Stateroom upgrades on embarkation day?

[maui2k5]

We (me, wife , girls 12/13) will be cruising on the Dream for the first time this Oct. We booked this trip as an alternate vacation this year due to a last minute COVID illness right before our flight (postponed to March 2023).

We booked a VGT guaranteed room due to the significantly lower price (cannot choose stateroom). We are ok with wherever they put us on the ship, but was curious about port upgrades (if available).

Are there any tips you can provide to improve the chances of an upgrade or do they simply not allow VGT reservations to upgrade at port?

Thanks!

 

[lanejudy]

Assuming availability DCL will allow you to upgrade at embarkation, but it won't be a free upgrade. To upgrade a VGT, the upgrade price will be based on the lowest verandah category regardless of what stateroom you get assigned (so upgrade cost will be based on a cat. 7 even if you are assigned a 4A). Since you are booked VGT you may want to wait and see what stateroom you get assigned.

 

[nikem3]

As stated above, definitely a cost associated to it. We tried to see what the cost would be to upgrade to Concierge from top Verandah cabin on the day of cruise, and the price was like $3500 to upgrade. No discount on the price that we experienced.

 

[Pixie Dust Believer]

I have done the upgrades twice within the past year at the port, once from a VGT room. We got a super large discount. We had booked the cruise 4 days before it left and concierge verandah rooms were going for about 3.5k more than we paid for our VGT. At the port it we upgraded for 800.

 

[maui2k5]

We would only upgrade if an upgrade price was worth it. We will not be upset with whichever verandah we get as the 35% VGT discount makes us not too concerned about stateroom location. The big discount for VGT makes the lack of selecting our room in advance worth it.

Having said that, we will try to get the earliest check-in time and check at the port to see if we have upgrade options or not. The cruise right now is certainly not full with lots of availability.

 

[nikem3]

This is our plan too. We are sailing on the dream in october as well and the cruise is pretty open currently. I only have the experience we had in February where upgrade seemed pretty expensive on a 50% capacity cruise. But I was going for a concierge cabin, not a verandah which will most likely be more reasonable.

 

[Marthasor]

Could someone please tell me where we would go to enquire about an upgrade at PC? Is there a guest services desk we should go to? We are in a concierge stateroom, but was going to inquire about a category upgrade (there seems to be a lot of availability on our cruise currently) - do we ask at concierge check-in? Thank you!

 

[LionKingCPA]

Could someone please tell me where we would go to enquire about an upgrade at PC? Is there a guest services desk we should go to? We are in a concierge stateroom, but was going to inquire about a category upgrade (there seems to be a lot of availability on our cruise currently) - do we ask at concierge check-in? Thank you!

Pretty sure it's still "desk 15" - as you go up the escalator, look left and it's the farthest desk away toward the ship entry line. You need to check in first though so ask that cast member to be sure.

 

[Marthasor]

Pretty sure it's still "desk 15" - as you go up the escalator, look left and it's the farthest desk away toward the ship entry line. You need to check in first though so ask that cast member to be sure.

Thank you so much!!

 

[goterps1986]

Has anyone been able to do this on the Wish from a verandah to concierge? If so, approx how much? Not a VGT-regular cat 5 verandah. Looks like there are about 10 left on the cruise we’re booked on in Jan. So it could sell out as most do I guess. Thanks.

 

[SuperDry]

You can look online 3 days before your sailing to see what rooms are still available for booking in the categories you want to upgrade to. There's no guarantee that they won't be booked at the last minute, but it's a good indication. If there's one that's open that you really want, I recommend you check in at the port as early as possible.

 

[goterps1986]

Thanks for the heads up SuperDry. We will keep an eye on it and plan on getting to the port early.

 

[maui2k5]

After some frustration last night, we (me, wife, girls 12/13) were able to snag a boarding group at 11:15am in Miami on the Dream for our Oct 6th sailing. While I know I’m asking for a guess, what is the likelihood that room upgrade options would be available at that port checkin time? For reference, our cruise is a VGT rate so the ship is not booked at full capacity.

 

[limespy]

You can look online 3 days before your sailing to see what rooms are still available for booking in the categories you want to upgrade to. There's no guarantee that they won't be booked at the last minute, but it's a good indication. If there's one that's open that you really want, I recommend you check in at the port as early as possible.

Where do you go to see which rooms are available? I didn't know that was possible.

 

[Ellajoan]

Also wondering this. Curious how full our ship will be.

 

[Stitch'sCousin]

Where do you go to see which rooms are available? I didn't know that was possible.

You can check on the DCL website by viewing your cruise and entering info like you are intending to book a cruise. Available categories, along with possible stateroom numbers, will show up until 3 days prior to the cruise at which point I believe the sailing is removed from the website.

 

[maui2k5]

Anyone have success recently with port upgrades? We have been assigned stateroom 8538 for our upcoming Dream cruise in Oct and are happy with it (VGT), but was wondering about the availability of port upgrades during the month of Sept... Anyone inquire/upgrade recently?

 

[MichelleCanada]

We were able to upgrade our room in August at 2 pm once we were on board. At that time they were still having a lot of people cancel last minute because of testing positive for COVID. The room still had the other familiy’s name on the room when we first went to check it out.

We have cruised 4 other times with DCL and never been able to get an upgrade before. So - I would think until the cancelation policy changes in the spring it is more likely that there may be some last minute room upgrades available.

 

[Longsx3]

Anyone have success recently with port upgrades? We have been assigned stateroom 8538 for our upcoming Dream cruise in Oct and are happy with it (VGT), but was wondering about the availability of port upgrades during the month of Sept... Anyone inquire/upgrade recently?

Sorry to revive an old post, did you end up, upgrading or stay in 8538?

 

[cwis]

It's been a while since I've seen a Disney cruise offering upgrades. As if, with current prices, they no longer consider it worth staffing someone to sell upgrades to guests given what they've already earned. (Asked at port, asked at Guest Services, asked onboard on back-to-back cruises, it was always a hard “even if we're not completely full in term of passengers we no longer have availability for stateroom upgrades”.)