Bait and switch cruise price and # of occupants

[AshleyDillo]

1 hour ago, p27159 said:

The problem with swapping room keys would be that the room my wife and I end up with will have 2 twin beds, not exactly what we would want (at least not what I would want lol).

The twin beds can be pushed together. Ask your room steward.  That's all the big beds are in most cabins.

[p27159]

58 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

The twin beds can be pushed together. Ask your room steward.  That's all the big beds are in most cabins.

True, I just hope he or she won’t realize the full situation that we aren’t really doing what the cruise lines want us to do as far as who is staying in what  room (if they care at all).

[Pattycruise]

1 hour ago, p27159 said:

True, I just hope he or she won’t realize the full situation that we aren’t really doing what the cruise lines want us to do as far as who is staying in what  room (if they care at all).

Stateroom attendants don’t care if your beds are together or apart or who is sleeping where.  

[need2cruz]

II saw the posted screen shots for "4 people".  It mentions that you could prepay the gratuity, and you selected that option.  That should be $504.  Not $252.  Gratuity is $18 per person per day.  Your final price really should have been a "tip off" that something is too low.  This was clearly a price for 2 people and not 4.  This is an Easter week cruise on Oasis.  You are not going to find a price for 4 people that close to sail date.  Maybe in 2019, but not now.  I frequently input different amounts of rooms and people on the website, too.  I have booked for anywhere from 2 of us in one room to 8 of us in 4 rooms.  The Royal website often still says the last thing you put in when you change it up the next time.  Just because it still says 4 people and now you're looking at 2 people doesn't mean they're going to honor what it says in the left column.  The prepay gratuity shows it is was only for 2 people, along with the low price.  But as others have said, use a travel agent to do the actual booking.  They can help you put the names right and it doesn't cost more.

[Smokey79]

I played around with this sailing and made a couple mock bookings. Right now there is only one OV cabin left that is open. An ultra spacious OV that is running 11k for 4 pax. Cabin 11500. There are multiple balconies available with the cheapest ones being 7700 for 4 pax.

Interior cabins I find the most interesting as a guarantee room is 1100 pp but when you pick it’s 2750 pp. I’m leaning heavily towards a guarantee cabin not necessarily meeting the occupancy requirements initially but will be changed upon actual assignment. That’s the only logical guess I can come to to account for the pricing discrepancy.
 

If I were OP and I was dead set on this trip, i would transfer this booking to a TA and see if they could get the rooms assigned next to each other or at least close and try to make it work. Second option would be to push the trip out a year and try again if that’s doable. But they def need an assist on this and using a TA would get someone in their corner. 

[HeWhoWaits]

7 hours ago, Pattycruise said:

Stateroom attendants don’t care if your beds are together or apart or who is sleeping where.  

They only care if you're enjoying your cruise and hopefully that is due in part to be ing satisfied with the service they are providing.

[Crown&AnchorEsq]

Clear malfunction in the Royal IT department.  My guess is that it was letting you book a guarantee which could theoretically have up to 4 guests but there were only 2 person staterooms left so it was spitting back 2 person prices. I too noticed the gratuities and immediately realized that the system was recognizing it as a 2-person room but someone that does not spend their time tracking gratuity rates would have no reason to know it should be 18/day pp. 

Seems unlikely you are getting into a 4 person room on that sailing.  Even if the screw up was on their end they are not going to bump a reservation just to get you on board.  

Tough to say as to whether this would be a true "advertised price" to give rise to unfair marketing claims or offer/acceptance which would give rise to contract claims.  At the very least I would think you could argue detrimental reliance and get change fees covered (though depending on when the original confirmation came in they may argue you should have cancelled your original flight reservations in the 24 hour cancellation window).*

*I am an attorney but this should not be considered legal advice.

[p27159]

7 hours ago, need2cruz said:

II saw the posted screen shots for "4 people".  It mentions that you could prepay the gratuity, and you selected that option.  That should be $504.  Not $252.  Gratuity is $18 per person per day.  Your final price really should have been a "tip off" that something is too low.  This was clearly a price for 2 people and not 4.  This is an Easter week cruise on Oasis.  You are not going to find a price for 4 people that close to sail date.  Maybe in 2019, but not now.  I frequently input different amounts of rooms and people on the website, too.  I have booked for anywhere from 2 of us in one room to 8 of us in 4 rooms.  The Royal website often still says the last thing you put in when you change it up the next time.  Just because it still says 4 people and now you're looking at 2 people doesn't mean they're going to honor what it says in the left column.  The prepay gratuity shows it is was only for 2 people, along with the low price.  But as others have said, use a travel agent to do the actual booking.  They can help you put the names right and it doesn't cost more.

Thanks for your comments.  I don’t know why you say the gratuities should have been a “tip off”.  How should I know what they are supposed to be?  I was pricing other cruises around that time, and the dollar amounts were within similar ranges, so I disagree with your assessment there.  The travel agent thing is now a lesson learned, but didn’t realize that this kind of thing happens often enough that a TA would be necessary.  I book my own flights, hotels, etc. all the time.

[p27159]

4 hours ago, Smokey79 said:

I played around with this sailing and made a couple mock bookings. Right now there is only one OV cabin left that is open. An ultra spacious OV that is running 11k for 4 pax. Cabin 11500. There are multiple balconies available with the cheapest ones being 7700 for 4 pax.

