upgrades for in-demand rooms?

[daisyx3]

My husband met a friend of his who is a TA yesterday and told her we had booked a 5E aft room for our 2017 cruise. She told him that we may be visited by "the upgrade fairy" because we reserved a room that is in-demand (we have a specific room, not a VGT). She said we may even be offered a suite. I told DH that I had never heard of this happening and I don't think it really does. Has anyone ever been offered an upgrade to give up an in-demand room category?
Daisyx3

 

[Quellman]

I'm with you. That sounds like a big crock of hooey. Sure I guess it could happen, I mean what couldn't these days. But a free upgrade to a suite (which I believe is concierge level) would be a huge jump. I could see them offering a 4a (deluxe family veranda) if your room suddenly needed maintenance.

If a ship is not selling lower categories well, I could also see a potential upgrade to another room, but normally they would ask you since you already have an assigned stateroom that you made at the time of booking. You can also request Disney to add a note to your reservation that you do not wish to be upgraded should it occur. We have sailed 5e twice and would have been very disappointed if we were bumped anywhere else because we were all about the balcony space on those trips!

If a room category was in such demand they would adjust the prices accordingly. No need to leave money on the table!

 

[dsnydaddy]

That frequently happens with the lowest cat rooms on off-seasons. As they need to fill the ships they tend to offer *GT rooms and upgrade people out of rooms. However, for in-demand rooms, it may be the opposite is true. I know of a lot of people who would get pretty torqued off about being upgraded out of the room that they desired. There's many such cases where a upgrade turns into a downgrade in terms of location, deck and veranda space.

 

[Bree]

I read about this more with cruises on other lines (most recently Royal Caribbean). I have a highly coveted corner aft room next month on Royal Caribbean. It doesn't look as though the cruise sold well since there are soooooo many rooms left and both seatings for traditional dining are still open. There aren't any aft corner rooms left and I worry they may try to "upgrade" me. You can always call DCL or have your TA add a "Do Not Move" request to your reservation. I did it for my RCCL reservation. It's not a guarantee, but if they are looking to move people they may skip over your reservation.

 

[bumbershoot]

I read about this more with cruises on other lines (most recently Royal Caribbean). I have a highly coveted corner aft room next month on Royal Caribbean. It doesn't look as though the cruise sold well since there are soooooo many rooms left and both seatings for traditional dining are still open. There aren't any aft corner rooms left and I worry they may try to "upgrade" me. You can always call DCL or have your TA add a "Do Not Move" request to your reservation. I did it for my RCCL reservation. It's not a guarantee, but if they are looking to move people they may skip over your reservation.

You can set your account to NO upgrade on Royal. That's assuming you're already a crown&anchor member.

 

[Bree]

I have it set that way, but had my TA add it too. I really don't want to lose my room!

 

[kiford]

If a ship is not selling lower categories well, I could also see a potential upgrade to another room, but normally they would ask you since you already have an assigned stateroom that you made at the time of booking.

They won't ask you about upgrading or moving you even if you have an assigned room you made at booking time. We've been twice moved when we picked our rooms. Once we were upgraded to a 4A and once just moved to another 5B location. If you don't want to be moved, you can ask them to put that on your account but even then it's just a request. If they have to move you because of a problem in the stateroom, they will move you. The one time we got upgraded the ship wasn't that full so I don't know if they were just shuffling for efficiency and consolidation of room blocks but I also wouldn't think that upgrades after picking a room are normal either.