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Why do you not choose a cabin when booking


rocsailor
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Not sure what you mean by "batting average". Please explain and I'll be happy to let you know.
Sorry. Baseball term. Percentage of upgrades. If you have been upgraded 100% of the time then your batting average would be 1.000, 75% = 0.750, etc. We are batting 1.000!
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I have sailed with Hal and have always selected a cabin when booking, Many times I have received an offer for an up grade and have rejected some but also have taken what is offered so my question is why book a guarantee to start with?

 

We booked our first guarantee for our upcoming trip to Alaska. We got an excellent deal, we're aware that we may get the lowest category room on the ship. We decided that we'd be out of the room quite a bit and are willing to take what we get.

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Sorry. Baseball term. Percentage of upgrades. If you have been upgraded 100% of the time then your batting average would be 1.000, 75% = 0.750, etc. We are batting 1.000!

 

 

As noted in my post, we have never been assigned what we booked.

 

This is actual cabin letter, like book an MM, receive an I. So, 100% upgraded, batting average 1.000

 

If you want to talk about inside to outside etc, I'd have to do a LOT of work to figure that out!

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I have sailed with Hal and have always selected a cabin when booking, Many times I have received an offer for an up grade and have rejected some but also have taken what is offered so my question is why book a guarantee to start with?

my bold...

We are now 4 Star Mariners, but have only gotten an offer for an upgrade/upsell once when we held a booking for a specific cabin, and we wrangled for that one, although I was really hoping for some OBC. When booking guarantees we have gotten upgrades all but one time, a [then] category C on Amsterdam, which was the highest category OV; we were assigned an excellent location category C. Once we booked an MM guarantee very late and received a mid-ship OV at the pier, very surprised!

And we have had times when only guarantees were available for the room type we wanted, usually an OV... so not wanting to pay the large premium for R and S ships' balcony rooms we took the plunge with guarantees, and we've never felt like we received a bad assignment. m--

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Question for those more experienced in upsell/upgrades. How long does it take for the upsell/upgrade to show up in your online booking?

 

I get an e right away from my TA/PCC and it is usually showing on my on line booking within a couple of hours. Time difference works in our favour ;).

 

If it is after the time, then it is the next morning and usually there right away. It's pretty quick in our experience.

 

Oops, forgot to say that these are upsells though and not upgrades.

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If we can select our cabin we do. We are not fussy. We prefer a cabin that has cabins above and below. Depending on the ship we try to get the extra large balconies.

 

Most of our bookings since retirement have been late booking. They often come with gty cabins. We have never been disappointed. On one Carnival gty, they allowed us to be put back in the gty pool for another draw. Worked out well. Bottom line though is that we are happy to be on the ship.

 

The challenge with upgrades is that the upgrade may be based on the cruise line's artificial cabin classification marketing scheme. In our experience a higher classification of a a verandah cabin does not mean, for us, that it is in a preferable location.

Edited by iancal
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  • 1 month later...
Sometimes booking a specific cabin is important to us...sometimes it isn't.

 

Our goal in booking our upcoming cruise on the Zaandam was to do it as cheap as possible so we picked an inside guarantee in the lowest category available (MM). We might end up in a cabin in that category, but if not, anything else we get will be an upgrade!

I noticed from another Holland America posting that you are now on the Zaandam. May I ask what type of cabin you end up with?

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Sometimes booking a specific cabin is important to us...sometimes it isn't.

 

Our goal in booking our upcoming cruise on the Zaandam was to do it as cheap as possible so we picked an inside guarantee in the lowest category available (MM). We might end up in a cabin in that category, but if not, anything else we get will be an upgrade!

 

Regarding the dreaded MMs....here's what has been my experience:

I'm solo, so I'm paying double. Furthermore, I'm short in stature so I prefer a stand-alone shower, rather than climbing in and out of the high-sided European-style tubs on the S-class and R-class ships. Therefore I have ALWAYS booked an interior guaranty (MM). However, in my eight years on HAL I have NEVER been actually assigned to an MM...or even an M. Here's the reason: I've noticed that those undesirable lodgings are often occupied by contract entertainers or other contract personnel, whose accommodations are "comped" by HAL. I've most often ended up in a J or K. Twice I've even scored the very large "sideways" staterooms that RuthC is so rightly fond of....and still I was only paying for the MM gty.

So good luck to you. IMO you'll likely not end up in those little, poorly-located digs. I'm eagerly awaiting news of my own MM gty on Zaandam in <1 month.

Ooops! Didn't notice the date on your message. Have you already sailed? What assignment did you end up with?

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As 4-STAR Mariners we've never been offered an Upgrade or even an 'Upsell'. Sometimes we went with a Guarantee..other times a specific Cabin booked well in advance. Go figure....

I all of our cruises with HAL, we have ALWAYS booked a specific Signature Suite cabin somewhere on deck 6. In every case, with out fail, we have been offered an upsell to a Neptune Suite before the cruise starts. Sometimes we get multiple offers with decreasing per person fares. We have never bought one because we like the idea of knowing where our cabin is and even though NS are nice, we may not be happy with the location. Someday though, if the price is right, I'm sure we'll bite on one and take our chances that we will be happy with it.

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We booked our first guarantee cabin last November on our 15 nights Carribean cruise... booking a guarantee suite on the Rotterdam was a great deal so we went for it. It was actually quite exciting waiting to be assigned a cabin. We finally got assigned the day before boarding and I can still remember the thrill of looking up my luggage tags and seeing a number there. We got assigned a great mid ship port side suite... we found the experience quite exciting but we still prefer to book a specific cabin of our choosing when we can...

