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tell me about the bad GTY balconies


luckyinpa
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regal/crown/royal/carribean specifically if possible

 

just curious what some bad experiences have been. i'm assuming under pool/buffet, near night clubs or smoking areas are some general examples.

 

but i havent studied princess enough to know the ins and outs.

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regal/crown/royal/carribean specifically if possible

 

just curious what some bad experiences have been. i'm assuming under pool/buffet, near night clubs or smoking areas are some general examples.

but I haven't studied princess enough to know the ins and outs.

A study of the deck plans will give you a good idea of what cabins to avoid. No balcony cabins on any of the ships you mention will be bothered by the small smoking areas.

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balcony. theres no option other than that on the deal screen. it lets you choose a deck sometimes...but i'm pretty sure GTY means you can get one anywhere on the ship?

 

All GTY bookings have a minimum category (such as BD or BC or BY for obstructed) within the cabin type attached. On the Princess website you can tell by looking at the color of the square to the left of the selection box; it corresponds to the color of one of the cabin categories available on that deck. Though as you say you could be assigned a cabin on any deck--as long as the cabin is the same or higher category represented by the color square.

 

So as a totally random example: if the cabins directly under the Horizon Court are category BE, you cah choose a balcony guarantee for BD or higher by going to a deck with BD cabins on the 'select a cabin' page and making sure the color square matches the color of the BD (or BC or higher) cabins.

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ok i kind of see what you are saying now. sorta. i just checked on my one trip and only insides gty are left. all pricing is exactly the same but you can choose deck 15 16 with blue square. 9 to 14 with purple. deck 8 light blue ]

 

if you are saying they would honor my deck 15/16 preference that is amazing. is that what you are saying?

 

on the royal there are only 10 insides of that color on deck 16 so id love one of those. deck 15 has about the same as well

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ok i kind of see what you are saying now. sorta. i just checked on my one trip and only insides gty are left. all pricing is exactly the same but you can choose deck 15 16 with blue square. 9 to 14 with purple. deck 8 light blue ]

 

if you are saying they would honor my deck 15/16 preference that is amazing. is that what you are saying?

 

on the royal there are only 10 insides of that color on deck 16 so id love one of those. deck 15 has about the same as well

They're basically guaranteeing a cabin that is in the category you pay for or above. You won't know where it's located until it's assigned.

If you book one of those insides that are still available, you could be assigned an inside that's in that category or better. OR you could end up in an oceanview, balcony, mini-suite or suite. Although, anything more than an oceanview is extremely rare.

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Just because you book a GTY, doesn't mean you will get one of available cabins today, yes it happens, but, then as the sailing gets closer they can move you again, maybe same category, but usually better, depending how the ship is selling, or when large brokers release their blocks of cabins. I always book a GTY, because to us, it doesn't matter where our cabin is. When booking an inside GTY on the Regal or Royal, you do have the possibility of getting a lower end balcony because there are no ocean view on those ships.

 

A couple of years ago, on the Caribbean Princess. I booked an ocean view obstructed Lido forward. Then I was moved to an Emerald deck obstructed. A couple of weeks before the sailing, I was moved to Plaza ocean view, then to a Caribe Balcony.....the extra large balcony.....This year, I went from an obstructed Marina balcony to a Deluxe balcony on Emerald deck.

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I’m not sure that there are any BAD, some are better than others, and what is good for one may not be for another.

 

If you think there is any cabin you’d hate to get, don’t book a guarantee, pick and stick.

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i found a site with pics of regal obstructed views on 8. its fantastic. shows almost ever balcony the exact view and some of these are still left to be chosen. not GTY.

 

so discounting the lifeboat deck i cannot think of really any worse things except under a public deck

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i cannot think of really any worse things except under a public deck

I know you only asked for bad experiences, but we have had only good experiences with balcony guarantees - many times. We've been under both the pool deck and the buffet and never had a problem. Yes, you may hear chairs scraping on the deck, but mostly just during clean-up time, and mostly if you happen to be on your balcony....and never during "normal" sleeping hours. I can't remember ever being awakened by an outside disturbance. Being under a "public deck" should be the least of your worries, IMHO. So, bottom line, if you are happy with port or starboard, forward or aft, go with the GTY if the price is right! :D

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i found a site with pics of regal obstructed views on 8. its fantastic. shows almost ever balcony the exact view and some of these are still left to be chosen. not GTY.

 

so discounting the lifeboat deck i cannot think of really any worse things except under a public deck

 

Renmar's site, been around for years. Essential for anyone booking obstructed view Deck 8 cabins, oceanview or balcony, as we do.;p

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We just booked a BF guarantee on the Crown...and were assigned (already) a BB.

