Guarantee Rooms Stupid Decision?

[Ron UK]

Morning 

On a 3night trip on Allure 16th July 

and was recommended by travel agent to go for Guarantee Room to save a few £ as its just a 3 night Cruise 

but everything i have seen is this is a Stupid Decision so looking for some Good / Bad / Other outcomes 

using Guarantee Rooms 

 

cheers

 

[bobroo]

No doubt about it, there are shortcomings to Guaranteed bookings.

Your way around this is to phone your travel agent, select the cabin you'd like from what's available, and pay the extra $.

[OCSC Mike]

I used to book almost nothing but GTY's b/c the cabin isn't very important to us.

One other benefit that we have booking in the US is the ability to switch rooms once assigned but I don't think you are allowed to do that in the UK.

In any case, why exactly are you having regrets?

[CanHardlyWait]

1 hour ago, Ron UK said:

Morning 

On a 3night trip on Allure 16th July 

and was recommended by travel agent to go for Guarantee Room to save a few £ as its just a 3 night Cruise 

but everything i have seen is this is a Stupid Decision so looking for some Good / Bad / Other outcomes 

using Guarantee Rooms 

 

cheers

 

I always get a GTY (guarantee) and never regret. I enjoy not knowing location and then finding out. Also enjoy trying different locations / decks etc on a ship. There is so much to see and do on a cruise. For me it's just a place to shower and sleep. No cabin is a bad cabin. Loud neighbors, broken plumbing, etc basically any real unforseen issue can happen in any location. Those are the only real concerns and they can happen to anyone, anywhere. Just go and enjoy. 

[OCSC Mike]

1 minute ago, bobroo said:

No doubt about it, there are shortcomings to Guaranteed bookings.

Of course... but that's the trade off to saving money.

[CruzOnBye]

Most of our cruises have been GTY rooms, never had any issues. However for us, room location/type is not a priority, so we book gaurentees to save money. If your concern is that you might end up with no room if they overbook, I personally wouldn't stress over it. On I think last week's YouTube Royal Carribean Blog Live, someone asked the same question, and Matt's response was something among the lines of the likelyhood of you not having a room is like .000000001 percent (I think it's this video below). . But if you are very particular about the room location and type of room, then a GTY isn't for you as you never know where your room will be until very close to the sailing. For us it's fun because we get to experience all different floors, AFT/FWD, etc., and we find that kinda cool. Good luck!

 

[ScottD]

Absolutely nothing wrong with it if you aren't really specific about where you are. We have a gty for our next cruise and not worried about a thing

[Cactus527]

I have been pleasantly surprised with where my room has been placed. Both times I have done guarantee cabins. While probably not my first choice, they both work just fine; in fact, for my one this month, I'm excited to see what the location is like. As some of the others have said, if it gets assigned early enough, you might be able to switch to a different room in the same category. I have no problem with booking guarantee cabins.

[smokeybandit]

The only downsides to a GTY are if you care about room location or if you care about balcony views.

[steverk]

It's not a stupid decision at all. It's essentially the same as booking a hotel room at a non-refundable rate.

The wisdom, or lack thereof, is all in the math and your preferences. 

If you're ok with getting assigned a less than perfect cabin, you're fairly certain you'll really want to go and the price is cheaper,  then it's probably right for you.

That said, more than once, I've called my travel agent and asked about any group rates she might have, and she had them for the same price or less than the gty. In these cases the group rate is a better deal. I pick my cabin and have a refundable deposit. 

[OCSC Mike]

1 minute ago, Cactus527 said:

you might be able to switch to a different room in the same category

Unfortunately those rules vary by country and I'm 99% sure you cannot switch in the UK. Why I do not know.

[steverk]

Just now, smokeybandit said:

The only downsides to a GTY are if you care about room location or if you care about balcony views.

Also gty is non refundable deposit. 

