Adding a 5th passenger in a cabin

[melmar02]

We are considering taking my MIL on a cruise with us in 2020.  We would be booking one cabin, the 2br GT, so I'm not concerned with space or changing cabin categories. 

Is there any drawback to adding her as a 5th passenger after the initial booking? Do we lose our original booking promotion and all get repriced at the current rate, is the 5th person added under the original promotion, or is the 5th person added under whatever the current promo is with everyone else staying at the original pricing? Alternately, if we book 5 passengers to begin with and then have to drop her off the reservation, is there any sort of penalty? 

Thanks!

[twangster]

Typically guests are added at prevailing rates on that day.  There has to be enough capacity within your muster zone so the best thing to do is call and ask them "What would it cost to add...".  Never hurts to ask the question then you can decide based on the answer.  The call is free  

If you booked through a travel agency call them, not Royal direct.

[WAAAYTOOO]

The new person would definitely NOT be added at the rate that you originally paid.  There is a chance (a good one, I think) that the booking would be completely repriced at the prevailing rate and with whatever booking bonuses are currently being offered....meaning that you would ALL pay the new rate.  If it's lower than what you originally paid, great, but if not, ugh.

But Twangster is right.  Just call.  It can't hurt to ask...but be prepared for bad news (or good news if the rates have dropped).

[melmar02]

Thanks. Sounds like it would be best to book everyone from the get go and drop a person if we need to. 

[Lovetocruise2002]

@melmar02 I usually never go against what the wise @twangster and @WAAAYTOOO say but I believe the answer to this one is the following:

Your 5th passenger will be added on at whatever your 3rd and 4th have already paid (check your cruise confirmation), not prevailing rates.  The reason being that once you book 3 or more in a cabin, the price gets locked in for any additional passengers after that.  I have it in writing from Royal because I looked into this specifically for two of my sailings.  The only way this would not work is if like @twangster said, the ship has already maxed out its 3/4 lifeboat capacity.  Then you are out of luck and you would not be able to add anyone else period.  Adding to this, we booked a Villa suite on Harmony for December 2020.  At the time of the initial booking, 10 of us were in.  A month later, the price changed slightly and my sister wanted in so we added 4 more at the initial price of the additional passengers.  The price was locked because we already had more than 3 on the reservation.

Regarding booking them in now and cancelling them later, that would be unwise and you would incur the cancellation fee since it is a suite.  Unless you have some kind of "cancel for any reason" insurance that would cover that.

[spiralqueen]

I’ll shamelessly piggyback on this topic and ask about a scenario of my own. If I have 3 people booked with a refundable rate in an interior room, can I cancel the 3rd person later on and still keep the original rate for the remaining 2 people? Or would it reprice it for us?

[mom2mybugs]

We looked at adding my daughter to our vision sailing in July and it is maxed out in terms of lifeboat capacity.  I hadn't known that could be a thing.  Now I wish I had added her just in case when we booked and we would have been able to drop her.  But we weren't in a suite so it wasn't a non refundable issue.  Jane

[Hoski]

Book her now and cancel her later if you have to because if your muster station is full you will not be able to add her even if she fits in the cabin.