Cabins Release?

[deep1]

Not sure if anybody has any insight but I thought I'd ask about something i seem to be seeing. Maybe its just me? I've been circling like a hungry shark on an itinerary with different dates. . Nothing elaborate. Girlfriend wants western Caribbean that includes Roatan so can hug a sloth... It has to be Oasis class... And it has to be ocean balcony... . Ok, simple. We have been looking at dates and prices.  Slight differences in prices. What I'm seeing though that this question about is that when I go to select a room and pull the trigger the room selection is really poor. Like one or two on the whole ship. Multiple ships on multiple dates this seems to be a thing ? Several months out?  If i go back and look again. The rooms I looked at are gone but other really poor selections have become available. Are they purposely doing this? Is it possible that there genuinely is that few rooms available? this far out on multiple dates? on multiple ships? Do they hold the better rooms back for agents or some other reason? Do they release them to direct bookers at some point?  I never ran into this before so thats why I'm asking...

[Ryan79]

Those cruises start filling up well over a year in advance..like 18 months-ish. If you are working with a timetable in months, you are getting everyone else’s leftovers. Demand has been insane since COVID restrictions have gone away. Just this week, many posters where chomping at 2024 Alaska sailings that were just released. so unless if you are looking over a year away, don’t count on or expect prime room types or locations. 
 

I have an upcoming July 2023 sailing where cabins are already VERY picked over. Luckily I have had this particular cruise booked for 6 months already.

[asquared17]

i think too, this could be a good argument for a travel agent to assist. some of them offer great/comparable rates, if not better — and usually throw in some perks too. 

 

our best practice is to ghost book on RCCL to see what the baseline is and then put the quote into cruisecompete.com. then each agent can offer you their best deal and they may have a group rate that could be beneficial. others on these forums have had great success using MEI. 

 

happy sailing!

[She Sails Away]

I think they don't show every single available cabin at once. Not even floor by floor. That's my guess.

 

i say this because I have discovered with some cruises, if I shop available cabins as a solo cruiser, I am sometimes only shown a few. Supposedly entire floors or sections are "sold out," and listed as such. But if I go back and shop the same cruise as double occupancy, suddenly there are more room choices, and the aft and midsection are NOT "sold out" after all.

 

So my guess is that there is some sort of strategy--sometimes--on funneling people to choose from specific sections by presenting them as all that's left.

[AshleyDillo]

I have noticed Royal doesn't show all the rooms available. We usually use one of the bigger travel agency websites to see all the rooms available and then we tell our MEI travel agent which ones we are interested in.

[ScottD]

If you can go in late January, there are quite a few ocean view balcony and large ocean view balcony rooms available on the Jan 29th sailing Oasis to Roatan\Coco cay\Cozumel\Costa maya.  I just upgraded to a boardwalk balcony room, but only because I didn't wanna spend the extra few hundred for the large ocean view balcony rooms....but they have em! 

[deep1]

4 hours ago, ScottD said:

If you can go in late January, there are quite a few ocean view balcony and large ocean view balcony rooms available on the Jan 29th sailing Oasis to Roatan\Coco cay\Cozumel\Costa maya.  I just upgraded to a boardwalk balcony room, but only because I didn't wanna spend the extra few hundred for the large ocean view balcony rooms....but they have em! 

This is what I was looking at. Different ships different dates around then and they show like one or two rooms at a time... One room here and there in worst possible places. Like right at the entrance to the rock climbing wall. Next to the music hall or right behind playmakers... 

 

 

[ScottD]

26 minutes ago, deep1 said:

This is what I was looking at. Different ships different dates around then and they show like one or two rooms at a time... One room here and there in worst possible places. Like right at the entrance to the rock climbing wall. Next to the music hall or right behind playmakers... 

 

 

I guess it also depends on how many people- when you look for 2  people, A LOT more rooms show up- if you look for 3, it really dwindles down because all of the adjoining rooms and rooms with sofa beds I guess are being booked quicker. But if you look at rooms for 2 in the central park view or for 3 in the large balcony ocean view rooms, basically almost every room mid- ship on deck 9 is open! 

[deep1]

19 hours ago, ScottD said:

I guess it also depends on how many people- when you look for 2  people, A LOT more rooms show up- if you look for 3, it really dwindles down because all of the adjoining rooms and rooms with sofa beds I guess are being booked quicker. But if you look at rooms for 2 in the central park view or for 3 in the large balcony ocean view rooms, basically almost every room mid- ship on deck 9 is open! 

2 people...  has to be ocean view balcony. each time i look they offer different room but all that they have offered are terrible. one time last night though they offered large iv balcony for much less than they were offering regular? i should have jumped on it. 

 

[jbrinkm]

On 11/13/2022 at 12:02 AM, asquared17 said:

i think too, this could be a good argument for a travel agent to assist. some of them offer great/comparable rates, if not better — and usually throw in some perks too. 

Ditto this.

Sometimes TAs have blocks of rooms bought in bulk that wouldn't be available on Royal's site.

[deep1]

I have to wait a day or two before actually pulling the trigger and man things change every time I hit the refresh button. Prices and one room per sailing different each time... Not mad. Its a game...