any upgrade gurus out there?

[lodgelady]

When? Where? How? I would love to hear your upgrade stories...

 

[mmouse37]

Well, back in October of 99 my husband and I were going on the Wonder (alone without the kids) for our 20th wedding anniv. We had just wanted to get away and not spend too much so we booked an inside room Cat 10.

When we got to the port I was jokingly asking the CM if there were any upgrades available.....she very quickly returned by saying, "sure, you can always upgrade for a price". Then she stopped and said "wait a minute, I take that back, you must know somebody because you were upgraded to a Cat 8 veranda cabin!!!!! Let me assure you we did not "know" anybody. When we got to our stateroom there were other people's luggage in it already so I figured it was a mistake that we got that room.

Nope, they cleared the other luggage out and moved us in. There was also a bottle of champagne chilling and a tray of chocolates with an anniversary wish from DCL!! It was a great surprise. I did let the reservationist know it was our anniv. when we booked but she never hinted that we would get an upgrade.

MJ

 

[prymsu]

from what i have seen posted on this board, most upgrades are few and far between, and normally cost you quite a bit. Of course some folks have been lucky enough to get them too. I think it all depends on the season you are going, and how much of the ship is sold out in advance of the cruise.

 

[Paintballbusters]

In Sept 2000, myself, DH, DSIL, DS & DD sailed on the 3-day Wonder with a land/sea pkg. We had originally booked our land/sea pkg w/DCL in Jan 2000 and even used DCL for air/ground transportation. We originally had a CAT 4 room (family suite w/verandah). Two days before we set sail, I rec'd a call at work from DCL advising me that we had been upgrated to a CAT 3 (1-bedroom suite w/verandah) at no add'l cost. We were ecstatic and it was wonderful. We had concierge and it spoiled us. We are now cruising 7/27 on the 7-day Eastern and originally booked the CAT 3 room 18 months ago. I have rec'd 2 calls within the last week from DCL about upgrading to a CAT 1 but they want to charge an add'l fee. At this time I cannot afford to do the upgrade, but I'm still hoping that a DIS Magical moment will happen and we will get it as a surprise!

 

[MFan]

We got upgraded on our last DCL cruise from 2 adjoining cat 10 to 2 adjoining cat 6 cabins. They upgraded us because one of our cabin had a rattling ceiling panel that they couldn't fix. At first, they moved the two of us from that noisy cabin to another cat 10. Next morning, after some grumbling from us, they moved us to the cat 6 cabins.

 

[DisneyKids]

You can always ask when you arrive. As was posted above, they usually do have some for a cost. The bad news is that you would have to pay. But, the good news is that the prices are (or at least were for us) greatly reduced. We went from a Cat. 4 to a Cat. 3 for less that 25% of what it would have cost to upgrade prior to that day. If you have the urge to try this, get there early!

 

[WDVeteran_15]

We were upgraded from a Cat 6 to a Cat 4 on the June 8th western cruise. It was certainly nice to have the extra room with two teenage boys. We were informed about the upgrade about three-four weeks prior to sailing. No particular reason was given for the upgrade, but I wasn't about to complain either.

I'm not sure if this came into play or not, but we had booked the cruise last year (July 30th). My only guess is there was a need for more of the cat 6 rooms and we were lucky enough to get upgraded.

 

[CADisneygirl]

We sailed on the Magic back in September (when it took over for the Wonder for a 4-day trip while the Wonder was in dry dock.) We had booked a Category 3. A week and a half before the trip,. my TA called and said that we had been upgraded to a Category 1! We were placed in the Roy Disney Suite at no additional charge. We were eccstatic to say the least. We were supposed to sail on Sept. 15th just 4 days after the World Trade Center tradgedies. When we arrived to the Port, we expected that they would bump us back down to Category 3 since the boat was only half full. (We assumed that we were bumped up to Cat 1 because the oversold the Cat. 3), but they didn't! The Roy Disney Suite was AMAZING! We will probably never know why they bumped us up, it could have been several reasons. (My b-day was the last day of the cruise, it was our very first vacation ever, our daughters are 15, 11 and 9), etc...It was a difficult voyage to get to the cruise because of 9-11, we drove straight through from California to Florida in 38 hours. Matt Oiument found out what we had done to get to the ship and he sent us tickets to both Disneyland and Disney California Adventure as well as one more upgrade the next time we cruise (August of 2003) Disney is truly amazing! I was so amazed at Disney's efforts to accomodate, that I decided I wanted to work for them. On July 22, I start my new job as Travel Agent Representative for Disney in So. Cal.