Guarantee booking experiences

[GUT2407]

Still hoping for a last minute upgrade on my cruise next week, seems unlikely now though.

 

I've only been upgraded within category but each time it's been at the dock.

 

Where are you off to next week.

[gaechann]

Just got allocated for the booking I made yesterday for my son & DIL on this Thursday's 3-night comedy cruise on the Pacific Jewel. The guarantee was for an obstructed oceanview cabin on Deck 8 for $$442 each.

The allocation was for a non-obstructed cabin same deck near the rear lifts/stairs! Happy first-time passengers!

[GUT2407]

Just got allocated for the booking I made yesterday for my son & DIL on this Thursday's 3-night comedy cruise on the Pacific Jewel. The guarantee was for an obstructed oceanview cabin on Deck 8 for $$442 each.

The allocation was for a non-obstructed cabin same deck near the rear lifts/stairs! Happy first-time passengers!

 

 

Great one.

[Cruisiesuzie]

This is my 5th cruise but first time booking a guarantee. When do you get notified? It's for Carnival Spirit.

 

 

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[GUT2407]

This is my 5th cruise but first time booking a guarantee. When do you get notified? It's for Carnival Spirit.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

Anywhere between now and at the pier

[Cruisiesuzie]

Anywhere between now and at the pier

 

 

[emoji6][emoji23][emoji568]

 

 

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[mavrick5]

This is my 5th cruise but first time booking a guarantee. When do you get notified? It's for Carnival Spirit.

 

 

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We got notified five weeks out from our cruise leaving October 14th Carnival Spirit.

[OzKiwiJJ]

Just got our cabin allocation for our Dawn Princess cruise next week. We got B407, right next to the laundry. On a 17 day cruise that could be very handy. Hopefully it's a quiet cabin.

 

I give that a tick for central and near the lifts anyhow! :) You will have to let us know if there is any noise issue. There appears on the deck plans to be a space next to your cabin. I was wondering if that might be a crew entry or something? You are getting pretty close to going now :)

 

Reporting back ... the cabin was in a great location. We were very happy with it.

 

Yes, there was a steward storage area next to it. We did notice some noise from the steward's cart being brought out of the storage area, usually around 7:30-8am and again in the early evenings, but it didn't bother us. In fact the morning cart movement proved to be a very good alarm clock - got us up in time for brekkie in the MDR, although I did sleep through it a couple of times. We did have to put up with a vacuum cleaner parked outside our door most days but, again, this wasn't an issue.

 

A queen bed configuration really doesn't work in these cabins unless one person is prepared to climb over one corner of the bed everytime and you are happy with no bedside tables. In twin configuration the chest of drawers becomes a bedside table between the beds and you have much more space.

 

The bathroom was also configured differently to the one in the balcony cabin we had on Sun - handbasin in the middle, shower and toilet to either side in the inside cabin whereas the balcony cabin had the toilet in the middle with shower and handbasin to either side. The inside configuration made the bathroom seem more roomier. It may actually have been slightly larger in fact.

 

The cabin had plenty of storage space and the Aussie power point was easy to access, with room to put the travel power board and anything on charge at the time, without things falling on the floor. This space, centered between the entrance and the bathroom, also held the glasses tray, the fridge was underneath, above there was a cupboard containing the safe, and the TV was right at the top.

 

The only downside for me was a lot of light seepage around the door so the cabin wasn't as dark as I'd have liked. On our RCI cruise the inside cabin was so dark I could sleep without using a sleep mask.

Edited September 15, 2015 by OzKiwiJJ

[Cruisiesuzie]

We got notified five weeks out from our cruise leaving October 14th Carnival Spirit.

 

 

Thank you

 

 

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[goodycruising]

Reporting back ... the cabin was in a great location. We were very happy with it.

 

Glad it worked out well. Thanks for the info. When there is no cabin marked on the plan, and there is blank space, it is likely there is something lurking there! Glad they were only accessing it at reasonable hours.

 

The bed configuration, for more room, yes that would make sense. Good info, but I don't know how I would go sleeping in the single bed configuration.

 

With the light seepage did noise come through also?

[LuckiePuris]

We booked a balcony guarantee for our first celebrity cruise - balcony guarantee at inside cabin pricing.

 

There were a few people I know booked on the same cruise as me, who booked on the same day with the same promotion.

