Re-Shopping A Cruise Onboard

[Ness2289]

I've got one of the corner 9A rooms booked on the Fantasy. It appears to be a different shaped room than the other 9A's. (Rm. 7504) However, I am about to move up to a cat. 8C instead- knowing it will have seating and a larger porthole. After searching, I've read several different things about rebooking. I want to make sure I understand clearly. When I am on the Dream in April and I re-shop my Fantasy cruise- Will I be able to keep my same stateroom? I've read where someone stated that there has to be availability in that category. If the room is already mine, why can't it just stay mine even though there could possibly not be any other rooms left in that category? Is this something to worry about?

Thanks!

 

[jilljill]

In order to reshop your cruise onboard the category has to be available for booking. If the category is sold out there's no way for the CM to get a price.

 

[Ness2289]

I see... So I just have to pray the category is still available! Hopefully the chances are high with the cruise still being 14 months out in April. I'll try not to worry about it... (Who am I kidding! I'll be searching the DCL website like mad for the next five months!! )

So, what if they cancel my reservation (via DU) and the cabin is available again? I guess it's a gamble, but I could then rebook it, right?

 

[HallsofVA]

I see... So I just have to pray the category is still available! Hopefully the chances are high with the cruise still being 14 months out in April. I'll try not to worry about it... (Who am I kidding! I'll be searching the DCL website like mad for the next five months!! )

So, what if they cancel my reservation (via DU) and the cabin is available again? I guess it's a gamble, but I could then rebook it, right?

Canceling a reservation doesn't mean that your room would become available for booking, and/or for booking at the same party size that you had it booked for. The reason being is that as a category or the ship starts to fill, DCL may start booking some categories in "GTY" status, or guaranty status. This is DCL's commitment to someone that they will have a room assigned at least in the category they booked or better. They do this because their records show that a certain percentage of people will cancel prior to the sailing date, and it gives them flexibility to still sell rooms to those who want to sail, while knowing that folks will cancel. If DCL has sold enough GTY status cabins that the ship is filling, they may not release rooms previously held for new bookings, since they need it to assign a room to someone in GTY status.

Here's an actual example. I booked a corner 9A room on the Dream 8/16/11 cruise the morning bookings opened in Nov 2009. That category started selling in GTY status by 9am that day. By the first week of December, 9A had sold out (along with everything below it). When I sailed the next week (12/12/09) and tried to reshop my reservation, I was unable to do so because it had sold out up to Cat 8A by then. It's now sold out up to Cat 4A for families of 4.

Just yesterday, a DISer contacted me to let me know she was releasing 3 11B rooms (actual room #s) for that sailing, 2 that had 4 people each originally booked in them. She was releasing them because they were unable to add any additional people to the third room because the ship and lifeboat stations were full. I checked after she'd released them, and was unable to book any of those rooms for a party of 3 or 4. However, I could have booked at least 2 of the rooms in GTY status with 2 people each in them. So they were out there, but unavailable to be rebooked as originally booked. So even if she had wanted to rebook them, she would have been unable to rebook them as well.

Your best bet is to book what you want as soon as you know it is something that you want, and if you're able to reshop it great, but don't count on it.

 

[Ness2289]

Okay, thanks! I understand now. I'll be sure to have a plan B: Find a category I can book for what I'm willing to pay, or just book a dummy for our 2013 cruise.

 

[Born2Cruz]

So I will be on the Magic in January and am planning to re-shop my June 2012 cruise. My question is that I heard that the current offer on board is 10% off current prices. If this is correct then is the 10% off of the entire cruise including the taxes and fees or just off of the cabin price total?

 

[clten]

It is just 10% off the base cruise fare. No discount on any taxes or fees. I'll tell you, it is difficult to find the number that the 10% is taken off of because if you look at pricing on the website, what they list as the fare includes a non-commissionable amount. This non-commissionable amount is also not discounted but is not broken out from the cruise fare anywhere.

 

[Henlady]

I read another diser's post somewhere on these boards that stated that while onboard, you could request a "re-priceing" of your already booked future cruise. This was different from "re-shopping" as you would keep your current booking, it would just be re-priced to reflect the 10% discount and add the $100 or whatever room credit. I will be trying this in May '11. We have a Nov '11 cruise booked, so I will try to have the Nov re-priced during the May cruise. We shall see what happens.

 

[HallsofVA]

I read another diser's post somewhere on these boards that stated that while onboard, you could request a "re-priceing" of your already booked future cruise. This was different from "re-shopping" as you would keep your current booking, it would just be re-priced to reflect the 10% discount and add the $100 or whatever room credit. I will be trying this in May '11. We have a Nov '11 cruise booked, so I will try to have the Nov re-priced during the May cruise. We shall see what happens.

Whether it's re-quoted or re-priced, I'm not sure I know what the difference is or whether it matters. In my experience my rebookings have always resulted in a new reservation number, and a new booking date, but that's been the main difference.