Did anyone else book a "guarenteed" cabin?

We are sailing on the Magica on 3/26/06. We booked a guarenteed cabin through a T.A. We were told that by booking guarenteed, we would have a good chance of getting a higher catagory cabin than we paid for because they assign the guarenteed cabins last, and as the ships less expensive cabins sell out, the higher cats are all thats left.

Can anybody who has booked this way confirm or dispell this info?

Less than 1 month before the cruise, still no cabin assignment. Is it better to have the opportunity to choose your cabin, or is there a payoff for not knowing until the last minute?:confused:

Don't be shy, chime in, we want to know everyones experience on this subject.

Trying not to bite our nails too much!:)

Kurt & Chris

It's all about availability. If there are rooms to upgrade you to, then yes the possibilites are good. If there is not, then you might stay in the same category you booked at. They also look at things like : past guest and amount paid. If you have sailed with any of the CCL Corp cruise lines, make sure they know.

It is very interesting how they assign rooms and then do costing analysis on them. For example, in three days I saw three different prices for the room I originally booked, a category 8. Day 2 the price dropped on the higher cats and they were all the same price. So I called and they upgraded me to the higher cat. Day 3 all cats except for the one I upgraded to had gone up in price. I was really scratching my head in confusion on that. I second guessed myself whether or not it was a good idea to have upgraded to the higher cat, but I think they are simply trying to fill it out, so to speak, while leaving other cats open to upgrade and move people around.

I am not telling the wife, but I have a feeling we stand a good opportunity to be upgraded to a suite at the pier, given all this jockeying. We'll see. It makes sense to play the shell game and then give the impression you are upgrading people later on. Customers will think the cruiseline did them a huge favor and will tell their friends and by word of mouth, as well as loyalty, get more people on future cruises. I am excited about my upgrade, if I am upgraded even further, my wife will certainly tell me to book again and no other cruiseline in her mind will be as wonderful as that!

snip

Thanks for the comments Nancy and Snip!:)

Kurt

We have always booked guarenteed cabins. We book the cheapest rate we can find and then hope for an upgrade. I would say out of 9 cruises, we have been upgraded 6 or 7 times. It's not usually a huge upgrade (only once did we go from inside to outside), but it usually kept us out of "steerage" which is the kind of fare we book! Also, we don't have any particular issues with where we are on the ship, in terms of movement/fore/aft, so it's not too much of a gamble for us to just wait and see.

All of our previous cruises have been on Carnival, NCL, Royal Caribbean, and Princess. We are taking our first Costa cruise on March 5th and tried to book as guarenteed, but our TA goofed up. She said she would call Costa to change it, but she never did and won't return our calls (nice, huh?). Don't know if Costa refused to do it and she doesn't want to tell us, or if she just never did it. So, not sure what you're luck will be like with Costa, but it always has worked well with us. I figure the longer we go without a cabin number, I'm still in the running for something great! And, even if I get what I book, who cares? I'm on a cruise! :D :D :D

geri

Yea! Costa just posted our cabin assignment. I feel like it paid off to book guarenteed ( Yes, I know I spelled it wrong on the previous posts:rolleyes: )

We booked a cat 1, inside for $449.00 pp, They put us in a cat 7 oceanview, back of the ship, under the restaurant.

I know better than to think it will always work out this way, but we are happy with the results this time!:)

The only negative is that I just viewed a price of $368.00 for an inside on the same cruise, Maybe next time we will wait a little longer to book.

Thanks to all for the helpful replies!

Kurt

My in-laws, on our 1st Costa cruise, booked guaranteed on the Med and were upgraded to an obstructed oceanview. Obstructed on the Med is not a bad deal because it's not a window that is obstructed, it's working french doors that are obstructed, so you can open the doors and hear the rush of the ocean and smell the seaspray...it's really a beautiful thing if you ask me. Now last year, their 2nd cruise on the Med, they ended up in an inside cabin. Didn't like that at all! So this year, our 3rd sailing, they booked a balcony...no surprises!