Port Upgrades?/Boarding Question

[zymurgy1999]

I am a long time lurker/first time poster. We are taking our first Disney cruise on the Magic on Saturday and I have two questions:

1) We took advantage of a terrific Florida resident rate on an interior stateroom for my family. It is one of those sideways staterooms that I have heard good things about. My wife is insistant on getting a balcony, but I think that we will be fine and we should save our money. Our disagreement aside, what have people's experiences been on asking for a paid upgrades when checking in. I know that this is subject to availability, but if, let's say, a 6A is available (we are in 11B), will we have to pay full price, or is it usually discounted? Is the price negotiable? Who do we ask? If we do take an upgrade I assume that they will be responsible for moving our checked bagage to the new room.

2) I have scoured these boards for tips on check-in and have read enough to get me comfortable with the process. We will be driving to the port from home and plan on getting there early in the AM. Our online boarding time that we chose is 12:30 (earliest available), but would like to get on board ASAP. I have read a lot about the boarding numbers, but my question is, if we get a higher number when we are obviously one of the first people in the port, what would be the nicest and most efficient way of asking for a lower number? Do we point this out to the person who checks us in and ask them, or do we take our number and go ask someone else? We are not pushy people and do not want to make anyone uncomfortable, but do want as low a number as possible.

Your advice and comments are very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

[Presentation]

Upgrades are discounted if available. They do not negotiate.

Check in; go to the manager’s desk to the right.

If one is available they will tell you how much.

Ballpark, rough estimate, call Disney and see how much it would cost you to upgrade today. The port upgrade is about 33-50% of that.

This is only my rough guess for estimation purpose.

 

[kcashner]

The only difference to the above is that you are on a FL resident rate. Your cost to upgrade now will not be much different than upgrading at the port, and you KNOW you will have it. This is accurate for a family of 2. You may get a better price at port if there are more than 2 of you.

The cost of an upgrade at the port is approximately 50% of the cost of the same upgrade in advance based on normal rates--not FL res or military discounted rates. One thing that might help you though--the upgrade price is based on "per cabin," not "per person" except when going into a suite.

As to check in, if you get a boarding number that you are not happy with, you can always politely ask if anything better is available. However, you are on the Magic. Most of the boarding issues are on the Dream. To try to put boarding in perspective for you, the last time I timed it on the Magic, we had boarding number 8. We were ON the ship 18 minutes after they announced the "family of the day." I timed it because I told DD it would take 20 minutes (she was whining), and she told me I was crazy. Boarding goes very quickly on the Magic at least on most days.

 

[zymurgy1999]

Great information guys. I know that I could have "upgraded" my reservation online for my family of 4 up until the other day for around $1300 to a 6A (again this was a Florida resident deal). When I called yesterday they told me that no more upgrades were available through them and that everything would have to be done at the port now. By your estimation, would the upgrade (again if available) be 50% off of the $1300 upgrade that was available earlier in the week, or the savings would be significantly less since you said that the discount is off of the "normal" rate?

Regarding #2, so don't stress about the boarding numbers on the Magic? If we are there at 10:30AM, what would a "good" boarding number be, i.e. you would be satisfied with the number, considering the time that you arrived. Just trying to get a baseline for expectaions.

Thanks again.