, and we were never upgraded, and received cruddy assignments. We gave up on them until last October on our Hawaii sailing. Balcony guarantees were offered at such a great price, we gave up our assigned cabin and switched to a guarantee ($1200 refunded) Again no upgrade, but not a bad assignment in our original E-1 category. :)

[Silvery Seas Cruiser]

We used to book guarantees. We do not any longer. A few years ago, gurantees worked out quite well for us. We never had a true upgrade. I mean if we booked an ocean view, we got an oceanview. We were never upgraded to a balcony, for example. BUt we were never disatisfied with our cabin.

 

But then things seemed to turn south. Our OVs were always ending up on Deck Two. Then the last straw, we had a Deck Two on Radiance with a small porthole. I mean calling that an ocean view was a real stretch. It was only slightly better than an inside room. It seemed that each cruise our cabin was getting worse.

 

We decided to choose the type of room and location we want and pay to get it.

 

If you book a guarantee, you need to be flexible. If you book an ocean view, you might get an obsructed view or a cabin in some less desirable location. If you are lucky, you might be pleased, but do you want to take a chance? Maybe the savings are worth the risk.

[teacha50]

I had great luck with a guarantee, unfortunately it was not with Royal Caribbean...We booked an outside guarantee and we ended up with a balcony 07/07 ....not sure why we were so lucky as it was a sold out cruise...maybe because it was our first time with them? Who knows...but it certainly was a pleasant surprise!!! I was willing to take the risk...as long as I am cruising, I am happy!!! :D

[firefly333]

Often once the lowest category is sold out and its getting close to the cruise date you see the guaranees. I did one once and like everyone said with RCI I didnt get any kind of an upgrade. Deck 2 almost all the way aft enough to hear the rumble of the stablizers. For the price is was still a good deal.

[taxatty]

We booked a guarantee on the Majesty leaving next weekend because it popped up one night on the RCI website as an OV for $219/pp--about $100 cheaper than the usual OV price. Turned out we got deck 2, but it's only for 3 days, the guarantees permanently disappeared from the website a few hours later, and you can't beat the price very often. In addition, NONE of the OVs on the Majesty are really any better (except the superior OVs, which cost a lot more), except those higher up have bigger windows (not by that much).

Again, if you won't accept a Deck 2 OV, don't book a guarantee.

Les

[mrsbojamp]

I had a guarantee JS cabin this summer on Explorer 5 day to Bermuda. It was awesome. I would definitely do it again, but they're hard to find.

[newyorker123]

Thanks!

[newyorker123]

I thought I was writing in to another post. Sorry.

 

The ships that I've been looking at, most OVs are on the 2nd and 3rd deck. For me, I'd rather have an inside and save $$.

 

Diane

[cb at sea]

I'd rather pay a bit more and KNOW what I'm getting! The cabin is an important part of my cruise--I don't want a crappy one!