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Royal Up offers


Kent

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5 hours ago, Johnny Johns said:

For the RoyalUp cabin Upgrades that are offerred by bidding, anybody ever have any luck getting an upgrade with a "weak" offer?

I'm cruising Greece and Croatia from Venice in August and it's allowing minimum bids of about $125pp from our Balcony room to a Junior suite. I'd offer about that much for the upgrade but not much more.

Yes.  We are sailing that itinerary this weekend and succesfully Royal Up'd one of our cabins from Balcony to JS with a very small offer.   We were pleasantly surprised.  

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6 hours ago, Johnny Johns said:

For the RoyalUp cabin Upgrades that are offerred by bidding, anybody ever have any luck getting an upgrade with a "weak" offer?

I'm cruising Greece and Croatia from Venice in August and it's allowing minimum bids of about $125pp from our Balcony room to a Junior suite. I'd offer about that much for the upgrade but not much more.

I bid verrrrry slightly above minimum on a 1 br Grand Suite and minimum on a 2 br Grand Suite on Oasis of the Seas.  This was for the 5/15 sailing, which I believe sailed at about 90% capacity.  I ended up winning the 2 br.  There were other people in my sailing's FB group that bid hundreds higher on the 1 br that didn't get it.  I'm not sure how it all worked out, but it seems like there's not always a rhyme or reason. Maybe the cabin you already have and how many people bidding on upgrading to that cabin type has something to do with it, as well as your own bid.

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I think it has a a lot to do with the room you are starting from, the ship you are on, the breakdown of the room mix and the capacity or at least the availability of rooms above where you are at. I've found the older ships have fewer suites and a different mix. cruise mapper lays out the room numbers by type. Navigator of the seas is a medium aged ship. With 8 OS, 22 GS, 82 JS, 671 balconies, 202 OV, 138 Promenade view and 514 inside you can see the ratios are uneven, so where you are and where you want to go can vary. The sweet spot might be OV to balcony or JS to GS and GS to OS. Balcony to JS is 8-1 odds which is the worst while JS to GS is 4-1 and GS to OS at 3-1. Those aren't the actual odds but the competition. 671 rooms trying to get into 82 is far worse than 22 trying to get into 8. Its not an even pyramid and all ships are different. Newer ships it is more pronounced, Wonder has 115 JS and 1480 spacious balconies. Some really old ships its actually bad too, Radiance has 513 balconies and only 36 JS, but 17 1 br GS so the JS to GS is 1 to 2.

Summary, balcony is the worst launch point for a royal up on any ship, some worse than others, getting to a balcony from an OV or getting out of an Inside might be the easiest. Now that ships are back to near full getting to a GS from a balcony might be near impossible without a bid that might be costlier than having booked it outright  a year in advance.

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I don't think it helps that they have started allowing (maybe not in all cases, not sure) all of the lower cabin categories bid for suites....which are in short supply to start with.  They used to only allow you to bid "up" 2 cabin categories.  Now, it seems that anyone from an inside on up can bid on pretty much any higher category all the way up to the Royal Suite.

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15 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I don't think it helps that they have started allowing (maybe not in all cases, not sure) all of the lower cabin categories bid for suites....which are in short supply to start with.  They used to only allow you to bid "up" 2 cabin categories.  Now, it seems that anyone from an inside on up can bid on pretty much any higher category all the way up to the Royal Suite.

Agree, it seems like bidding is wide open.  On the Adventure I was in a balcony and allowed to bid on a 2 for 1 balcony.  Crazy, so if I won I would have 2 rooms for the price of one?  Not sure why I would want that?  To put my wife in another room, to invite friends, for solo points?  I understand Royal wants to make money, but don't really understand what they were thinking with that offer - other than they had extra balconies to sell...

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Got an e-mail about our successful Royal Up from an Inside Cabin to a Junior Suite on our June 26th Scandinavian sailing (7 nights). The sailing is on Voyager and we bid a bit above minimum. Nice that they told us about the upgrade more than three weeks in advance.

The inside cabin costed about 700 euros per person and includes gratuities and the Deluxe Beverage Package. Our bid for the Junior Suite was 180 euros PP so all in all we paid less than 1.800 euros for a week's sailing in a Junior Suite and that includes gratuity and the Deluxe Beverage Package x 2. (1 euro is about 1,08 USD right now.)

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5 hours ago, Mathias said:

Got an e-mail about our successful Royal Up from an Inside Cabin to a Junior Suite on our June 26th Scandinavian sailing (7 nights). The sailing is on Voyager and we bid a bit above minimum. Nice that they told us about the upgrade more than three weeks in advance.

The inside cabin costed about 700 euros per person and includes gratuities and the Deluxe Beverage Package. Our bid for the Junior Suite was 180 euros PP so all in all we paid less than 1.800 euros for a week's sailing in a Junior Suite and that includes gratuity and the Deluxe Beverage Package x 2. (1 euro is about 1,08 USD right now.)

I would imagine all JR suite cabins are similar, this is cabin 9540 on Voyager taken a week or so ago Hope you enjoy the sights from balcony as much as we did.

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17 minutes ago, Mathias said:

Thanks for the pictures @Ray. The Junior Suite on Voyager looks great! For the price we paid, we will definitely be enjoying our cruise in a few weeks.

Hopefully when leaving Stockholm in the evening you are treated to these sights as you cruise through the Stockholm archipelago into the Baltic 

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On 9/10/2021 at 2:53 PM, KLA said:

I can't speak for anything post-Covid and I've never won a bid, but I have seen bid prices decrease in the past as the cruise gets closer. 

I have two bids out right now for a Grand Suite and a Junior Suite and I've been checking the status on them excessively. The GS bid was minimum and the JS bid was "fair" - but both are a steep discount under what suites are being sold for right now. These are both for our early October cruise. 