[cedricmr]

10 cruises carried out, always in GTY and a lot of money saved. We had only once (Anthem) in obstructed balcony (the terrace was round, it was missing the 4 corners).
The next 4 cruises are also in GTY!

[OCSC Mike]

Now that I have switched to booking mostly TA group rates well in advance, this thread is almost making me miss playing the GTY game, lol.

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

I’ve never booked GTY as I would be fearful of being assigned a Forward room.  Motion does not bother me but really affects my husband, so, if I want to continue cruising with him…I need to keep him liking it .  Yes he wears the patch for motion and yes we have experienced some rockiness here and there.  However, having to sleep in a room that typically feels the most motion would certainly not help!

That being said…there is no right or wrong way of booking your stateroom.  Everyone has their own preference and way of doing it.  I would probably like the mystery of “what room will I get”…maybe someday!!!

[PeloAl]

For 3 short nights I wouldn't worry about it.

[WAAAYTOOO]

Not exactly the same thing, but with the Royal Up, which is kind of like a GTY....I found that the resulting room that was assigned to me (oceanview balcony) was actually a much nicer room than I had chosen for myself on the second half of my Radiance B2B.  I thought I had chosen a nice room for leg #2, but when I got there, it was a huge disappointment and it turns out that the RU that was awarded on leg #1 had been a much nicer room !!  Completely random chance, I realize that....but it goes to show that sometimes the room you THINK will be better, really isn't !

[ScottD]

3 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

Now that I have switched to booking mostly TA group rates well advance, this thread is almost making me miss playing the GTY game, lol.

Yeah, unfortunately being three of us usually knocks us out of the group rate pricing, so to go cheap, we can go GTY, we got an inside, well an Ocean VIEW room for the next one, so we took our chance. We'll either be way at the bottom or get reallllly lucky and have one of the front facing, spacious rooms. Either way we are happy. I think my kid will like looking out the window and being almost level with the water. 

[manicmonkey]

I've just been worrying over this too. We booked an ocean balcony GTY on wonder and am now concerned we'll be too far forward. But going up to the ones where we can choose is $1500. 

[OCSC Mike]

23 minutes ago, ScottD said:

Yeah, unfortunately being three of us usually knocks us out of the group rate pricing, so to go cheap, we can go GTY, we got an inside, well an Ocean VIEW room for the next one, so we took our chance. We'll either be way at the bottom or get reallllly lucky and have one of the front facing, spacious rooms. Either way we are happy. I think my kid will like looking out the window and being almost level with the water. 

Wasn't aware of the 3-person thing.

The bottom is the one place we never wanted to be. Just too far from the upper decks for us but sounds good for the kid... he'll also be pretty close to the pizza down there.

[jbrinkm]

My parents booked their GTY through my TA and we ended up with a good outcome - however, I don't think theirs was typical (assigned super early for one thing...). I shared my/their experience here: 

 

 

46 minutes ago, ScottD said:

unfortunately being three of us usually knocks us out of the group rate pricing,

I didn't know that either. Have you ever thought about fake booking another kid/friend who doesn't show up? Do I remember correctly that you try to go during KSF sales?

[jeffmw]

You get what you pay for.

Guaranteed rooms are a great way to save money if you don't care where your room is. Truthfully, I've never had a horribly placed room (never done GTY) but we get inside rooms often and it's fine with us. We don't spend much time in the room anyway, and if you don't plan to either, I wouldn't worry about going this route. 

[Writergina]

GTY never used to work for us because we have 3 kids, and we needed to book connecting or at least adjoining/across from each other rooms to make sure of proximity. Now that our kids are teens, we will at least consider GTY depending on how much savings are involved. On our upcoming Wonder cruise, booking GTY saved us a total of nearly $2k on two OV balcony rooms--DH and I are in one cabin with our son, and my MIL is in another cabin with our younger daughter. (Older daughter, now 18, has a show she's rehearsing and won't be joining us.)  As it turns out we'll be about 4 decks apart, although at least both aft cabins. If the savings had been under $500 it probably wouldn't have been worth it to us, but for almost $2k it was a no-brainer.