 

I got lucky and received an unobstructed balcony on deck 8 midship, a cabin I would have certainly picked.

 

The other two couples received obstructed cabins on lower decks in less favourable positions of the ship.

 

It really is a risk you take in exchange for a great price.

 

Although my experience turned out well, I would be reluctant to book a guarantee again. I much prefer to research the cabins and deck plans, and be assured of a midship unobstructed balcony.

 

PS not sure if this applies to all cruise lines, however I'm a TA and with Celebrity, for some of my clients who have booked a guarantee status and been assigned a cabin number prior to travel, the cruise line is sometimes happy to swap your cabin number if you prefer, if it's in the same category. Etc an E1 near the elevator change to another E1 further away. Just something to keep in mind and maybe try if you're not happy with the cabin allocation.

Edited September 15, 2015 by LuckiePuris

[OzKiwiJJ]

Glad it worked out well. Thanks for the info. When there is no cabin marked on the plan, and there is blank space, it is likely there is something lurking there! Glad they were only accessing it at reasonable hours.

 

The bed configuration, for more room, yes that would make sense. Good info, but I don't know how I would go sleeping in the single bed configuration.

 

With the light seepage did noise come through also?

 

They were very good. One morning there was more noise than usual due to some problem that had to be repaired. Our steward was most apologetic. It hadn't bothered us really.

 

Remember the single bed is just half of a queen bed. ;) With the added benefit of less partner disturbance.

 

If a group of people walked past talking loudly then there was some noise in the cabin but as we tend to go to bed late it wasn't an issue. It certainly didn't wake us or keep us awake.

[goodycruising]

OK, it was too tempting, and we have booked another gty balcony, for November 2015 on Voyager this time. Our previous gty balconies were much further out, so it will be interesting to see how the gty lotto rolls for us this time :)

[goodycruising]

Ok, update on Gty lotto. Talking about our Voyager Nov 2015 booking for a gty balcony 10 nights Sth Pac. We received a D2 on deck 10 under the windjammer, so pretty far to the back.

 

We are happy with the D category, always expect an E for the gty allocation. D cabins are a nice size.

 

We are concerned about being under the Windjammer, but a pretty thorough search of CC threads has produced few results, and some say there is no noise issue in that area.

 

We think being towards the aft is preferable to being far forward, as far as distance to the stairs/elevators we would use the most, and stability of the ship.

 

Price! Wow, now that the WOW sale is on, for 2 people, we could have paid $1400 more, and received $200 OBC. Makes me very happy that we were able to get it in the 72 hour sale window earlier this week. Thanks to the people that contribute to the el cheapo thread on here :)

Edited September 26, 2015 by goodycruising

[woodyren]

Have been watching the Voyager OTS repo to Singapore on April 16th next year and finally pulled the trigger and booked a balc gty while on board Solstice last week. We were allocated a cabin within a few days and are happy with 8362 which is a category D2. With diamond and TA discounts applied it worked out at $1273pp with a $200 USD OBC for booking on board for 14 nights.

 

Will continue to book gtys in the future whenever available.

Edited December 8, 2015 by woodyren

[goodycruising]

Have been watching the Voyager OTS repo to Singapore on April 16th next year and finally pulled the trigger and booked a balc gty while on board Solstice last week. We were allocated a cabin within a few days and are happy with 8362 which is a category D2. With diamond and TA discounts applied it worked out at $1273pp with a $200 USD OBC for booking on board for 14 nights.

 

Will continue to book gtys in the future whenever available.

 

That looks like a good cabin. Well done! We were in a JS for our first 13 nights, and then the D2 on deck 10 near the aft for the second cruise of 10 nights. The 10 nights was around half the price of the 13, but it really made up our mind we will pay more and pick a central cabin that we want.

 

We just found it too far to walk with little niggles we have (knees and heel), particularly when wearing heels for dinner etc. The air intake above us was good in that it buffered any noise from the Windjammer, but we really like sitting on the balcony and having breaky, and listening to the waves. It is something that others may dismiss as not important to them, but we have had a really good comparison by doing this.

 

We have also decided that doing a back to back to nearly the same Sth Pacific itineraries was not great. We had previously done two totally different cruises for B2Bs, and thought it would be more about the ship than the ports, but nope, we would prefer to do Tassie or NZ itineraries, and they usually cost a bit more as well.

