Question for Cruise experts or Travel Agents

[Lauri]

I'm considering upgrading our cabin for our cruise next month. On the DCL website, everything except a Cat. 7 is listed as a GTY. I called DCL to ask about an upgrade, and they also said they only have GTY's available now.

My question is, what happens for the actual cruise. Do they or don't they have cabins available? Do people no-show as they do for flights? Is it worth it to book a GTY, not knowing where we will end up? Right now, we're in a 9, but would like a verranda.

Thanks for your help.

Lauri

Expanding this to include travel agents to understand full ship but GTY's available. Our cruise leaves in just over two weeks. Thanks.

 

[Andrew DEREK UK]

I'm considering upgrading our cabin for our cruise next month. On the DCL website, everything except a Cat. 7 is listed as a GTY. I called DCL to ask about an upgrade, and they also said they only have GTY's available now.

My question is, what happens for the actual cruise. Do they or don't they have cabins available? Do people no-show as they do for flights? Is it worth it to book a GTY, not knowing where we will end up? Right now, we're in a 9, but would like a veranda.

Thanks for your help.

Lauri

Gty- guarantee is DCL's confirmation that you will get that grade or one higher, it takes into account people book cruises but cancel for many reasons and gives them the flexibility to assign to when they want. A verandah is Nice so if you can go for it do.

It is the same as flights some overbooking but do not worry DCL are very good at this and you might with a GTY get a further upgrade.

 

[jeast]

It depends on how full the ship is. If the ship is on the empty side, there may be upgrades. If it is full, upgrades are unlikely.

Don't book a lower category cabin if you won't be happy with it. Odds are pretty good that you will be stuck with it. If you truly want an upgrade, book it now. I've heard that upgrades at the port are not always available, either.

I would love an upgrade, but booked the lowest category cabin I would be happy with. That way I'm not disappointed by my room.

 

[SnowWhite2]

If all of the categories are in gty status, the ship is full and they do not allow you to pick your own cabin. They are banking on the few cabins not yet spoken for plus those that will be canceled at the last minute.

By taking a gty, you do not necessarily get an upgrade. And it is probable that the more desirable cabins are taken and you will get the cabin that is noisy or next to the laundry room with people coming and going all night long, etc. (I don't know if that happens, just an example). As a gty 7 you may get a cat 7 and the person in the cat 7 gets moved to a cat 5. It doesn't mean that if a cat 5 is available that you will get it. You may, but you may not.

If a verandah is more important to you than the location of the verandah room, go for it. If not, keep the known cabin location for your cat 9 room. Everyone has a different risk comfort zone.

 

[Lauri]

If all of the categories are in gty status, the ship is full and they do not allow you to pick your own cabin. They are banking on the few cabins not yet spoken for plus those that will be canceled at the last minute.

By taking a gty, you do not necessarily get an upgrade. And it is probable that the more desirable cabins are taken and you will get the cabin that is noisy or next to the laundry room with people coming and going all night long, etc. (I don't know if that happens, just an example). As a gty 7 you may get a cat 7 and the person in the cat 7 gets moved to a cat 5. It doesn't mean that if a cat 5 is available that you will get it. You may, but you may not.

If a verandah is more important to you than the location of the verandah room, go for it. If not, keep the known cabin location for your cat 9 room. Everyone has a different risk comfort zone.

Thanks SnowWhite2. It was hard to explain exactly what I am talking about. I spoke to someone at DCL who told me the ship IS full. I'm just curious, if they are still taking GTY reservations for all of the categories, where are they going to put people? She said there were no staterooms currently available, but I could book guarantee.

I guess I'd rather have a guaranteed porthole than a potential veranda .

Lauri

 

[Lauri]

Bump. Still looking for answers.

 

[yndygo]

Okay, let me take a stab at this.
You have a CAT9 with a specific cabin #.
If you upgrade to a GTY6, say, what that means is that DCL will put you in a Category 6 cabin or higher - but you may not know the cabin # until you get on board.
That's because they will either put you in a CAT6 that someone cancelled or one where the CAT6 person got upgraded.
But if you book a GTY6 - you WILL get a verandah - because everything 6 and above has one... BUT you might be in an area of the ship that you don't like as much (say deck 7 forward rather than deck 2 midship)

Guarantee means they guarantee at *least* that category level. You could end up in a CAT4 or CAT5....

Deos that help?

 

[Andrew DEREK UK]

I have only had a GTY once and I was allocated a nice room about 60 days before the cruise although I read most are assisgned at 30 days.

 

[yndygo]

I have only had a GTY once and I was allocated a nice room about 60 days before the cruise although I read most are assisgned at 30 days.

That's the norm - but there is more than one report of someone on the DIS not getting the room number for their GTY cabin until getting to the port - and being told to just 'write in the cabin number' on their baggage tags.

