Guarantee Booking
When you book a "guarantee" with a cruise line, you are not assigned a specific cabin category or specific cabin at the time of booking. Depending on the cruise line, you'll receive your actual cabin assignment a few weeks before your departure, or at the time you check in for your cruise. Neither you nor your travel agent has control over what specific cabin you'll be assigned or it's location (deck, midship, aft, forward, etc.). Some cruise lines offer a "run of ship guarantee" (with no specific category noted); others offer "category guarantees". With a "run of ship guarantee", all the cruise line is offering is a cabin somewhere on the ship, in any category they choose. With a "category guarantee", you'll receive no less than the category you paid for, but may receive a cabin assignment in a higher category at no additional charge.
Why do cruise lines offer such "guarantees"? Traditionally, the minimum and maximum cabin categories sell out first. By offering "guarantees", the cruise line has the flexibility of "relocating" someone from a lower-priced category to a higher one, thereby selling far more attractively priced lower fares than they could if all sales were done with a specific cabin assignment. They may only have a handful of minimum priced cabins available on the ship, but guarantees allow them to sell many more cabins at that low fare, getting a sale they might not otherwise get if only the higher fare cabins were available.
What are the advantages of a "guarantee" to the consumer? With "run of ship" guarantees, which are usually offered on a cruise only basis (you must buy your own independent airfare), the rate is usually lower than any other rate offered. With "category guarantees", the rate may not be lower than that offered if you booked a cabin assignment, but the potential advantage is that you'll be upgraded to a higher category at no additional cost to you.
What are the disadvantages of a "guarantee" to the consumer? Well, basically, an upgrade is not always an upgrade even if you're assigned a cabin in a higher category than you booked. I know this sounds a bit like double-talk so I'll use an example. Say, you booked a guarantee in Category 1, and all the cabins in this category are located midship. Midship is a preferred location for many cruisers. Along comes your cabin assignment, and you've been assigned a cabin in Category 5, a four-category upgrade which has a higher dollar value than what you paid for. However, your cabin is located all the way forward, or all the way aft, or under the disco -- certainly not considered "prime" locations. Although you may have saved $$$$, your upgrade may have less value to YOU because of its location.
