Upgrade bids

[mking8288]

FWIW, lately (as in ... within the past year) NCL ships are mostly sailed full and near capacity (not lifeboat max) and partnering with travel agencies to sell unsold ones in bulk (i.e. out of NYC) on bundled discounts, Haven are the first ones to be "sold out" via direct sales and upgrade bids at weeks out, not last minute.   Then followed by remaining suites & club balconies, leaving sometimes balconies & oceanview for bidders to eagerly await their email, up until embarkation day.  Our friends recently bidded on their 7 days Bermuda "Joy" upgrades from I/S to Balcony in mid May, and it did not go thru (already in the poor to fair range, not anywhere near the minimum or barely into the "poor" zone on the meter)

 

The busy summer with families traveling to popular destinations, including cruises - the odds are most likely not good to hope for a steal in bidding up, unless you see a good # of unsold cabins at 2 to 4+ weeks out remaining in the inventory (via mock booking, best done on 3rd party TA sites)  Traveling in the Fall and/or hurricane-prone ports, the probability of scoring should swing more.  

 

As others said, you can ended up with an undesirable deck & cabin location ... or, luck out & beat the odds with an angled/large balcony or oversized family oceanview view on Deck 5 midship with a "nominal" bids - once "assigned" you can't reject or refuse, and, your travel insurance need to/will be auto-recalculated depending on who you insured with.  

 

Good luck ! 

[jrt.mom]

Happy to say I just got my upgrade offer for an October sailing on the Sun! I'm booked in an ocean view solo room and they offered a chance to bid on a balcony and a "club balcony", whatever that is...do any of you know? The description of the room was sort of nebulous...🤔

[TrumpyNor]

10 hours ago, jrt.mom said:

Happy to say I just got my upgrade offer for an October sailing on the Sun! I'm booked in an ocean view solo room and they offered a chance to bid on a balcony and a "club balcony", whatever that is...do any of you know? The description of the room was sort of nebulous...🤔

The club balcony cabins on NCL was called "mini-suites" until a few years ago, but as the name often gave the impression of being a "suite" it often caused misunderstandings about what was included in the price. On most NCL ships they are slightly larger than a regular balcony cabin, often with a significant larger bath room. That being said - the Sun is known to have the nicest/largest club balcony cabins in the NCL fleet.