[Babsy47]

GTY works for us when we are only two without a child.  Ship movement causes us no issues and we have no deck preference on most ships.  Thus, where a significant price difference exists that can pay for something like the UDP, we go with GTY.

[ScottD]

15 hours ago, jbrinkm said:

I didn't know that either. Have you ever thought about fake booking another kid/friend who doesn't show up? Do I remember correctly that you try to go during KSF sales?

Yeah, MOST group rates are for Double occupancy rooms. At this point anything we book now, he'd be past the KSF age, so at this point that's out. BUT next year, we may do that and book two rooms, one under each adult\one kid and let him bring a friend. If we can manage adjoining rooms AND 2 group rate rooms, it might be worth a shot! 

 

[CyclingVa]

I booked a Guarantee balcony on a freedom class ship through the casino program  Free trip so I figured it was a Win Win.  I dont recall any bad balcony rooms on Freedom claas ships.  The downfall is i'm 4 weeks from sail date and no room assignment.  I searched the ship and theres only about 8 balcony rooms available, all mid ship.  Even thought about upgrading to a suite.  

[OCSC Mike]

5 minutes ago, CyclingVa said:

I booked a Guarantee balcony on a freedom class ship through the casino program  Free trip so I figured it was a Win Win.  I dont recall any bad balcony rooms on Freedom claas ships.  The downfall is i'm 4 weeks from sail date and no room assignment.  I searched the ship and theres only about 8 balcony rooms available, all mid ship.  Even thought about upgrading to a suite.  

Have you tried the bar code trick?

Bar Code Trick

Method 1. If you have an Apple device, add your set sail pass to your Apple wallet. Numbers will now appear under your bar code. The numbers after the dash represent your cabin.

Method 2. Scan the bar code with a QR scanner from another device and that should also show you the numbers.

NOTE: If you see "GTY" instead of numbers, you truly haven't been assigned yet. One tip off is that if you don't see a muster station on your set sail pass then you almost definitely don't have an assignment yet.

[ScottD]

37 minutes ago, CyclingVa said:

I booked a Guarantee balcony on a freedom class ship through the casino program  Free trip so I figured it was a Win Win.  I dont recall any bad balcony rooms on Freedom claas ships.  The downfall is i'm 4 weeks from sail date and no room assignment.  I searched the ship and theres only about 8 balcony rooms available, all mid ship.  Even thought about upgrading to a suite.  

Chances are there are some more rooms than that, the GTY rooms are basically assigned, Travel agents have holds, and you would have to search all room sizes (2,3,4) to see what was actually available.  Like Mike said, if you have a barcode- give it a scan!!  

[CyclingVa]

Wow that does work.   Found out my room.  Deck 10 balcony   Not disappointed in that at all.   Thanks for the tip 

 

 

[recogneyes]

8 hours ago, ScottD said:

Yeah, MOST group rates are for Double occupancy rooms. At this point anything we book now, he'd be past the KSF age, so at this point that's out. BUT next year, we may do that and book two rooms, one under each adult\one kid and let him bring a friend. If we can manage adjoining rooms AND 2 group rate rooms, it might be worth a shot! 

 

This is what we've been doing for a few years now and it works well for us.  Harr travel offers some great group rates (for 2) and their service is wonderful .   We have referred them to friends and they've been finding the same.  It works especially well that they get the benefit of only having to purchase one beverage package as only one adult is in the room (spouse wouldn't get enough use out of UBP or refreshment package).  

[jbrinkm]

8 hours ago, ScottD said:

Yeah, MOST group rates are for Double occupancy rooms. 

Didn't know that, interesting! 

8 hours ago, ScottD said:

book two rooms, one under each adult\one kid and let him bring a friend

If the kids are next door or directly across the hall, you can have the adults together and the kids together in rooms. Easy with a TA - booking directly with RCI, I believe you have to call?