May 18, 2013 MAGIC EBTA - Who is with us?

[sdlong329]

If these GTY rates come out then are we better not 're-booking' and holding out for an upgrade? We did book on the first day in an 11C but I guess that doesn't matter, i.e it will be a random selection of offered upgrades?

In 2010, the EBTA had HOARDs of people booking Cat 12C (I think) for next to nothing ... many of which were upgraded to a verandah stateroom. As I understand, if you booked a SPECIFIC stateroom, odds are, you likely will not get an upgrade. If you booked a category (or category GTY), are are more likely to get an upgrade, since you essentially said, a specific stateroom was not requested. There is a slim chance you might get a stateroom over the engines (deck one) ... but you never know. There has been numerous arguments of why DCL would give upgrades to NEW DCL cruisers, and why upgrades should be given to those tho have been long time DCL cruisers. Then again, there are many reasons / excuses as to why DCL many not give upgrades to long time cruisers.

All in all ... I hope and wish for an upgrade ... but am happy to be most anywhere on the ship ... including a pillow and blanket placed on a random stairwell, or within a lifeboat!

Steven

 

[sdlong329]

Hi,
I already have a question: We are a week before the cruise in Orlando and we want to leave from Orlando to Houston on May 16th. I checked airfare and because most of the carriers are not flying international some of them doesn't ring a bell at me.

I have looked and it looks like Southwest is our best deal, all flights i can find are in the $200 per person range. But Southwest has the 2 free bags policy.

HANDS DOWN ... SOUTHWEST!

 

[heatherb819]

We were upgraded in 2011 and booked in an cat 12 gty but we weren't upgraded until day 3. They were doing a lot of work on staterooms throughout the ship during the crossing and it just so happened ours was next to a few of them being scheduled to be worked on so they moved us due to noise. I know some of the people weren't upgraded

 

[Tink1987]

In 2010, the EBTA had HOARDs of people booking Cat 12C (I think) for next to nothing ... many of which were upgraded to a verandah stateroom. As I understand, if you booked a SPECIFIC stateroom, odds are, you likely will not get an upgrade. If you booked a category (or category GTY), are are more likely to get an upgrade, since you essentially said, a specific stateroom was not requested. There is a slim chance you might get a stateroom over the engines (deck one) ... but you never know. There has been numerous arguments of why DCL would give upgrades to NEW DCL cruisers, and why upgrades should be given to those tho have been long time DCL cruisers. Then again, there are many reasons / excuses as to why DCL many not give upgrades to long time cruisers.

All in all ... I hope and wish for an upgrade ... but am happy to be most anywhere on the ship ... including a pillow and blanket placed on a random stairwell, or within a lifeboat!

Steven

Thank you, I totally agree with you, I'm lucky enough to be cake to be on the ship and can sleep anywhere, I'm such a heavy sleeper

 

[Tink1987]

We were upgraded in 2011 and booked in an cat 12 gty but we weren't upgraded until day 3. They were doing a lot of work on staterooms throughout the ship during the crossing and it just so happened ours was next to a few of them being scheduled to be worked on so they moved us due to noise. I know some of the people weren't upgraded

I wonder if they may do the same on this one then if it is as empty as people say?

 

[NancyIL]

In 2010, the EBTA had HOARDs of people booking Cat 12C (I think) for next to nothing ... many of which were upgraded to a verandah stateroom. As I understand, if you booked a SPECIFIC stateroom, odds are, you likely will not get an upgrade. If you booked a category (or category GTY), are are more likely to get an upgrade, since you essentially said, a specific stateroom was not requested. There is a slim chance you might get a stateroom over the engines (deck one) ... but you never know. There has been numerous arguments of why DCL would give upgrades to NEW DCL cruisers, and why upgrades should be given to those tho have been long time DCL cruisers. Then again, there are many reasons / excuses as to why DCL many not give upgrades to long time cruisers.

All in all ... I hope and wish for an upgrade ... but am happy to be most anywhere on the ship ... including a pillow and blanket placed on a random stairwell, or within a lifeboat!

Steven

Remember that the 2010 EBTA was very early - April 10-24. Since ours is 5.5 weeks later, more school-age kids will be able to go. I expect the IGT price will be lower than the 11C that we booked, but I hope the difference will be negligible after the 10% onboard booking discount and $200 OBC.

There are only 13 cat. 11C cabins, so I am crossing my fingers for an upgrade!

 

[kaseyC]

We were upgraded in 2011 and booked in an cat 12 gty but we weren't upgraded until day 3. They were doing a lot of work on staterooms throughout the ship during the crossing and it just so happened ours was next to a few of them being scheduled to be worked on so they moved us due to noise. I know some of the people weren't upgraded

Heather, did they help you move? I'm not sure I would like moving after being unpacked and settled in my stateroom. Did they at least upgrade you to an oceanview or verandah?

