New to Celebrity - is this an upgrade?

[BermudaMom]

Hi everyone,

 

We're taking our first Celebrity cruise later this month and had booked Celebrity suite 1237 for us and our daughter. Today I went online to do my online check in and found under stateroom summary that it now says "Stateroom: Royal Suite, #1614". I've not had an email from Celebrity, haven't heard anything from my travel agent...nothing. Do they just do upgrades as time gets closer and if you're lucky, it just changes? Would appreciate your advice before we get too excited!

 

Peg

[If only]

Hi everyone,

 

We're taking our first Celebrity cruise later this month and had booked Celebrity suite 1237 for us and our daughter. Today I went online to do my online check in and found under stateroom summary that it now says "Stateroom: Royal Suite, #1614". I've not had an email from Celebrity, haven't heard anything from my travel agent...nothing. Do they just do upgrades as time gets closer and if you're lucky, it just changes? Would appreciate your advice before we get too excited!

 

Peg

 

That is fabulous for your we met people from the Uk on our last cruise & they had a Royal Suite & to me it was better than the Penthouse. It is really well laid out. Have a great cruise.

[mandream]

It happens. Not all that often, but it does.

 

Congratulations on your fortune, and enjoy your Royal Suite!

 

Mike

[BermudaMom]

Thank you both. Not thrilled about being below the pool deck as I know there will be noise but I realize we are very lucky and I'll get over the noise! Really wonder how they pick people to upgrade. Perhaps because we've not cruised with them before, did pay for a suite and I've bought lots of cruise excursions through them. Perhaps they see us as long term potential customers. Who knows. I hope whoever now gets suite 1237 enjoys that one too!

[Lobbylin]

Lucky you! Enjoy your Royal Suite!!! :)

[Lobbylin]

Hi everyone,

 

We're taking our first Celebrity cruise later this month and had booked Celebrity suite 1237 for us and our daughter. Today I went online to do my online check in and found under stateroom summary that it now says "Stateroom: Royal Suite, #1614". I've not had an email from Celebrity, haven't heard anything from my travel agent...nothing. Do they just do upgrades as time gets closer and if you're lucky, it just changes? Would appreciate your advice before we get too excited!

 

Peg

 

I meant to add that my friend received an email of their upgrade the day before, but maybe there was just an error on that.

 

Have a lovely time!

[PartyAllDaTyme]

The Upgrade Fairy does exist! Celebrity will do this (occasionally) with no notification. As far as who gets selected, it's something of a mystery. If it happens to first time Celebrity cruisers, the theory is that it's because they're first time cruisers and Celebrity is trying to impress them. If it happens to long time cruisers, it's seen as a reward for their loyalty. It often seems like there's no rhyme nor reason to the process, and a dart board may possibly be involved.

 

If you were not aware, if you have a cabin that you would prefer even over a higher class cabin, you (or your TA) can have your booking marked "No Upgrades", or even as we did, something more specific like "No upgrades to a Celebrity Suite"-- we were on Summit, and the CS do not have balconies-- a deal breaker for us, no matter now splendiferous the cabin otherwise. Later, we changed to "No Upgrades," period, and almost got a Sky Suite anyway-- no one called to ask if we wanted it or inform us we had it, but a quick call to X as soon as I noticed it got us back in our aft C1.

[jdvmd]

I've only had one Royal Suite in my life (Mercury) but it is my favorite cabin to date. Be prepared to be pampered. It is just that wonderful! Enjoy!

[Brian Raine]

Fortune smiles on some passengers.We are Celebrity Club members, as we have sailed several times with Celebrity.We booked a balcony on a garaunteed basis and wound up on deck 6 with a view of a life boat from the balcony.When I queried Celebrity , prior sailing why we had been allocated deck 6, we were advised quote" Gty cabins are alocated by our computer at head office on an ad hoc basis, being a Captains Club member, whatever grade, has no bearing on the matter.A couple on the cruise we spoke to , also first time cruisers, were given a deck 10 cabin.As a consequence I will be letting Celebrity know my feelings about the apparent discrepancy in alocating cabins.

The cruise , whilst good in parts, namely the 4 days in Israel,was bearable and we will not be rushing back to Celebrity in the near future if ever again.

[Project_gal]

Fortune smiles on some passengers.We are Celebrity Club members, as we have sailed several times with Celebrity.We booked a balcony on a garaunteed basis and wound up on deck 6 with a view of a life boat from the balcony.When I queried Celebrity , prior sailing why we had been allocated deck 6, we were advised quote" Gty cabins are alocated by our computer at head office on an ad hoc basis, being a Captains Club member, whatever grade, has no bearing on the matter.A couple on the cruise we spoke to , also first time cruisers, were given a deck 10 cabin.As a consequence I will be letting Celebrity know my feelings about the apparent discrepancy in alocating cabins.

The cruise , whilst good in parts, namely the 4 days in Israel,was bearable and we will not be rushing back to Celebrity in the near future if ever again.