Interior cabins I find the most interesting as a guarantee room is 1100 pp but when you pick it’s 2750 pp. I’m leaning heavily towards a guarantee cabin not necessarily meeting the occupancy requirements initially but will be changed upon actual assignment. That’s the only logical guess I can come to to account for the pricing discrepancy.
 

If I were OP and I was dead set on this trip, i would transfer this booking to a TA and see if they could get the rooms assigned next to each other or at least close and try to make it work. Second option would be to push the trip out a year and try again if that’s doable. But they def need an assist on this and using a TA would get someone in their corner. 

Thank you so much for the suggestion.  I think I’m going to run down to AAA today to see if one of their travel agents can help.

[p27159]

4 hours ago, Crown&AnchorEsq said:

Clear malfunction in the Royal IT department.  My guess is that it was letting you book a guarantee which could theoretically have up to 4 guests but there were only 2 person staterooms left so it was spitting back 2 person prices. I too noticed the gratuities and immediately realized that the system was recognizing it as a 2-person room but someone that does not spend their time tracking gratuity rates would have no reason to know it should be 18/day pp. 

Seems unlikely you are getting into a 4 person room on that sailing.  Even if the screw up was on their end they are not going to bump a reservation just to get you on board.  

Tough to say as to whether this would be a true "advertised price" to give rise to unfair marketing claims or offer/acceptance which would give rise to contract claims.  At the very least I would think you could argue detrimental reliance and get change fees covered (though depending on when the original confirmation came in they may argue you should have cancelled your original flight reservations in the 24 hour cancellation window).*

*I am an attorney but this should not be considered legal advice.

Thanks for your comments. Asterisk noted.  I didn’t know that I could cancel a nonrefundable flight within 24 hours.  I just learned something new on that one, because I just did a Google search and confirmed that is a DOT regulation.  You may be right that they can argue that I could have mitigated the damage this way.

What change fees are you talking about?

At this point I really have no good options, except what a previous comment said, and maybe it’s not too late for a TA to help me out.

I’ll report back here after I return from AAA.

[p27159]

I just got back from the travel agency, and was told they could not take over my reservation since I had already paid in full (I didn’t have an option to do otherwise, I’m guessing because I booked it less than two months before the sail date).  She brought up on her screen what is probably the same 4 passenger balcony state room for $7700 that the cruise line was trying to offer me.  I’d rather stick with what I have than to do that.

Question: do you all know when I can expect to get cabin room assignments (how many days before the sailing date?) for a guaranteed cabin?  
 

Thanks for all of the advice I have been given. This post got off to a rocky start, but finally settled in much better!

[jbrinkm]

2 hours ago, p27159 said:

Question: do you all know when I can expect to get cabin room assignments (how many days before the sailing date?) for a guaranteed cabin?  

This is old, but may give you a sense of how all over the place these assignments can happen:

There is a barcode trick if you have your cruise docs already by scanning, prior to officially getting your assignment. Or put them in your Apple Wallet if you have an iPhone. 

If you get a room you aren't happy with, there is a small chance you can move to a different room in the same EXACT category i.e. 4D, not ocean view balcony, but you'd have to call and there would have to be availability.  

[p27159]

1 hour ago, jbrinkm said:

This is old, but may give you a sense of how all over the place these assignments can happen:

There is a barcode trick if you have your cruise docs already by scanning, prior to officially getting your assignment. Or put them in your Apple Wallet if you have an iPhone. 

If you get a room you aren't happy with, there is a small chance you can move to a different room in the same EXACT category i.e. 4D, not ocean view balcony, but you'd have to call and there would have to be availability.  

Thanks for this information, including the barcode trick. I am assuming the horizontal axis in the graph is number of days before the sailing date?  In other words, about half of all guaranteed cabins are assigned within a month of the sailing date (with the caveat that this may be somewhat old information)?

I’m wondering if the fact that I have been a “problem child” for them with my complaint, will they decide to screw us over and assign ours last, and put us in the least desirable locations?

before this cruise, I’m pretty sure I have always picked my own cabin, at least as far back as I can remember, and go to various websites where they showed the ship floorplan, and they point out some “problem rooms”. But I am not sure how much a lot of that really matters to us anyway.  We tend to stay up on the later side, and wake up on the earlier side (we don’t “waste” much of our experience with a lot of downtime!), so most of the noise issues I see people complain about probably wouldn’t even impact us all that much.

[p27159]

 By the way, my wife was reading a Facebook page, dedicated to our specific cruise, and somebody posted something where they had a slightly different, but still somewhat similar, thing happen to them.  We’re going to see if we can get more details from them…

[HeWhoWaits]

13 hours ago, p27159 said:

I’m wondering if the fact that I have been a “problem child” for them with my complaint, will they decide to screw us over and assign ours last, and put us in the least desirable locations?

The staterooms will be assigned by the system, not by any potentially vindictive individuals. You will get what's available when the assignment is made. No experiential basis for this assumption, but it seems likely that the earliest guarantee bookings at the highest room type are assigned first and it cascades down through the final guarantee booking at that level, followed by progressively lower categories/later bookings.