Royal Up - How long before you got an answer?

[mevelandry]

Hi! On our first RCCL cruise in 2019, we did Royal Up and got upgraded.

With the pandemic and all the plans I had with another cruise line, I kinda forgot how it worked.

I remember that they will take the amount I bid on my credit card if we are picked.

What I don't remember is how long it takes to have an answer.

We currently have a guaranteed balcony cabin and didn't have our assigment at the time of my bid.

I bid on a spacious balcony cabin... Just for fun, in hopes we might get an overextended balcony or something.

I did the minimum bid. We won our bid with just the minimum bid in 2019 so ... who knows?

Any complementary info would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ScooterScott44]

There are reports of some folks having their Royal Up bid accepted pretty late. Not sure there is an official timeframe but a denial notice can come as late as right before the cruise, not that I believe there are any real chance at a successful bid that late in the game.

We did a couple unsuccessful bids and those responses came in between a couple of days before, to right before the cruise. We had two successful bids one response was 13 days out from the cruise and the other was 6 days . As a note we sailed in an Owners Suite on Freedom in November (casino room/upgrade) and there still were a lot of suites open before the sail date, talked to the concierge on that cruise and most royal ups happened, to fill those suites, about a week out.

With staffing of the ships being a bit unbalanced, and some ships still not at full capacity yet, there is probably more variation in getting an answer. My guess is a week to a couple weeks for successful notices and they will hold unsuccessful notices until later.

 

[ronandannette]

Another thought is to just call RCCL (or your travel agent) directly and see what the current price is to upgrade to the cabin you want. We did just that for our May cruise out of Los Angeles, a couple of weeks before sailing when prices had dropped substantially.

I honestly don’t understand this Royal Up gimmick very well; the prices seem much higher than going direct and more than the cabins actually sell for, for new bookings.

 

[OKW Lover]

Another thought is to just call RCCL (or your travel agent) directly and see what the current price is to upgrade to the cabin you want. We did just that for our May cruise out of Los Angeles, a couple of weeks before sailing when prices had dropped substantially.

I highly recommend this. We had a cruise booked in early April on the Harmony in a Grand Suite. We submitted RoyalUp bids for a Owner Suite and a Loft Suite. About a month before the sailing our TA (Tracey at Dreams Unlimited) found a better deal on a Loft Suite. It was actually less money that we were paying for the Grand Suite.

Right now we have another Harmony sailing for September. Again we are in a Grand Suite and have submitted RoyalUp bids for higher level suites. Hoping we get lucky again.

 

[cory30]

On our last cruise (last January), our unsuccessful bid didnt come in until we were already on the boat and at dinner that evening. On past cruises we usually received notification 1-3 days before departure whether our bid was accepted.