 

[Tink1987]

Remember that the 2010 EBTA was very early - April 10-24. Since ours is 5.5 weeks later, more school-age kids will be able to go. I expect the IGT price will be lower than the 11C that we booked, but I hope the difference will be negligible after the 10% onboard booking discount and $200 OBC.

There are only 13 cat. 11C cabins, so I am crossing my fingers for an upgrade!

Ooooh I didn't know there was only 13 11c cabins!

 

[MandyGirl]

Remember that the 2010 EBTA was very early - April 10-24. Since ours is 5.5 weeks later, more school-age kids will be able to go.

That's us exactly. Had it been in April, we would not be able to. However, the timing of this EBTA means our daughter is only missing the last 9 days of school (kindergarten). For students not taking finals or who have state assessments in early May, I expect there to be more families onboard. I know some private schools follow the university model, so they have concluded the schoolyear by the time this EBTA begins. The way we are able to validify her missing school is that she is in a dual language immersion program, and although Portuguese and what they speak in Spain is not exactly the Spanish she has been learning this year, it will be an educational experience. (Plus in our state, kindergarten is not required by law...)

 

[padalyn]

For those you've done a transatlantic before, what happens with the shows? Is there something different on every night, or do they just spread the same ones out a bit!

Same for dinner menu, is it a 7 night menu that repeated, or is it totally different every night?

Yes, there are different shows or other entertainment every night. As others have posted, there may be movies (premEAR), talent shows (crew) and other types of stuff...it was worth going to see what ever the evening entertainment was in my opinion.

The menues DO repeat - the 7 day menu goes through twice. However, since you are most likely in a different restaurant (because of the odd number of menues) you will get to experience different foods!

There will be at least one formal and most likely two informal nights. On a few of the longer cruises we had two formal and two informal nights. So be sure to bring your fancy clothing!!

I agree sea days is why we've booked this once again! If you want to do something, there's plenty to do or you can lounge by the pool or catch a movie! We had activities planned and ended up not doing half of them because the weather was so beautiful we decided to stay by the pool. To each his own!

Oh - we are SO into the sea days....we have to agree!

We're IN (and PAID IN FULL)!


Steven

Welcome Steven! Cathy and I are on this cruise!!!

All in all ... I hope and wish for an upgrade ... but am happy to be most anywhere on the ship ... including a pillow and blanket placed on a random stairwell, or within a lifeboat!

Steven

another interesting thing - DCL seldom upgrades DVC bookings...we are going to try to get a port upgrade, but we are not hopeful....we are on deck 6 and are happy with that!

Cayla

 

[heatherb819]

Yes Kasey they helped us move. And it was to a Verandah, we had never had a verandah before so we were more than thrilled to pack up & move! I just left everything on hangers & they brought a luggage cart to move them, everything in drawers went into each suitcase & onto the luggage cart. DH & DD never helped me so fast lol!! It was a nice treat!! Our new room Stewart came into the new room & helped me put things away as we chatted.

 

[kaseyC]

Yes Kasey they helped us move. And it was to a Verandah, we had never had a verandah before so we were more than thrilled to pack up & move! I just left everything on hangers & they brought a luggage cart to move them, everything in drawers went into each suitcase & onto the luggage cart. DH & DD never helped me so fast lol!! It was a nice treat!! Our new room Stewart came into the new room & helped me put things away as we chatted.

Now, that kind of move I could deal with.

 

[MandyGirl]

Yes Kasey they helped us move. And it was to a Verandah, we had never had a verandah before so we were more than thrilled to pack up & move! I just left everything on hangers & they brought a luggage cart to move them, everything in drawers went into each suitcase & onto the luggage cart. DH & DD never helped me so fast lol!! It was a nice treat!! Our new room Stewart came into the new room & helped me put things away as we chatted.

Sweeeet, Heather!!

I know the first thing I do when luggage arrives is kick everyone out, unpack, and place luggage under the beds. Now that we are so into packing cubes, I can literally place specific packing cubes in drawers versus taking everything out (especially with 4 of us). But in the old days before packing cubes, I would have gotten a stomach knot to re-pack LOL.

We offered to put Curt's mother in a verandah, but she stuck with her deck 2 oceanview. She's afraid that if she had a verandah she would spend too much time there and not get out and see the ship. I always keep an eye on any deals, and am currently on our third booking of this cruise LOL. After final payment I pretty much stay set, so just a few more weeks of watching for any deals! Do you think the verandah kept you more IN your cabin versus out and about doing things on the EBTA?