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On our many HAL sailings, we have only twice chosen our stateroom and that was because we wanted an aft corner suite. Other than that, we book with a verandah guarantee. We’re happy with any verandah stateroom but usually end up several categories above the basic verandah category.

 

In our opinion, we’re paying less originally, so that gives us more play room when it comes to upsell offers (and our PCC expects our call requesting upsells within the month prior to sailing). We’ve gone from verandah guarantee to an SQ, an SA right across from the Neptune and many higher level verandahs.

 

We’ve never been disappointed because we don’t guarantee anything less than what we want.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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We’ve never been disappointed because we don’t guarantee anything less than what we want.

 

That's the key. You have to be prepared to cruise in the lowest category you've guaranteed. I NEED a window, not portholes, an actual window, so if I do a guarantee cabin, it's never for an inside. obstructed view, or porthole cabin, it's always for the lowest category with a real window. I know I would not be happy in any cabin category lower than that.

 

I am always amazed at passengers who book the cheapest inside guarantee cabins hoping for a (free) upgrade to a suite and then complain that they were assigned a cabin in the cabin category they actually paid for. It's a gamble to go the guarantee route, but you have to be prepared to cruise in the bottom of the rung if you go with a guarantee. If you will not be happy in an inside cabin, don't book a guarantee for one.

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We just booked a BC (balcony) guarantee. But there don’t appear to be any BCs or BBs available. So I think we’ll be in a B or AA or A. Hubby thinks they just aren’t showing all available cabins. But we are 60 days from sailing. We don’t care about which category because it’s just a matter of location. It was about 1,000 cheaper than getting an assigned B cabin.

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We just booked a BC (balcony) guarantee. But there don’t appear to be any BCs or BBs available. So I think we’ll be in a B or AA or A. Hubby thinks they just aren’t showing all available cabins. But we are 60 days from sailing. We don’t care about which category because it’s just a matter of location. It was about 1,000 cheaper than getting an assigned B cabin.

 

It could be that they are none available and you'll get an upgrade. On my last cruise, my younger brother booked a guarantee ocean view cabin and even though there were none showing even 10 days out on the website, that's exactly what he ended up with. I booked a specific cabin and his guarantee was three doors down from mine. You never know what HAL is thinking or what they will do in terms of guarantee cabins until you arrive at the pier.

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Good points!

 

HAL has changed the ways they fill cabins, primarily by using the "paid upgrade" (upsell). This way they are able to generate more revenue (the name of the game now).

 

Because of this, IMO guarantees are not the great deal they used to be, as HAL most times sells the upgrade cabins to the people in lower categories who are willing to pay the upsell fee. Whenever we have taken an upsell, we have been able to select our cabin from the appropriate new category inventory, so naturally this makes one of the "better" cabins unavailable to be assigned to a guarantee booking. This may very well be the reason we are hearing of more people booking quarantees not getting an upgrade.

 

If available I normally select my cabin and mark it "do not upgrade", as most times HAL's idea of an upgrade does not match mine and I do not want to end up in a less desirable cabin. Of course I pay a bit more (most times but not always), but to me it is worth it.

 

I agree Dave, we also do not find guarantees the great deal we use to. We use to book guarantees in the past and always received an upgrade. However, we also discovered that what HAL considers an upgrade, we do not. And after sailing in a guarantee upgrade that we would not have selected, we now stay away from guarantees. We now select the cabin that we want as we have learned that for us, it does make a difference to the enjoyment of our cruise.

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I am always amazed at passengers who book the cheapest inside guarantee cabins hoping for a (free) upgrade to a suite and then complain that they were assigned a cabin in the cabin category they actually paid for.

 

I hear you, many folks book the cheapest inside cabin, then bitterly complain that they weren't offered (for free) a Pinnacle Suite.:rolleyes:

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I agree Dave, we also do not find guarantees the great deal we use to. We use to book guarantees in the past and always received an upgrade. However, we also discovered that what HAL considers an upgrade, we do not.
We stopped booking gty when the fleet-wide mass recategorization a few years back turned everything topsy-turvy from our perspective. What used to be VE and VF on deck 5 of Vista and Signature ships became V or VA, and the high-deck VA and V that we like became VE and VF! Now we choose a VE or VF or deck 7 or 8 and specify "DNU".
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Regarding the dreaded MMs....here's what has been my experience:

However, in my eight years on HAL I have NEVER been actually assigned to an MM...or even an M. Here's the reason: I've noticed that those undesirable lodgings are often occupied by contract entertainers or other contract personnel, whose accommodations are "comped" by HAL. I've most often ended up in a J or K. Twice I've even scored the very large "sideways" staterooms that RuthC is so rightly fond of....and still I was only paying for the MM gty.

So good luck to you. IMO you'll likely not end up in those little, poorly-located digs. I'm eagerly awaiting news of my own MM gty on Zaandam in <1 month.

Ooops! Didn't notice the date on your message. Have you already sailed? What assignment did you end up with?

 

We will be testing your MM theory in a couple months. We are on what I think will be a popular cruise. I am not expecting an upgrade from MM. Tom :)

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It could be that they are none available and you'll get an upgrade.

Or, at least as likely, people who have already booked that category will get an upsell or upgrade, making a cabin available for the poster, and poster will be assigned exactly the category guaranteed.

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I've never booked a guarantee although it's been tempting due to the price. I've always been aware that I could be put in a very undesirable location, like a kitchen galley or noisy showroom, so I book what I like. It works out well for us.

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I've never booked a guarantee although it's been tempting due to the price. I've always been aware that I could be put in a very undesirable location, like a kitchen galley or noisy showroom, so I book what I like. It works out well for us.
In our case, the worst cabin we ever had is one we chose! Didn't know any better at the time.
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