Our last cruise and upcoming cruise were booked as guarantees. Our last was on Reflection and we booked a veranda gty and were assigned deck 7 after a week or two I think, but don’t remember exactly which because we did a move up bid and got it (this was toward the tale end of the covid restrictions and the ship was only 2/3rd full). We ended up with a Sunset veranda which was fantastic.
For our upcoming cruise on Ascent we booked a veranda gty. I think we were assigned about 2 weeks later. We got one of the deluxe porthole verandas on deck 6. Initially we were in the front of the ship but I was able to move us to one of the ones in the back since we prefer the back to the front. Just a personal preference, no particular reason.