Sidenote - I have some friends on a cruise this week - they needed 5 cabins, one of which needed to be a balcony handicap accessible (grandfather in wheelchair). Let me tell ya, finding a cruise with just ONE handicap balcony available for them was craziness. I had told them about our cruise as an idea if Christmas week didn't work out for them, but all handicap verandahs of our EBTA sailing were already sold out at that point. Luckily I found them space on NCL that had an accessible verandah cabin, so they had Christmas in the Caribbean.

 

[heatherb819]

Honestly we weren't out there as much as I thought we would be! Pulling in and out of ports we would go out and take a look or while one of us was getting ready DD would order a PBJ and eat out there. We like to be out & about!

 

[Tink1987]

Honestly we weren't out there as much as I thought we would be! Pulling in and out of ports we would go out and take a look or while one of us was getting ready DD would order a PBJ and eat out there. We like to be out & about!

This is why I can't justify the extra money to upgrade - on one hand I think I would love to sit out there and read but at the same time I think I would rather be out of the room doing stuff on the ship......

 

[MandyGirl]

Honestly we weren't out there as much as I thought we would be! Pulling in and out of ports we would go out and take a look or while one of us was getting ready DD would order a PBJ and eat out there. We like to be out & about!

That's what I am hoping as well - to really be out and about again this time. We have had a verandah a few times, but once was Alaska so we were doing lots of glacier watching then. I had the verandah with my parents in November, and seemed to use it when going into ports or while the kiddo napped. I know I could sit and read for hours if I could!

This is why I can't justify the extra money to upgrade - on one hand I think I would love to sit out there and read but at the same time I think I would rather be out of the room doing stuff on the ship......

That's us! We had an inside booked for this cruise, but when the interline rates came out they only offered them for oceanview and verandah - no insides. We prefer to be on the ship (or vacation) more often, so save a few bucks, get an inside, and enjoy the pitch black for sleeping in. Had an inside category been available, we would have booked that to save even more money. (ie reallocate money to spend elsewhere LOL) I had been looking forward to the inside sideways we had booked.

 

[heatherb819]

I enjoy being up by the pool, DD loves to swim so I can sit there & read, sleep, people watch etc. you can't beat that verandah!!! 2011 on EBTA it was nice being up there because if anyone saw dolphins, turtles or anything else interesting, word traveled fast & you could go see too!

 

[MandyGirl]

I enjoy being up by the pool, DD loves to swim so I can sit there & read, sleep, people watch etc. you can't beat that verandah!!! 2011 on EBTA it was nice being up there because if anyone saw dolphins, turtles or anything else interesting, word traveled fast & you could go see too!

We love the pool too! But only in the shade... hubby has had melanoma a few times, luckily all stage one, plus some other skin cancers, but we try to steer clear of the sun from 10-4. Can't miss my girls though - they are the ones wearing the swimsuits that have sleeves and go to their knees! We did manage to snag a lounge chair in the shade one afternoon on the WBTA to watch a movie while the 2 year old napped. I'm sure we looked funny with three of us piled on one lounge chair next to all the empties that were occupied with a book, pair of shoes and towel. I think our only day in the sun was briefly on St Maartin and the catamaran day to Jost VanDyke from Tortola, continuously lathered in sunscreen.

We were good in our DIS group to send out texts when cool things were going on. Gotta love those wave phones! Maybe it was Gibraltar we were sailing away from with all the dolphins I think. Believe it or not, Galveston had some good sets of dolphins at sailaway.

 

[sdlong329]

I wonder if they may do the same on this one then if it is as empty as people say?

There will be MANY who will book this cruise within a 90 or 120 day window (for discount purposes) ... not uncommon for T/A cruises, especially EB T/A cruises.

Remember, capacity rate is not the same as unsold staterooms, and an unsold stateroom is not the same as an available stateroom. Applying upgrades is a fine art ... complicated calculations based upon hoards of factors not known to the public.

Steven

 

[sdlong329]

another interesting thing - DCL seldom upgrades DVC bookings...we are going to try to get a port upgrade, but we are not hopeful....we are on deck 6 and are happy with that!

Hi Cayla! We moved from the WB Panama Canal Cruise to the EB T/A. We could not do both (they overlap), and we've sailed each before .. so it was a tough choice.

(DVC upgrades) One reason DCL does not frequently upgrade DVC is ... DVC reservations are normally made with / for a specific stateroom. DCL does not typically upgrade someone from a requested stateroom, but it happens. With DCL, I have found there are far more EB TransAtlantic reservations made with GTY (including within the last 90-120 of sailing) ... so more upgrades are made. In our case, we used DVC points to reserve two staterooms. One is a Verandah GTY, while the other is an inside category (not a GTY). We are hoping both will be upgraded. If I get the Roy or Walt Suite, I will show the room in cabin crawl. If we get BOTH the Roy and Walt Suite(s) ... I will play the lottery, and buy a few cases of champagne to share!

Steven