If the OP is as close as it says, a GTY cabin number may not be issued until at port - given that it's less than 30 days.

 

[Andrew DEREK UK]

That's the norm - but there is more than one report of someone on the DIS not getting the room number for their GTY cabin until getting to the port - and being told to just 'write in the cabin number' on their baggage tags.

If the OP is as close as it says, a GTY cabin number may not be issued until at port - given that it's less than 30 days.

Understood.

 

[Lauri]

The thing I still don't understand is: The DCL rep. I spoke with said there are NO cabins in the following categories, only GTY's--5,6,8,9,10,11,and 12. There is one available 4, and a few 7's. If there are no cabins available, how can they guarantee that you will have a cabin on the ship in your GTY cabin or higher? That's my big concern.

Lauri

 

[jeast]

You WILL get a room in that category or higher. They know what they are doing and book the rooms carefully. They may say that they don't have specific rooms available, but that is because they blocked off immediate access to them. They will not book you a GTY category 9 and give you a category 10 room. They just like to keep their options open for selling cheaper cabins if the ship doesn't fill completely. In that case, they can move you up.

If you book a 9, you will get a 9 or higher. No worries.

 

[jeast]

I meant a 9 or better (not higher)

 

[yndygo]

The thing I still don't understand is: The DCL rep. I spoke with said there are NO cabins in the following categories, only GTY's--5,6,8,9,10,11,and 12. There is one available 4, and a few 7's. If there are no cabins available, how can they guarantee that you will have a cabin on the ship in your GTY cabin or higher? That's my big concern.

Lauri

Okay, I think it's more a situation of the DCL rep not being clear.
There are a number of cabins that they allow people to choose from - and there are a percent they keep as 'guarantee' cabins. The reason they do that is sort of load-balancing. Think of it this way - if you had only 20 cabins, and 4 room stewards, each one would have 5 cabins to take care of. But let's say you had 15 people book and choose their staterooms, and they all chose rooms 1-15 - then the 4th room steward wouldn't have anyone to care for, but the others would be maxed out. Take the same thing and put 10 on each side of the boat - if you let people choose, let's say 10 chose port and only 5 chose starboard, the boat wouldn't be balanced weightwise.
So what they do is release a certain number of cabins you can choose in advance - then after that, they say "guarantee" so they can balance you out.
Given my above examples - let's say they release 3 each of the cabins that the stewards have for 'choosing' - then that means 12 are chosen, but they distribute the last 3 around evenly. In the 2 sides, let's say they released 6 on each side for 'choosing' then that means they could balance the other 3 out too.

So when she said "no cabins available - only guarantees" what she should've said was "no cabins that you can choose or are assignable prior to the balancing."

Does that make sense?

 

[jeast]

You said it much better.

 

[Lauri]

Okay, I think it's more a situation of the DCL rep not being clear.
There are a number of cabins that they allow people to choose from - and there are a percent they keep as 'guarantee' cabins. The reason they do that is sort of load-balancing. Think of it this way - if you had only 20 cabins, and 4 room stewards, each one would have 5 cabins to take care of. But let's say you had 15 people book and choose their staterooms, and they all chose rooms 1-15 - then the 4th room steward wouldn't have anyone to care for, but the others would be maxed out. Take the same thing and put 10 on each side of the boat - if you let people choose, let's say 10 chose port and only 5 chose starboard, the boat wouldn't be balanced weightwise.
So what they do is release a certain number of cabins you can choose in advance - then after that, they say "guarantee" so they can balance you out.
Given my above examples - let's say they release 3 each of the cabins that the stewards have for 'choosing' - then that means 12 are chosen, but they distribute the last 3 around evenly. In the 2 sides, let's say they released 6 on each side for 'choosing' then that means they could balance the other 3 out too.

So when she said "no cabins available - only guarantees" what she should've said was "no cabins that you can choose or are assignable prior to the balancing."

Does that make sense?

Thanks yndygo! That really does make sense. Do they balance out the ship port and starboard too, to keep it from tipping ?

Now, how many rooms do you think they keep in GTY in each category?

Lauri

 

[micmse2003]

Now to make things really confusing.....I had a assigned room number for a cat 8. I was called 4 weeks before my cruise with an upgrade to a cat 5(yes a veranda). Even if you have a room number, Disney can chage it. Mine was for the better. I am now spoiled and only book a cat 5 now.

 

[Andrew DEREK UK]

Now to make things really confusing.....I had a assigned room number for a cat 8. I was called 4 weeks before my cruise with an upgrade to a cat 5(yes a veranda). Even if you have a room number, Disney can chage it. Mine was for the better. I am now spoiled and only book a cat 5 now.

That is true they can change any room for operational reasons, but I am glad you got what you wanted, and yes once you have a level of Cat room you cannot go back, I always have Cat 4 now, and its like flying once you have been upgraded to First you cannot go back.