Crappy Cabins on TA Sites

[happyvalley]

We're looking at the Ruby cruise on November 4, 2009--a full year out. But going to two different TA sites shows NO cabins on the Caribe deck and only a limited selection on others, plus two bacony categories are not available. (I'm looking for a balcony cabin.) Is it really possible this sailing is filling up or are some cabins blocked out for "special" people?

[MichCook]

Ruby Princess is the newest ship and the Caribe deck the most popular. So, folks probably booked sooner that you did.

 

I checked the Princess website and there are balcony cabins available on the Riviera, Lido, Baja & Aloha - if you change your mind about the deck.

 

Good luck.

[Fairport]

If you call your travel agent they may be able to get you cabins that are not listed on web sites. This has worked for us in the past.

[rcacace]

I didn't see anything avail on the Carib deck but there were lots of balcony cabins left.

[cruiserbryce]

could be that those cabins are the only ones in the TA's allotment...

[cherylandtk]

Many of the TA online sites just list the same six available cabins as the Princess site does, but on the Princess site you can also input specific cabin numbers. Doing that, I just found at least three BAs on Caribe deck. Not sure why they don't pop up, but C305 and C306 were available. I picked those as they were the most forward and perhaps the least likely to sell out first. Since those worked, I randomly picked C314, it was also open.

 

Call your TA to get what you want, or book directly with Princess and then transfer.

[Pam in CA]

As has been advised, call your TA to see if a cabin is available. And to answer your question, it's not at all unusual for an entire cruise to sell out a year, or more, ahead of time. Particularly popular categories. I've taken several cruises over the last year that were essentially sold out 12 - 18 months before the cruise and only a couple of cabins of any category still available.

[happyvalley]

Thanks all! I posted this original thread. Note that we had the same experience when trying to book the Ruby in December 2008--once we finally could choose a cabin in February 2008, only a few cabins were available. One reply about TA "allotments" shows that something is up--apparently not all the cabins are available to everyone at the same time on all Web-based TAs. Quite frustrating!

[KAWS]

When we booked our Alaskan cruise, I saw the cabins that were available on Princess site and the same were showing on my TA's site. When my agent and I were talking I said something about how we always love to get a full aft and how none were showing......wah wah wah......suddenly he says to me "Oh I see C753 (which is a full aft on the Caribe deck) is showing vacant, would you like that?" I almost flipped cause I was sure there were none available. I couldn't holler BOOK IT fast enough.

 

I can't remember where, but I did hear somewhere that they only show a certain number of available cabins at any one time, so it's always good to just check and see.

[Putterdude]

Cabins go get blanked out by TA's and even Princess themselves. I recently had the experience of once we had the price nailed down requested a certain cabin that was showing not available....so TA phoned Princess and got it.

[piper28]

I've found that at times travelocity's website is pretty good for showing a lot more cabins that are available than some of the other sites. And of course plugging in a specific cabin number on the Princess site has worked well at times too. I did have once where I could punch a cabin number in on the Princess site and it would only show available about 50% of the time. When I called my TA, it was showing as not available to her, but when she actually contacted princess it turned out it was indeed available. So it never hurts to ask.

[Sandytoes]

You could call Princess directly and request a cabin on the Caribe deck and book it.

Then transfer the booking over to your TA.

[Paul+3kids]

Yeah I had the same problem, I even called princess and asked what cabins were available and she only said the ones that I allready saw on the website. I did work out that there are some good cabins in the centre of the ship which only let you book them if you had 3 or 4 passengers, so maybe they release those ones to twins after a certain period of time if no bigger groups book them?

[ginagirl]

I have also noticed that a number of less expensive categories in the balcony and minisuite cabins only show Guarantee Cabins. And even if you go for the higher categories in those cabins, they only show 2 or 3 choices, and the rest are also Guarantee cabins. And they're also the last 2 forward and/or aft or by the elevators. And that's on ships way in advance. Who are they hoarding and/or hiding the other cabins for? :D

[NoGvmnt]

You could call Princess directly and request a cabin on the Caribe deck and book it.

Then transfer the booking over to your TA.

 

Can anyone explain what the advantage is of booking directly with the cruise line then transferring the booking to your TA is?

 

Thanks, Jim

[MichCook]

Many of the TA online sites just list the same six available cabins as the Princess site does, but on the Princess site you can also input specific cabin numbers. Doing that, I just found at least three BAs on Caribe deck. Not sure why they don't pop up, but C305 and C306 were available. I picked those as they were the most forward and perhaps the least likely to sell out first. Since those worked, I randomly picked C314, it was also open.

 

Call your TA to get what you want, or book directly with Princess and then transfer.

 

Good tip. Thanks for sharing. :-)

[City_Woman]

Ruby Princess is the newest ship and the Caribe deck the most popular. So, folks probably booked sooner that you did.

 

I checked the Princess website and there are balcony cabins available on the Riviera, Lido, Baja & Aloha - if you change your mind about the deck.

 

Good luck.

 

Why is Caribe deck the most popular?

 

Judy

[dcrow72]

Why is Caribe deck the most popular?

 

Judy

 

 

larger balconies than the other decks

[cherylandtk]

Can anyone explain what the advantage is of booking directly with the cruise line then transferring the booking to your TA is?

 

Thanks, Jim

It's twofold, Jim. First, booking direct allows you to make any adjustments to your booking as you may want or need; you can call the Princess booking dept. as many times as you want with as many questions you have until you have everything exactly as you like; no need to go through a TA to make the call for you. Second, you can then shop that booking around to a discount TA; the TA will give you a lower price than Princess, but you get to keep the exact cabin and booking you have so carefully selected, but at a lower price. Discount TA's like this, because all the work is done and they don't have to spend much time on your booking.

[ocngypz]

Baloney.

 

This is what happens. Princess considers cabins on higher decks to be better. Thus BA's on Lido are considered better cabins than those BA's on Caribe. The cabins pull up by best available locations first.

 

C631 which is my BA cabin on the Dec 13th sailing is available for your Nov 4, 09 sailing.

 

I go through this all the time with far out bookings. So I just plug a specific cabin number into Polar to override the cabin selection Princess has given me.

[NoGvmnt]

It's twofold, Jim. First, booking direct allows you to make any adjustments to your booking as you may want or need; you can call the Princess booking dept. as many times as you want with as many questions you have until you have everything exactly as you like; no need to go through a TA to make the call for you. Second, you can then shop that booking around to a discount TA; the TA will give you a lower price than Princess, but you get to keep the exact cabin and booking you have so carefully selected, but at a lower price. Discount TA's like this, because all the work is done and they don't have to spend much time on your booking.

 

Thank you Cheryl, I'm attempting to setup a first cruise for my Mom and myself, but the more I learn the more confused I get.:confused:

 

Jim