 

Surely the point of booking a guarantee is that you accept that you have no control over you cabin allocation and that the cabin assigned may well be the least desirable. After all, you pay considerably less than those who pay to have the cabin of their choice. IMHO, to say that you will not sail with Celebrity again because they did not give you more than you paid for is unreasonable.

 

Sue

[portofrome]

Congratulations on your upgrade!:)

[Lobbylin]

Fortune smiles on some passengers.We are Celebrity Club members, as we have sailed several times with Celebrity.We booked a balcony on a garaunteed basis and wound up on deck 6 with a view of a life boat from the balcony.When I queried Celebrity , prior sailing why we had been allocated deck 6, we were advised quote" Gty cabins are alocated by our computer at head office on an ad hoc basis, being a Captains Club member, whatever grade, has no bearing on the matter.A couple on the cruise we spoke to , also first time cruisers, were given a deck 10 cabin.As a consequence I will be letting Celebrity know my feelings about the apparent discrepancy in alocating cabins.

The cruise , whilst good in parts, namely the 4 days in Israel,was bearable and we will not be rushing back to Celebrity in the near future if ever again.

 

Sorry, but there is NO comparison here between you and the OP's comments on receiving an upgrade, as the OP did not book a GTY.

 

Clearly you are not happy with YOUR choice of cabin which was a GTY balcony, but do not use this thread to moan about your choices. Personally I never book a GTY for that very reason.

 

Whether the OP is a first timer or not, personally I am just delighted to read that Celebrity are not letting higher grade cabins go empty and are instead using them for good PR, as clearly someone else benefitted from her Celebrity Suite also...

 

p/s I have never had an upgrade.

[Gracie115]

Fortune smiles on some passengers.We are Celebrity Club members, as we have sailed several times with Celebrity.We booked a balcony on a garaunteed basis and wound up on deck 6 with a view of a life boat from the balcony.When I queried Celebrity , prior sailing why we had been allocated deck 6, we were advised quote" Gty cabins are alocated by our computer at head office on an ad hoc basis, being a Captains Club member, whatever grade, has no bearing on the matter.A couple on the cruise we spoke to , also first time cruisers, were given a deck 10 cabin.As a consequence I will be letting Celebrity know my feelings about the apparent discrepancy in alocating cabins.

The cruise , whilst good in parts, namely the 4 days in Israel,was bearable and we will not be rushing back to Celebrity in the near future if ever again.

 

 

Why are you blaming Celebrity for your choice of booking a "guarantee"? By booking that category you state that you will be happy with whatever they give you...and if not, it's not Celebrity's fault...you rolled the dice you took a chance....just cause it didn't result in what you wanted don't blame Celebrity....If you want a certain level of stateroom then book it...no matter what line you're on.

[Gracie115]

Hi everyone,

 

We're taking our first Celebrity cruise later this month and had booked Celebrity suite 1237 for us and our daughter. Today I went online to do my online check in and found under stateroom summary that it now says "Stateroom: Royal Suite, #1614". I've not had an email from Celebrity, haven't heard anything from my travel agent...nothing. Do they just do upgrades as time gets closer and if you're lucky, it just changes? Would appreciate your advice before we get too excited!

 

Peg

 

 

What a wonderful upgrade!! Enjoy it!! I suspect an invite to the Captain's Table will be your next surprise!!!:D

[BermudaMom]

Thanks for the kind comments. Sorry though that my post started some negative posts as well.

 

We've never been upgraded with anything in our lives so this is truly a wonderful surprise. We cruise only every other year usually and save hard so we can book the best cabin we can afford which in this instance was the Celebrity Suite. Having our daughter with us on this cruise makes the upgrade even nicer to have that extra room.

[Brian Raine]

I notice most of the disparaging comments about my post come from US based passengers.

The booking and pricing structures are different in the UK to the one used in the US. As I have said to many fellow US passengers including TAs, we in the UK are made to pay higher fares than the equivalent US passenger.My booking was for a "gty" cabin NOT because it was cheaper, quite the contrary,we paid more than other UK passengers who booked later than we did. Needless to say I will not be going that route anymore.My grouse with Celebrity is ,having sailed with them several times before, being ELITE members of the Captains club, why bother with membership of same if it does not receive a reward for loyalty.I have tried to take advantage of the lower US pricing by going through a US TA but without exception they say we cannot garauntee the prices you pay us (the TA) will be given by the cruise line.On embarkation you may be required to pay up to the FULL brochure price before being allowed to board, would you risk that?????.Plus we in the UK cannot put cruises on hold, we must pay a NON RETURNABLE deposit to secure a booking, plus we cannot piut say 3 cruises on hold with a deposit and accrue the monies against 1 cruise.we would require 3 NR deposits.

Until ALL US based cruise lines apply the same rules to ALL passnegers this situation will continue to cause upset.

[swigso]

I notice most of the disparaging comments about my post come from US based passengers.

