Sea Princess- How does upgrading work?

My family and I are First time cruisers. I read all the cabin selection tips before booking our Alaska Cruise from San Francisco in August. Thanks to all for the Great tips on noise issues and motion sickness.

Booked B Deck, mid ship, starboard side, balcony, with other rooms above and below us, to minimize noise. And booked an inside cabin across from us for our teenage daughters.

The Princess booking agent asked me if I wanted to upgrade if available. I said sure why not. But now I'm having second thoughts about that decision. Some of the recent posts seem to suggest their upgrades turned out to be downgrades with worse locations and more noise. And some posts suggest that they were upgraded without knowing it.

Also, we don't want to be separated from our children by being upgraded to a different deck or area.

How do upgrades work? Will we be told or offered to be upgraded? And can we refuse it? Or does it just happen and we find out when we board?

Should I call the booking agent back and tell them NOT to consider us for upgrading? Any advice here would be helpful.

Your biggest concern should be having one cabin upgraded and not the other. If your two bookings are linked this shouldn't be a problem, but there are no guarantees. If you are satisfied with your chosen cabins, you can tell your TA to mark your booking no upgrades and have nothing to worry about. EM

Yes, make sure your reservations are linked. If they are minors it's unlikely you will be moved away from them or they from you.

There is a box the agent needs to check as to whether you would be interested in an upgrade. Yes, you can refuse it.

In 20something cruises, we've never been offered an upgrade or upsell. Yet, friends traveling with 2 kids were upgraded (upsold actually) to a suite for the 4 of them a few weeks in advance of the cruise. You just never know if it will happen.

I've not heard of an upgrade being worse than the original booking though.