How do you tell if a cabin is booked or just on hold by someone or Travel Agency?

[Jimbo]

Travel agencies when holding cabins, do they just hold category space or actual cabin numbers?

 

How do you know for sure a cabin is actually booked by people or if it is just being held by someone or a travel agency.

 

Is there a way to check?

Edited March 3, 2020 by Jimbo

[Sea Hag]

If it was a cabin that I seriously wanted to book, I'd call the cruise line and ask for it. Not everything that's available shows on the website. I think.

[Coral]

Travel agencies hold space in categories, not specific cabins.

[Steelers36]

Not sure if your question had this intent, but if a TA or a person booking direct has a cabin on "courtesy hold" for three days, it will not show as available to book.  Whether a Princess rep will tell you whether a desired cabin is on hold or has a deposit on it is another question I cannot answer.  All you can probably do is see if it opens up in following days.

 

[Colo Cruiser]

No way to tell for passengers.

Just keep checking.

[Ken the cruiser]

You may also want to do fake bookings on other longer itineraries where the cruise you're researching may also be a subset of. For example we're on a 21 day cruise in July 2021 which is made up of three 7 day cruises. On closer review one or more of those 3 legs are actually included in a total of 11 different itineraries.

 

My point being each one of those 11 itineraries will initially have certain bookable cabins only assigned to it and those cabins will show as unavailable on all of the other 10 itineraries. But in all actuality you might be able to book the one you want if you or your TA contacts Princess. So keep that in mind when trying to book a specific cabin on a specific itinerary. It may actually be available.

[Jimbo]

What's the best phone number to use when calling Princess? This would be our first cruise with Princess.

[Kmkub]

I put a cabin on hold and gave it to my TA to reserve. It was crazy weird trying to get it off hold, so my TA just waited until it was released and grabbed it. It's not an intuitive process. I could not figure out how to release my hold so my TA could grab it.

[caribill]

1 hour ago, Jimbo said:

What's the best phone number to use when calling Princess? This would be our first cruise with Princess.

 

1-800-PRINCESS

[caribill]

If in your exploring cruise options on the Internet on the Princess web site you select a cabin (but not book it) during the process, that cabin will be unavailable to others for about 30 minutes.**  In fact, if you look at other cabins and then go back to that one, you will find it unavailable during that 30 minute period even though you were the one that caused it to be unavailable.

 

 

** This is done so that someone else cannot grab that cabin as you make your way through booking it.

 

[Coral]

It is cheaper to use a Travel Agent. They can discount cruises (different than RCCL).

[JF - retired RRT]

11 hours ago, Kmkub said:

I put a cabin on hold and gave it to my TA to reserve. It was crazy weird trying to get it off hold, so my TA just waited until it was released and grabbed it. It's not an intuitive process. I could not figure out how to release my hold so my TA could grab it.

Why didn't you finish the hold (i.e. pay the deposit) then transfer it to your TA.

Waiting for the hold to release could have "lost" the cabin if your TA wasn't quick on the draw.

[Married15]

I use a Princess Vacation Planner. I also prefer a certain category, deck and cabin. Many times, that cabin is not showing available online, but he is able to get it for me.

[Jimbo]

On 3/3/2020 at 6:44 AM, Coral said:

It is cheaper to use a Travel Agent. They can discount cruises (different than RCCL).

Exactly using a travel agency that can discount the price rather then bookingdirectly, I had my agent call and check once but I rather not keep having him call Princess to see if desired cabin is available. I guess I just rather call myself every so often and check. Sailings is a ways to go so I guess even if it is booked the person could cancel.

I guess Princess doesn't do waitlisting a cabin do they and how sucessful has that been for people if they allow that?

[Coral]

Princess will only waitlist a category. 

[Jimbo]

15 minutes ago, Coral said:

Princess will only waitlist a category. 

Guess you can't waitlist a category if you are already booked in that category can you.........so few cabins in this Category to start with.

I think only 6 in this category on the entire ship to start with, and right now only one is left and on the same deck as ours. Would like one of the ones 1 or 2 decks higher then ours.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Jimbo

[Coral]

7 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Guess you can't waitlist a category if you are already booked in that category can you.........so few cabins in this Category to start with.

I think only 6 in this category on the entire ship to start with, and right now only one is left and on the same deck as ours. Would like one of the ones 1 or 2 decks higher then ours.

If there are only 6, you can easily check online as opposed to calling Princess call center.

[Jimbo]

3 minutes ago, Coral said:

If there are only 6, you can easily check online as opposed to calling Princess call center.

Someone needs to develop a website where you can put in a cabin number, and then you are directly emailed when it becomes available so I don't have to keep checking for the the next 535 days.   LOL