 

One of our biggest annoyances was booking Radiance for 2017, and we were given E balcony cabins only 5 cabins apart, a fair way up the front on deck 9. When we rang to ask if we could change one of them to the further location as we were doing b2b we got a stern NO. USA customers can return their gty allocations 3 times, and when they get allocated can chose any other vacant cabin in that category. One fellow on the RCI board had done just that, was not happy, threw his cabin in, and went up and down in categories and ended up with a much better allocation. And then he changed it to the one he wanted. Good on him, but we book 2 cruises, get no discount for that (B2B means nothing to Royal), and we can't even move up 5 cabins? There was so many cabins free, and we were asking for a worse position.

 

I would really like to see that we get the same terms and conditions as the people in the cabin beside us. I understand UK customers have even worse terms as far as deposits. It is bull. They are selling cruises world wide. The US market might be competitive, but with the internet, we are well aware that we are being treated differently.

 

It has been a fun exercise and I hope others learnt a few tips along the way too. All our other gty bookings have now been cancelled, but we are still looking for something with RCI. We had a lot of fun on the trip, and we still like the Royal/Celebrity brand. We just got a bit dazzled by the specials this season. Some of them have been great bargains for people that are more flexible or have different priorities than us.

[gogo65]

I mentioned on another thread, I recently booked a balcony guarantee on radiance through an Australian TA, was allocated an undesirable E1, I asked her to call and try to swap and gave her list of cabins, she called on Monday and was able to swap to another E1. Maybe call again?

[Esilef]

I just booked the special on radiance 31 Jan cruise. I booked a large ocean view guarantee cabin.

 

1 month out from sailing. Paid in full at time of booking.

 

There is only 5 cabins showing as being available in the large ocean view category. No balcony cabins left. Heaps of suites.

 

Waiting........ Waiting. Oh I have not checked the booking for 3 minutes best check again.......

[gogo65]

I just booked the special on radiance 31 Jan cruise. I booked a large ocean view guarantee cabin.

 

1 month out from sailing. Paid in full at time of booking.

 

There is only 5 cabins showing as being available in the large ocean view category. No balcony cabins left. Heaps of suites.

 

Waiting........ Waiting. Oh I have not checked the booking for 3 minutes best check again.......

 

Esilef, I just checked a site that I use frequently, it has 27 oceanview cabins available.

Category I-3

Category H-21

Category G-3.

Looks like a category H, is probable....

Let us know.

If you aren't happy with your allocation I was successful in changing my guarantee cabin within the same category on the same cruise.

Unfortunately they wouldn't allow me to upgrade to a suite guarantee:(

Edited December 27, 2015 by gogo65

[Esilef]

Category H would be great.

 

I've been checking some sites and only a few are showing.

[Esilef]

H cabins on decks 7 & 4 total 21 cabins available.

 

I would be happy with any of these considering I only paid $650pp ov including taxes.

[gayengarry]

Esilef, I just checked a site that I use frequently, it has 27 oceanview cabins available.

Category I-3

Category H-21

Category G-3.

Looks like a category H, is probable....

Let us know.

If you aren't happy with your allocation I was successful in changing my guarantee cabin within the same category on the same cruise.

Unfortunately they wouldn't allow me to upgrade to a suite guarantee:(

 

Where do you look to see which cabins are still available?

 

cheers,

G&G :):cool:

[gogo65]

Where do you look to see which cabins are still available?

 

cheers,

G&G :):cool:

I use a online travel agent

Try searching cruise offers, it should come up:rolleyes:

Not only is there website a great one for searching their prices are very competitive too!

[resordanis]

H cabins on decks 7 & 4 total 21 cabins available.

 

I would be happy with any of these considering I only paid $650pp ov including taxes.

I have also just booked this cruise and am anxiously awaiting a cabin allocation.

I do not think I could do a guarantee a long way out as I tend to look every day for my allocation.

I have had several good upgrades on Princess, but this is my first on RCCL.

I do wonder whether they give any better cabins if you book direct vs thru an agent or if you are Diamond or above?

Just wondering and waiting!:rolleyes:

[gayengarry]

Thanks gogo65 & Esilef, found the sites you were talking about :D

 

cheers,

G&G :):cool: