"Upgraded" to an adjoining cabin

[Jmox84]

Looking for opinions on this.  My family of 4 are booked on a B2B on enchanted over the summer. We intentionally booked the same room for both cruises.  We booked a delux balcony in a location we liked.  

 

Last night we received an upgrade offer from Princess to move to a mini suite for our second cruise for 250.00 per person.  We laughed as that was only a savings of $50 total and were happy with our room.

 

This morning (12 hours after the pay to upgrade offer) we received a new booking confirmation for our second cruise.  It seems that Princess "upgraded" us to a mini free of charge without asking.  Now, normally that might seem fantastic, but I have some big reservations.  For one, the room is right under the pool deck.  How noisy is this going to be?  Secondly the room is an adjoining cabin!! I am extremely sensitive to noise and we are travelling with 2 young children.  Thirdly, the mini also means having to change cabins on the B2B which is not ideal....

 

I'm about to pick up the phone to Princess and demand my cabin back.  If anyone has been under the pool deck and/or in an adjoining cabin and feels i am over reacting and this is a great deal I'd love to hear.  I'm sure I'll be on the phone for hours...

[Sea Hag]

I think you mean connecting cabin. Adjoining cabin would just be the one next to it with no door connecting the two. I wouldn't want that cabin, partly because it's connecting and partly due to the location. You don't give details on what ship or cabin, but I won't book one under a pool deck because we had one once. It wasn't the daytime noise that bothered us; it was the very early morning dragging chairs around on the deck over our heads while the crew was getting it prepped for the day. That was bad.

[PacnGoNow]

41 minutes ago, Jmox84 said:

Looking for opinions on this.  My family of 4 are booked on a B2B on enchanted over the summer. We intentionally booked the same room for both cruises.  We booked a delux balcony in a location we liked.  

 

Last night we received an upgrade offer from Princess to move to a mini suite for our second cruise for 250.00 per person.  We laughed as that was only a savings of $50 total and were happy with our room.

 

This morning (12 hours after the pay to upgrade offer) we received a new booking confirmation for our second cruise.  It seems that Princess "upgraded" us to a mini free of charge without asking.  Now, normally that might seem fantastic, but I have some big reservations.  For one, the room is right under the pool deck.  How noisy is this going to be?  Secondly the room is an adjoining cabin!! I am extremely sensitive to noise and we are travelling with 2 young children.  Thirdly, the mini also means having to change cabins on the B2B which is not ideal....

 

I'm about to pick up the phone to Princess and demand my cabin back.  If anyone has been under the pool deck and/or in an adjoining cabin and feels i am over reacting and this is a great deal I'd love to hear.  I'm sure I'll be on the phone for hours...

I wouldn’t take it either.  Noisy. Mini suite on another floor, maybe but only if they could give me the same cabin on a b2b.

Don’t like to change cabins.

[Mike45LC]

I've had to change cabins two or three times.  Many years ago.  It was relatively painless.  I waited until everyone was off, and then I loaded everything from one shelf/drawer at a time into a suitcase and carried it to the new cabin, and unpacked everything exactly where  it had been.  That would not be a dealbreaker for me.

 

Under the pool deck, no way!   

[chamima]

Before you totally cancel this "upgrade" know that you can move to any mini suite that is the same category cabin as the one they gave you.

Try to  find an available cabin in your category before you call Princess and ask them to move you to that one.

 

A mini will give you a little more room  than the balcony cabin and it will also have a bathtub.which might make bathing the children easier than the tiny shower in the balcony cabin.

 

Also, the crew usually helps move all of your things. It's pretty painless.

Edited June 14, 2022 by chamima

[kabmab]

We were given an "upgrade" without notification (neither us or our TA).  Our no upgrade box was checked.  We wanted our original cabin back because the "upgrade" was at a stairwell entrance and directly across from the cabin stewards' utility room (I'm also very noise sensitive).   Princess answer was no to original cabin, no to another cabin.  Where they put you is likely where you will be, but I hope you have better luck than we did.

[Jmox84]

5 hours ago, Sea Hag said:

I think you mean connecting cabin. Adjoining cabin would just be the one next to it with no door connecting the two. I wouldn't want that cabin, partly because it's connecting and partly due to the location. You don't give details on what ship or cabin, but I won't book one under a pool deck because we had one once. It wasn't the daytime noise that bothered us; it was the very early morning dragging chairs around on the deck over our heads while the crew was getting it prepped for the day. That was bad.

Yes, I mean connecting.  

 

Do you recall what time the "prepping" started each day and how long it lasted? I want to prepare myself for the worst case scenario of being stuck in this cabin

[Jmox84]

48 minutes ago, kabmab said:

We were given an "upgrade" without notification (neither us or our TA).  Our no upgrade box was checked.  We wanted our original cabin back because the "upgrade" was at a stairwell entrance and directly across from the cabin stewards' utility room (I'm also very noise sensitive).   Princess answer was no to original cabin, no to another cabin.  Where they put you is likely where you will be, but I hope you have better luck than we did.

That's terrible!  What's the point of having a "no upgrade" box?  Not a way to keep loyal guests!

[Jmox84]

1 hour ago, chamima said:

Before you totally cancel this "upgrade" know that you can move to any mini suite that is the same category cabin as the one they gave you.

Try to  find an available cabin in your category before you call Princess and ask them to move you to that one.

 

A mini will give you a little more room  than the balcony cabin and it will also have a bathtub.which might make bathing the children easier than the tiny shower in the balcony cabin.

 

Also, the crew usually helps move all of your things. It's pretty painless.

We tried.  There is nothing available.  There were a bunch earlier in the week, but it seems they assigned a bunch of guaranteed cabins overnight (or that's my assumption).  Sigh.

[Jmox84]

1 hour ago, Mike45LC said:

I've had to change cabins two or three times.  Many years ago.  It was relatively painless.  I waited until everyone was off, and then I loaded everything from one shelf/drawer at a time into a suitcase and carried it to the new cabin, and unpacked everything exactly where  it had been.  That would not be a dealbreaker for me.

 

Under the pool deck, no way!   

Totally agree.  Changing is not the end of the world.  The pool deck/connecting cabin is a hard no

[Jmox84]

Well, I spoke to Princess.  The agent gave me a lot of needless attitude and accused me of accepting the upgrade!  She said "you had 24 hours to accept or decline".  I said "yesterday Princess offered an 'upsell' to a minisuite which we ignored as were not interested.  Today the cabin was automatically changed with no consultation at all".

 

The best the agent could do was put in a request for our old room back or movement to a mini in a different location.  She said we'd hear back in 3-5 business days.  Based on how Princess has been operating recently, I'm going to assume the chances of us hearing back at all is less than 50%.  

[chamima]

1 hour ago, Jmox84 said:

Well, I spoke to Princess.  The agent gave me a lot of needless attitude and accused me of accepting the upgrade!  She said "you had 24 hours to accept or decline".  I said "yesterday Princess offered an 'upsell' to a minisuite which we ignored as were not interested.  Today the cabin was automatically changed with no consultation at all".

 

The best the agent could do was put in a request for our old room back or movement to a mini in a different location.  She said we'd hear back in 3-5 business days.  Based on how Princess has been operating recently, I'm going to assume the chances of us hearing back at all is less than 50%.  

Call back. 
I , like many on here, have had the experience of getting  a phone rep who says something is impossible and then calling back and getting exactly what we requested the first time. 
 

Just remember the “spoon full of sugar” attitude!

Edited June 15, 2022 by chamima

[kabmab]

11 hours ago, Jmox84 said:

Well, I spoke to Princess.  The agent gave me a lot of needless attitude and accused me of accepting the upgrade!  She said "you had 24 hours to accept or decline".  I said "yesterday Princess offered an 'upsell' to a minisuite which we ignored as were not interested.  Today the cabin was automatically changed with no consultation at all".

 

The best the agent could do was put in a request for our old room back or movement to a mini in a different location.  She said we'd hear back in 3-5 business days.  Based on how Princess has been operating recently, I'm going to assume the chances of us hearing back at all is less than 50%.  

I omitted (in the interest of brevity) that our TA spoke to Princess and initially our orig cabin was available with same 3-5 days processing time.  During that time, they sold our original cabin.  And then the answer was a hard no to us (Elite loyalty level).  And we booked another cruise shortly after that cruise ... with Celebrity.

Edited June 15, 2022 by kabmab

[geocruiser]

Can you change it to another mini suite in the same CAT.?

[Sea Hag]

12 hours ago, Jmox84 said:

Yes, I mean connecting.  

 

Do you recall what time the "prepping" started each day and how long it lasted? I want to prepare myself for the worst case scenario of being stuck in this cabin

This was many years ago, but to the best of my recollection it started at daybreak (4:00 am?) and continued for at least a half hour. It was annoying. I hope your situation isn't as bad.

[JF - retired RRT]

12 hours ago, Jmox84 said:

That's terrible!  What's the point of having a "no upgrade" box?  Not a way to keep loyal guests!

Happens all the time. "No upgrade" is a request, not a guarantee.

[JF - retired RRT]

12 hours ago, Jmox84 said:

Well, I spoke to Princess.  The agent gave me a lot of needless attitude and accused me of accepting the upgrade!  She said "you had 24 hours to accept or decline".  I said "yesterday Princess offered an 'upsell' to a minisuite which we ignored as were not interested.  Today the cabin was automatically changed with no consultation at all".

 

The best the agent could do was put in a request for our old room back or movement to a mini in a different location.  She said we'd hear back in 3-5 business days.  Based on how Princess has been operating recently, I'm going to assume the chances of us hearing back at all is less than 50%.  

Call back! A different rep will likely give a different response. We got an upgrade offer once, but didn't like the location. When I called in, I requested a specific cabin that was showing as open (& a LOT more $$ than the one that was offered). The rep approved it immediately with no additional fare.

[cruzsnooze]

The connecting cabin is not a big deal to me. Under the pool is horrible. It happened to me once and the noise in the early morning of setting up the chairs was loud and continuous. Since you used a TA call them and insist they get you back to your old cabin or something more suitable.

[geoherb]

If Princess was smart, there's an easy solution: give the OP their original cabin back and upgrade the new people. 

[atobols]

We tried a deluxe balcony one time for our family of 4 and we hated it.  I would definitely take the mini-suite over the balcony room.  I have had the room under the pool deck and that was also terrible.  The screeching of chairs being moved every morning was very annoying.  The adjoining cabin wouldn't be a problem.  We've stayed in those before and had no problems because of it.  If it's at all possible to move to a better location of mini-suite, I would take that option.  I'm not sure which I hate more, the deluxe balcony or the chair moving at 5AM every morning, that would be a tough call for me.

[Jmox84]

Update- we called our PVP after getting nowhere with Princess general agents and she restored our original cabin.  Yay!  Will I miss the mini suite space with 2 kids? Absolutely, but space means little if no one is sleeping!

 

Thanks everyone!

[SomewhereGirl]

7 hours ago, Jmox84 said:

Update- we called our PVP after getting nowhere with Princess general agents and she restored our original cabin.  Yay!  Will I miss the mini suite space with 2 kids? Absolutely, but space means little if no one is sleeping!

 

Thanks everyone!

Was your PVP able to make the change while you were on the phone with them?  I received a pathetic "upgrade" today that I don't want so I called the number on my upgrade letter and the agent said they had to submit a form and I should receive an email tomorrow.  I probably should've just been patient and contacted my PVP in the morning.  Now I'm worried they are going to screw up my promotions.

[Jmox84]

14 minutes ago, SomewhereGirl said:

Was your PVP able to make the change while you were on the phone with them?  I received a pathetic "upgrade" today that I don't want so I called the number on my upgrade letter and the agent said they had to submit a form and I should receive an email tomorrow.  I probably should've just been patient and contacted my PVP in the morning.  Now I'm worried they are going to screw up my promotions.

Yes she fixed it while we were on the phone.  No harm in calling your PVP in the morning.

[Happiest when cruising]

3 hours ago, Jmox84 said:

Yes she fixed it while we were on the phone.  No harm in calling your PVP in the morning.

Can I ask why you didn’t call your PVP to start with? 

[SomewhereGirl]

5 hours ago, Happiest when cruising said:

Can I ask why you didn’t call your PVP to start with? 

 

I had received the upgrade notice around noon.  By the time I looked more closely at the deck plans and the upgrade notice details in the eventing it was after my PVP office hours so I called the number on the upgrade notice.  I'm not all that well versed in Princess practices.  After I called I did send my PVP an email.  The last time I emailed my PVP and left him a voicemail, I didn't hear back.  The notice said to contact Princess at a specific number within 48 hours to decline the upgrade. 

 

My pathetic upgrade was from an IF to an ID.  I mean, if I wanted the ID I would've paid the extra $20 to begin with.  I just don't understand the point of this particular upgrade.

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by SomewhereGirl