larry.wiley4405

This past October I had a balcony room (Casino rate so just port charges and taxes) then put a bid in for three different upgrades.  Couple weeks out it showed two of the bids were expired and one pending, which I could not change.  I won the pending bid of a grande suite.  It was wonderful!

We are going on Freedom of Seas March 8th, and i am looking to book Izumi hibachi. It says its $45 per person, we will have 2 adults and one 8 year old and 1 5 year old. Are both kids $45? If we don't want to go the hibachi and just want to get sushi is it $45 per person? Is there an ala carter option? My kids love eating sushi. 

Agreed.
We should all expect capacity to quickly go up again. Might be a respite in May when Spring break ends but summer vacation hasn't started yet, but the days of 50-60% capacity are going to quickly be a memory.

@DuaneGIf you prefer a certain cabin category or cabin in general Royal wants you to book, they are in business to make money. They have hired this third party firm to add to their revenue with this program to fill cabins last minute, it is up to us as passengers to just deal with the way it is handled because essentially if you "win" you may be getting your cabin at a price point lower then it could have been purchased, especially when sailing with more then 2 people.
Participating in the program going in one must know you are just a number, that is all. This is our third time bidding and we are 5 days out, all bids still pending. Our two previous sailings our bids were not accepted and we found out the evening before our sailing, 1800hrs and 1900hrs. It's a great program for some lucky passengers and hands down better then the demeaning way DCL conducts theirs in the terminal.
My advice, book the cabin you want and then bid if there is something you would love to try and then forget about it. (Okay, I check my status daily) but go in accepting you will be assigned the cabin you booked and what a happy surprise if your number is called and you "win" the upgrade. Wishing you a positive outcome. 

While I agree that on the surface that logic seems faulty, in some cases it could make sense. If the bidding for royalup was robust enough, and the upgrade chain sufficiently long, it could pay off. In your example, a $6000 owners suite is held aside. And the royalup  starts at a crown loft, and continues through grand suite, jr suite, ocean view balcony, central park view balcony, ocean view, and interior. An average bid of $900 would yield $6300, and the now empty interior room could be sold for $1500 more. After the dominoes fell and the inexpensive room was sold, $7800 would be realized in this example, plus a whole bunch of goodwill would be established.  I could be completely wrong, but the math is insane enough to work  sometimes.

Don't give up hope.  We cruised on Oasis in December, I put in a weak bid to upgrade to star class even tho it looked like everything was sold out,  We got it!

I like to deduct the savings of not being home (power, food, etc) This can lower the perceived cost of cruising by 25-30%.

I resemble this remark.

Correct.

I have observed that the minimum bid does go up and down.  One time I saw it go up after I submitted a bid so I deleted my bid and it went back down.  Apparently I was the one causing the minimum bid to go up and down.