 

No worries here! :cool:

 

I have consistently noticed from numerous postings that the BF GTY bookings get the fastest cabin assignments. The one time we did one several years back, it was a day or two later at most. And I read your experience over and over here on CC. But other GTY's can take "forever", including up to day or two before departure. It may be because there are so few of them and they want to continue selling. If I was booking a Balcony, I'd try that route again.

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there's still 1 more actual obst balc i can choose on regal left. just 493 for 11 nites and you can choose your own cabin.. crazy cheap. but no one must want to sail over christmas

 

if you want deck 15/16 on regal gty its 753 or you can pick your balc on the lower decks for that price.

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I know you only asked for bad experiences, but we have had only good experiences with balcony guarantees - many times. We've been under both the pool deck and the buffet and never had a problem. Yes, you may hear chairs scraping on the deck, but mostly just during clean-up time, and mostly if you happen to be on your balcony....and never during "normal" sleeping hours. I can't remember ever being awakened by an outside disturbance. Being under a "public deck" should be the least of your worries, IMHO. So, bottom line, if you are happy with port or starboard, forward or aft, go with the GTY if the price is right! :D

 

i dont mind good experiences but i always like to know the worst that can happen then be surprised when i get better.

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I've booked guaranteed cabins on both Princess and Celebrity before. On Celebrity, I've never gotten a bad cabin .. quite the contrary, I've always been assigned to excellent cabin choices, albeit, never have been assigned outside the category of which I've booked but have saved a ton of money.

On Princess, I will never ever book another guarantee cabin. I've tried 3 times and always gotten a very noisy room. Now, will just pay the extra and choose a specific cabin.

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that stinks about your bad princess experience. there are a few obstr. balconies that i can choose myself yet on some of these cruises but they are going fast. i'm assuming a nice mid forward /mid/mid aft obstructed on deck 8 overlookign the lifeboats would pretty much mean no noise as you apparently ran into

 

what made your GTY so noisy. what location?

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that stinks about your bad princess experience. there are a few obstr. balconies that i can choose myself yet on some of these cruises but they are going fast. i'm assuming a nice mid forward /mid/mid aft obstructed on deck 8 overlookign the lifeboats would pretty much mean no noise as you apparently ran into

 

what made your GTY so noisy. what location?

 

Once, we had a room right under the Trident Grill. Yikes ... never again. Chair scraping and people walking over our heads 24/7. Soft soled shoes were ok but we knew when security was out in that area above as there hard soled shoes were very noisy when they walked overhead. The deck parties that went until past midnight were also quite disturbing and then, when they set up the lounges on the pool deck, they dropped at stack at a time and yikes ... that was at 5:30 AM. No sleep that entire cruise. We told them several times that we would transfer to an inside cabin and expect no reimbursement but that wasn't in our cards. They claimed they were completely full. Kind of found out this was no true as we met others that complained after we did and they were given a different cabin. They did compensate us for that after a letter to corporate ... not for the noisy cabin but not taking our complaint seriously and failing to stick to their promise that if another room became available, they would give it to us.

We also had a room assigned where the wall was up against the fill valve for the hot tub on the deck above us. I thought to myself, how noisy could it be to have a room under the pool? Well, little did I know ... it is so bad that it actually shook our headboard when turning on and off. And you'd think that only happened occasionally ... but it was intermittent throughout the night. They finally agreed, after trying to tell us that they knew nothing about what that could be, to fill during the day and all was better but that was more than half way through the cruise as they kept on trying to tell us it was the wind. We knew that wasn't true and someone came up to our room while it was happening and guess he wasn't expecting it to happen while he was in there but the headboard shook violently and that is when we got action. They did make it right after a few nights as promised and we were happy enough. Funny thing is, on day 7 of a 9 day cruise, they offered us compensation for our discomfort. I actually was happy they changed their schedule and turned down the OBC. Alas, it was still placed on our account and appreciated.

The third time, we were right above a room service pantry or kitchen area from the deck below and boom, boom, boom went the floor. One night, everyone from the surrounding rooms on that deck were all out in the hallway wondering what that constant noise was. Most agreed it was the worst in our room but the cruise line never would fess up as to what it was ... but the floor actually shook. We were moved to another room after being awoken by that noise on day 3 or 4 of a 14 night cruise.

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The best comp upgrade we ever got wasn't a gty. We went from lowest inside to a nice balcony on the Royal, maybe because it was our honeymoon. On most of the few gtys. I've booked we got pretty much what we paid for. I'm thinking that with Princess seemingly going for more upsells, comp upgrades are dwindling. Last time on the Royal we got an upsell offer and ended up in a midship balcony for half the total fare on the website. In days past that might have gone to someone who booked a lower category gty.

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ouch raider! just ouch.

 

we stayed under the retreat on 16 in a mini in october on regal and only heard chairs once. the room itself was horrible in force 10 winds though. more creaks than a 100 year old with joint issues. id try another mini on lido for sure. but now i'm glad we stayed away from deck 15 under those places.

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