Guaranteed Interior Cabin

[mickjacket]

I am sure this has been asked before. We had to cancel our October cruise because of daughter injury. Blew our budget with flights and bill paying for her, not complaining it could have been so much worse. We are trying to do late November 4 night and possible guaranteed interior cabin. Has anyone ever had a really bad or good experience with this option? Also considering flying in morning of into Fll but cruise is out of Miami. Any bad experience here?

 

Thanks in advance. 

[Ampurp85]

I have book guaranteed cabins, an interior on Harmony and currently have a guaranteed balcony on Mariner booked for Jan 2024. In both instances I do/did not care about location, my focus was getting on the ship and saving a few bucks. I was assigned a room on deck 3 on Harmony and worried. I had never been that low and motion sickness could have been an issue, it wasn't. the room was fine. If you go into with the expectation that a room is just there to sleep and shower, I am all about the ship, you will be fine.

I have also flown into FLL and cruised out of Miami. It was a lot cheaper but factor in ALL the cost. When I went there was a huge surcharge for Lyft/Uber's. I paid $60+ each trip, so the savings in airfare became almost negligible when I factor in convivence....... but I also hate Miami airport so I would do it again.

[OCSC Mike]

28 minutes ago, mickjacket said:

Has anyone ever had a really bad or good experience with this option?

Since you can get literally any cabin on the ship, yes, someone has had what they felt was an awful location and someone has been beyond thrilled.

I have booked many interior GTY's b/c, as mentioned above, we don't care about our cabin and aren't super picky about our location.

That said, also be aware that once officially assigned a cabin, you can switch to any other available cabin in the exact same category for free (assuming you booked from the US). I no longer book these for various reasons but when I did I probably switched cabins nearly every cruise.

[cedricmr]

Always on GTY balcony
No problems with the cabin
we like the surprise

[CanHardlyWait]

1 hour ago, cedricmr said:

Always on GTY balcony
No problems with the cabin
we like the surprise

Exact same, only inside cabins. Not knowing location is an adventure!

[Allen2]

Comment on flying to Ft Lauderdale the morning of a Miami cruise: IMO: don't do it.  With all the delays and cancellations of late, you could easily miss the ship - at a great cost to you.  Also, as mentioned above, ground transportation cost can be an issue.  The price of a hotel the night before is inexpensive insurance, and might save an entire cruise.

[FireFishII]

Don't fly in the morning of.  Right now, the airlines and weather has been terrible!!!  November is still inside the hurricane season.  Give yourself the extra day and shed some worries. 

I just got back from a trip to Italy.  It took us 3 days to get to Barcelona. First day - Chicago had closed the airport due to weather. Second day - Plane was broken and the airline could not fix it after working on it for 6 hours. Third day - one of our flights was delayed for 2 hours.  We finally made it to port with just 2 hours to spare.  I was a wreck!  But thank goodness I gave myself 3 travel days.  Of course that meant that I could not share my love for Barcelona with my husband.  

Return trip - again, a delayed flight made us miss our connection.  We ended getting into Boston at 2 am.  

[CanHardlyWait]

16 minutes ago, Allen2 said:

Comment on flying to Ft Lauderdale the morning of a Miami cruise: IMO: don't do it.  With all the delays and cancellations of late, you could easily miss the ship - at a great cost to you.  Also, as mentioned above, ground transportation cost can be an issue.  The price of a hotel the night before is inexpensive insurance, and might save an entire cruise.

Ditto.

[teddy]

My wife and I are big fans of guaranteed inside bookings.
 

We currently have three guarantee cabins booked out of five upcoming Royal Caribbean cruises.  Two insides and one balcony.  We also now have a balcony guarantee booked on another line, but that’s because the ship was changed and we’re waiting for the dust to settle to see where they put us. 
 

We like the anticipation of getting our cabin assignment.  
 

I guess the “worst” cabin we ever were assigned would have been an interior way at aft end of deck 9 on Vision, but we were still content just being on a cruise.   
 

Nine out of ten times, we genuinely do not care where our cabin is.  We really only choose a cabin when it’s a special occasion for us, such as the aft balcony we chose for our cruise out of Italy this fall.   
 

Interior Guarantee Cabins allow us to cruise frequently now while still saving a bunch for retirement so we can cruise frequently then. 

If you do book a guarantee cabin, keep an eye on prices for your cruise before final payment. Sometimes the price for choosing a cabin will pop up lower than the cost for the GTY.  Heck, sometimes you can even find an ocean view cheaper.  (At least here in the US)