The booking and pricing structures are different in the UK to the one used in the US. As I have said to many fellow US passengers including TAs, we in the UK are made to pay higher fares than the equivalent US passenger.My booking was for a "gty" cabin NOT because it was cheaper, quite the contrary,we paid more than other UK passengers who booked later than we did. Needless to say I will not be going that route anymore.My grouse with Celebrity is ,having sailed with them several times before, being ELITE members of the Captains club, why bother with membership of same if it does not receive a reward for loyalty.I have tried to take advantage of the lower US pricing by going through a US TA but without exception they say we cannot garauntee the prices you pay us (the TA) will be given by the cruise line.On embarkation you may be required to pay up to the FULL brochure price before being allowed to board, would you risk that?????.Plus we in the UK cannot put cruises on hold, we must pay a NON RETURNABLE deposit to secure a booking, plus we cannot piut say 3 cruises on hold with a deposit and accrue the monies against 1 cruise.we would require 3 NR deposits.

Until ALL US based cruise lines apply the same rules to ALL passnegers this situation will continue to cause upset.

 

Hi,

You say that you are an experienced cruiser, did you not know that once your GTY cabin is allocated you can you can switch to another one within the same category?

Also, if a higher category cabin becomes available at a lower price you may

take up that option and get OBC of the price difference or indeed if the price difference is not that much to go from say a 2A to a C1 you may pay the difference.

I also know of folks who have booked thro a US based TA with no problem at all.

[Brian Raine]

swigso, We have not gone the GTY cabin route before, our TA never told us of the possiblity of "regrading" our cabin or of a price reduction.I concur about the US TAs, I have used 1 once, on an NCL cruise, but this company told me that Carnival owned cruise lines do not always accept their prices. As a consequence we have not used them again.I have contacted other US TA's by e-mail but they usually require me to phone them to go through the booking system.

My wife and I have done some 40 plus cruises, sea and river, so we are not totally naive about the way the systems work.Maybe it is time to try a new TA.?

[Ma Bell]

Yes, sounds like you definitely need a new TA.

 

To the OP, congratulations. We had this Royal Suite and never had any noise from above.

[BermudaMom]

Thanks again. Really looking forward to it.

 

As a note, we also are not allowed to avail ourselves of the prices offered to US customers. Not on any line we've cruised. We always end up paying more than what's listed.

 

We never book flights etc through the cruise line, mainly for that reason. Much more cost effective to do it ourselves.

[SusieV]

Congrats to the OP, what a wonderful surprise for you! I've never been upgraded but I hope one day to be as lucky. Enjoy your Royal Suite!

[Wolfie469]

How wonderful! Mozle tov!

[63galaxie]

i love a happy ending! Bon voyage!!

[Project_gal]

I notice most of the disparaging comments about my post come from US based passengers.

The booking and pricing structures are different in the UK to the one used in the US. As I have said to many fellow US passengers including TAs, we in the UK are made to pay higher fares than the equivalent US passenger.My booking was for a "gty" cabin NOT because it was cheaper, quite the contrary,we paid more than other UK passengers who booked later than we did. Needless to say I will not be going that route anymore.

 

Until ALL US based cruise lines apply the same rules to ALL passnegers this situation will continue to cause upset.

 

Yes, the booking and pricing structure is different here in the UK. Being in the EU, we get far greater protection than US based customers. Yes, our deposits are non-refundable but, at least for some categories, are lower than in the US. Our fares and other costs in the UK depend on the exchange rate used by Celebrity when the price is set which may be different when you actually book or when you sail.

 

In the UK, we can get refunds on price reductions or swap categories to take advantage of price drops just like our US counterparts [we have done both].

 

My suggestion for getting the best deal is to book early. "GTY" is not usually available until later in the booking period and we usually find that, having booked as soon as a cruise opens, there is not a better rate later on. [The price drops we have taken advantage of have not been large ones.]

 

My grouse with Celebrity is ,having sailed with them several times before, being ELITE members of the Captains club, why bother with membership of same if it does not receive a reward for loyalty.

 

FYI, I am also an Elite member of Captains's Club as are very many people on all the cruises we have been on - they are usually a very large group. I am sorry but I feel that Celebrity reward past customers much better than most businesses in the UK do these days where all perks go to attracting new customers.

 

However, none of this changes my original arguement that you got what you paid with a "GTY". If you wanted to be on deck 10, book deck 10.

 

Sue

[cat616]

Thanks again. Really looking forward to it.

 

As a note, we also are not allowed to avail ourselves of the prices offered to US customers. Not on any line we've cruised. We always end up paying more than what's listed.

 

We never book flights etc through the cruise line, mainly for that reason. Much more cost effective to do it ourselves.

 

Hi BDAMom,

 

Congratulations on your visit from the Upgrade Fairy. I am so envious.

 

My local TA gets me Celebrity website prices. I cannot outright say which one it is here. Myer congrats once again.

 

Happy Cruising.