Upgrading at port?

[disneyfan551]

I am just curious how many of you have tried to upgrade at port? Were you successful, which room type did you have & then change to & how much was the upgrade? I would love to hear any information, as I'm thinking about surprising my dh for our 10th anniversary, during our Oct. cruise! I know that it may not be possible, but it never hurts to try!

 

[princssdisnygina]

I have tried to upgrade at the port from a cat 7 to a cat 6, just a small one right...well, it was an extra $300 a person to do that! I found it MUCH cheaper to do it before and do it through DCL or my travel agent! If you are lucky, they will upgrade you before the cruise and not charge you a thing! That has happened to me a few times! It was nice! October is a good time to get upgrades automatically but know that they are random! Needless to say I stuck with my cat 7 and used the extra money to shop!!! That is my experience but I am sure there are many other stories out there! Which Cat are you booked for and what date?

Gina

 

[AspiringCindy]

We upgraded at Port in 2000. We had booked a cat. 9 for 4 people(2 adults, 2 kids) for a 4 night cruise in which the cost was $2000. At port we inqired about an upgrade...we were put in a cat 5 or 6(don't remember) and just payed $200 to do it!

 

[Echo queen]

This March we booked cat 11 for family of 4,3 night for $1400. We asked at at check in if upgrade availible, they had a cat 3 for $1200 : We declined that offer

 

[Rence]

They display a sign if the ship is full letting you know that no upgrades are available. We had that on our last cruise and it wasn't even prime season. I do believe that a large percentage of the cruises are full with no upgrades available.

 

[hmneal]

We upgraded at the port on our 1/2/04 DCL 4night. We had booked 2 cat 11s. We were one of the first few families at the port and I just wanted to see what was avail. I doubted we'd switch because it was important to me that our rooms be close together (we're a family of 6 so I didn't want to kids on the other side of the ship from us!)

They just happened to have 2 cat 6's, side by side! We decided to go for it!! If my memory serves me correctly, we paid $200 per person ($1200 for the two staterooms) to upgrade.

Although it was a lot of $$, we figured we'd probably never get the chance to do it again with the whole family (our oldest DD's are in high school & college) We all really enjoyed the verandah but my DH especially enjoyed it. He's not much of a cruiser, but he so enjoyed watching the ports come into view, the ship dock, etc from the verandah. Another thing we noticed is that while you can really feel the movement of the ship from the stateroom, once you walk out on the verandah, we could barely feel any movement at all!

 

[grlzmom]

We upgraded at port once. We originally booked a category nine (no reason to splurge on a balcony when we were already being selfish and leaving the children home with grandparents). When our documents came, we had been upgraded to a five.

Got to port, the sign was up indicating "no upgrades available". Dh asked anyway and they had a category three available for 800 more. So we went from a nine to a three for 800 bucks (we quickly got over feeling guilty about leaving the kiddos). They said we were only charged the difference between the cat. five and the cat. three and not the category nine that we had originally booked. Gotta love that Disney Magic.

One other occasion when traveling with all the kiddos we were booked in two connecting category fours - at port, without asking we were offered a three connecting to a four for 1000 more. We declined since we hadnt budgeted for that ahead of time. Couldn't be spending my shutters and bingo money on more space

 

[lildeb724]

We were in a category 4 for 7 night in October. We had booked only 6 weeks out. We were paying $5300 for two adults, 1 3 year old and a baby. It said they were full at port, but we asked anyway and the upgrade was $630.00 Worth every penny to be in a cat 3 with all that space and a table to eat at. They also brought a highchair up for the baby. We spent a lot of time in the room for two naps a day

 

[MrsMork]

We upgraded at the port from an 11 to a 9 for the 10 day cruise and it cost us $500. It was way more than $250 a piece for the 10 day to book a Cat 9 ahead of time. They also had a Cat 6 available, but we did not want to spend more of our spa money on the room.