When we took our 4 land/3sea we stayed at POR. They took some information like non-smoking etc. When I asked to request a specific area, I was told I would have to wait on this because it was all done by the individual hotels. They told me to ask closer to our arrival. We really didn't get a choice before we got there. I did get to choose when we arrived from what was available (and ready). This was in June 2002. I don't know if it is the same now. It may even be different from hotel to hotel. We didn't have much of a choice because it was really crowded and we really wanted to get going so we went with a room that was ready. Of course the room was beautiful, but it was at the back of POR and it seemed like the walk to everything got longer each time, but that could have also been because of the constant rain during our stay. We still had a great time! Good luck, I hope you are sucessful in your room search.