How do you check them? I went back into the email and now my bids are gone. 

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3 hours ago, Charlette said:

I did not read all of the posts in this thread but I am getting emails about all the suites. When I pull up the sailing, the only category with space available is jr suite. So why would they be offering all the higher suites? 

They can use the bids for any last minute cancellations up until the sail date, so while a room may not be currently available if someone cancels, they can accept a bid on that room which could trigger upgrades all the way down the line.

3 hours ago, Charlette said:

How do you check them? I went back into the email and now my bids are gone. 

Trying going directly through the Royal Up link:

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/booked/cruise-room-upgrade

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Just to add for those trying to learn more or figuring out their chances or trying to figure out the algorithm lol...

First-time cruisers, here. We booked an Ocean View room on Enchantment around 60 days out from our 6/16 sailing. We received our RoyalUp invite on 5/20. I didn't read the email until later and after researching everything here, I placed 4 bids on 6/7 (all at a few dollars over minimum, considered "weak") for Ocean View Balcony, Jr Suite, 1 BR Grand Suite, and 2 BR Grand Suite. Owner's Suite was also an option.

At the time, I did a few fake bookings and it said everything was sold out except the 2 BR GS.

I received notification yesterday (6/9... so 2 days later and 7 days out from sailing) that our bid for the Ocean View Balcony was accepted (!!). The others now all show as "expired" and I am unable to place any bids, including for the Owner's Suite.

Minimum bid on OVB was $350 pp. I bid $360 pp. It was definitely a "bargain" compared to if I would've done it when I booked. I am so thankful because now that it is closer, I really started getting worried that we were going to regret not having a balcony (we have two girls, 11 and 13, so all four of us in one room for 8 nights...).

I'm actually starting to get excited now vs. being anxious. 🙂

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  • 4 weeks later...
11 hours ago, BeckyD said:

We were notified today that we are upgraded from interior to balcony for Sunday's cruise.  I was very surprised, but happy, to get notified so close to sailing!

Congrats! You can actually get notified much closer to the sailing including after you board the ship. You were given plenty of time. 😀

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 hours ago, CherylK said:

Hi all, I bid on all 4 options. Up until yesterday they all said pending. Now they all say submitted. Cruise is Aug 15. Anyone have experience with this status change? Thinking it just means they received 🤷‍♀️ TIA!! 

I just checked mine and it says submitted, also. I've never seen that before. I posted an individual message. We'll see if we get any answers.

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Most likely just a terminology change to be more exact. Seems now if it said pending that would mean you won the ability to pay for the upgrade. Right now they have the bid that you submitted. I think they are just attempting to be clearer in the wording. 

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5 hours ago, Myboys said:

I booked a gty room and received a free upgrade can my bid for a suite still be accepted ?

Yes.  PlusGrade, the 3rd party who operates RoyalUp doesn't know you have been assigned a cabin or what type of cabin it is.  As a 3rd party they don't have access to see your current cabin.  They will process your initial request if the algorithm matches.

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9 hours ago, Cruizing935 said:

How do I sign up for promotions, if Ive already bought a ticket, to get access earlier than 30 days to bid on royal up?

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/am-i-eligible-for-the-royalup-upgrades-program

When the above URL opens…click where it says “here “ 

Just put your info in.  You will see a pop up telling you to make sure your sailing is within 30 days.  BUT…the program will now have your email and if bidding becomes available for your sailing at anytime (I received an email yesterday for my September cruise) you will receive an email to bid.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 7/21/2022 at 6:02 AM, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/am-i-eligible-for-the-royalup-upgrades-program

When the above URL opens…click where it says “here “ 

Just put your info in.  You will see a pop up telling you to make sure your sailing is within 30 days.  BUT…the program will now have your email and if bidding becomes available for your sailing at anytime (I received an email yesterday for my September cruise) you will receive an email to bid.

Thank you!

 

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  • 1 year later...

We are sailing Wonder over Thanksgiving and I placed bids from our GS to all offered suites. This time I mixed it up and put in max bids on the suites I want which were the Royal Loft and the 2br ATS and then minimums on the CLS and owners suite. I know it’s low probability to win a RU bid on a holiday sailing (newer ship) but I have won for a holiday sailing in the past. Hoping for the RLS this time around. If all else fails, the grand suite is pretty great so I don’t mind. 

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1 hour ago, tonyfsu21 said:

I know it’s low probability to win a RU bid on a holiday sailing

No downside. GL!

Loved our GS on Wonder in June... well, room was very nice, but moreso loved being steps away from the SL/CK. We had the closest one to the entrance. Hard not to grab a free drink (even if it's just a soda or beer or Truly) every time you go back to your cabin when the bar is that close.

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Here's some absolute ridiculousness on my part.

We're sailing on Symphony of the Seas on the transatlantic in a few weeks. We booked ourselves a Star Class suite (Aquatheater 2-bedroom)!

I've checked numerous times over the past several months to see whether RoyalUp would offer me anything. Interestingly, it always gives me the same error. I guess they're too polite to say "No upgrades for you!"

image.png.892fed5401c8a44f8f6086169e4e7182.png

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2 hours ago, Marc said:

Here's some absolute ridiculousness on my part.

We're sailing on Symphony of the Seas on the transatlantic in a few weeks. We booked ourselves a Star Class suite (Aquatheater 2-bedroom)!

I've checked numerous times over the past several months to see whether RoyalUp would offer me anything. Interestingly, it always gives me the same error. I guess they're too polite to say "No upgrades for you!"

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There is nowhere for you to go. Star class is the highest tier and any other cabin would be a downgrade. 

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