Would you get to the port early if your cabin is still unassigned?

Thumper99

Mouseketeer
Joined
Sep 10, 2019
We are 4 days from our cruise. My GTY cabin assignment has not been made. We booked relatively late (30 days out) so our port arrival time is 2pm. Would you arrive early if your cabin was not assigned prior to leaving? I’m thinking about all those people trying to get upgrades at the port.

Has anyone ever been assigned their cabin at the port? I know its possible but all the people on my cruise that I know booked GtY or GT have been assigned their cabins. I’m so nervous since we fly to San Juan to catch the ship. They have to give us a room I know but I’m afraid others will upgrade and we will be shuffled around if we wait to check in later.

Any advice ( besides being patient! 😬) I’ve done Gty or GT many times and never had this happen.
 
We are 4 days from our cruise. My GTY cabin assignment has not been made. We booked relatively late (30 days out) so our port arrival time is 2pm. Would you arrive early if your cabin was not assigned prior to leaving? I’m thinking about all those people trying to get upgrades at the port.

Has anyone ever been assigned their cabin at the port? I know its possible but all the people on my cruise that I know booked GtY or GT have been assigned their cabins. I’m so nervous since we fly to San Juan to catch the ship. They have to give us a room I know but I’m afraid others will upgrade and we will be shuffled around if we wait to check in later.

Any advice ( besides being patient! 😬) I’ve done Gty or GT many times and never had this happen.
Guarantee assignments can show up at any time between the booking date all the way up to, and including, embarkation day.

Getting to the port early or late won't affect what the assignment is.

The assignment is not done by the people at the port, it's done by the DCL people "in the office". People requesting upgrades won't be accommodated until everyone has their initial assignments.
 
To answer you...yes, I would arrive earlier than 2:00 pm. Open boarding (when anyone with any boarding number can board) starts a about 12:30 or so. Two weeks ago embarkation started around 11:45 am.

MJ
 
To answer you...yes, I would arrive earlier than 2:00 pm. Open boarding (when anyone with any boarding number can board) starts a about 12:30 or so. Two weeks ago embarkation started around 11:45 am.

MJ
Thank you. I’m so irritated at this point about not being assigned a room that I’m just showing up at 11 and I guess I’ll have to trust that my luggage will get to whatever room I end up with. But if they can’t give me a room by three days out I don’t feel obligated to show up at 2pm to check in. I have no way of feeling any comfort that I have a room before I get on a plane to San Juan! I understand I signed up for this with a GTY rate but really I’m pretty sure based on my Facebook group that I’m the only person not assigned a cabin!😡😡

I got a call from Kissimmee this afternoon and I thought Finally they’ll tell me my room but it was DVC saying please come to the member welcome on the ship.

And I got a “you're paid in full” email which I know means they changed something in my reservation and sure enough notice they switched us to main dining ( was on waitlist). So I know they have looked at my reservation😡😡 but it still says GTY!! UGH
 


do you keep checking your reservation to see if it was assigned? You could try and call them and see if they can tell you on the phone.

MJ
 
do you keep checking your reservation to see if it was assigned? You could try and call them and see if they can tell you on the phone.

MJ
Lol! Yes!! Every hour practically. Tomorrow will be two days out so I will call again. I called around 8 days out and they told me I would know by 3 days. And they did do something since I got switched to main dining. I’m confident I’m on the ship since I’ve gotten the reservation confirmed multiple times and everyone says it’s fine. It is just very frustrating and I’m a bit nervous I guess without knowing they’ve assigned me a room.
 
I’m so irritated at this point about not being assigned a room that I’m just showing up at 11 and I guess I’ll have to trust that my luggage will get to whatever room I end up with. But if they can’t give me a room by three days out I don’t feel obligated to show up at 2pm to check in. I have no way of feeling any comfort that I have a room before I get on a plane to San Juan! I understand I signed up for this with a GTY rate but really I’m pretty sure based on my Facebook group that I’m the only person not assigned a cabin!😡😡
Please don't let this affect your enjoyment of the trip. Be assured you'll have a room. I'm fairly confident that you may not be the "only one" with no assignment at this point.

Now, just sit back and enjoy the ride......
 


I really don't get these discussions. I'm replying to this post, but there have been several lately.
A cruiseship is not a bus, you don't have to stand when all seats are taken. And it's also not a plane where they overbook seats. You will have a room. And the rule of the game is 'you will be assigned a room between booking and boarding', this rule doesn't say: 'if we don't have assigned a room earlier, you cannot come along on the cruise'.

Best thing to learn from this: You do not like the unknown and you shouldn't book these rates anymore.

For the Facebook group, how many people are in the group and how many people fit on the ship?
In this group you have surrounded yourself with a small group of people who are really invested in this cruise. And talk about it 24/7. There will be loads of people on the cruise with a more laissez-faire attitude and don't check their account every day, they could have been assigned a room and not know it. But those people are not in your facebook group,

See it as being with child and not being able, for whatever reason, what the gender is. Whatever you do, it will not change the gender. You can get more excited if you wanted a girl and you find out in the end you have a girl, but you can also be slightly disappointed if it's a boy and you wanted a girl.

Whatever the result, you have to prepare yourself for both situations. It's going to be a room you wanted, or not.
 
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I understand what your saying and I’m sorry if it is annoying to see these posts. I’ve done the Gt and Gty fares before many times and never had this happen. I’m a more practical person and right now I’m on my way to Puerto Rico with blank luggage tags. So unless they populate my room before I check in at the port I have to hand off my luggage without a room number. I know there are bar codes on the tags but it just feels uncomfortable to not know my room until check in. I wanted to hear from people that actually have been assigned at the port instead of just knowing that it could happen. I would love to know their experience and how it went and if they felt that not being assigned was a problem. I’d like to make sure that I get assigned the room category I paid for also and not just picked by the CM that is at the counter when I walk up and they say “oops no room yet”. Lol

Princessschmoo has said that she was assigned at the port but admittedly didn’t check to see if she had a room while she was in WDW just prior to the cruise departure.

Obviously I don’t know how many other people still have a GTY room out there. I just know that the time at which all the people on the Facebook post who had both GTY and VGT were assigned on the same day. I feel left out. :rolleyes2 LOL


And thank you Princesschmoo!! I am trying not to let it bother me!! I’m sure we absolutely will have a wonderful trip! Thanks for always replying!!
 
Lol! Yes!! Every hour practically. Tomorrow will be two days out so I will call again. I called around 8 days out and they told me I would know by 3 days. And they did do something since I got switched to main dining. I’m confident I’m on the ship since I’ve gotten the reservation confirmed multiple times and everyone says it’s fine. It is just very frustrating and I’m a bit nervous I guess without knowing they’ve assigned me a room.

We were on the Magic October 27th sailing and I booked OGT and received my assignment about 10 days before. We had a big group and all of us were assigned near each other and all had good rooms. The only drawback I can see about not having it yet would be what to put on the luggage tags for bag drop off. I am sure your luggage will get to you eventually as you mentioned but that would make me a bit frustrated also. Once onboard relax and enjoy your trip!

MJ
 
Lol! Yes!! Every hour practically. Tomorrow will be two days out so I will call again. I called around 8 days out and they told me I would know by 3 days. And they did do something since I got switched to main dining. I’m confident I’m on the ship since I’ve gotten the reservation confirmed multiple times and everyone says it’s fine. It is just very frustrating and I’m a bit nervous I guess without knowing they’ve assigned me a room.


This really piss*s me off about DCL. I know the rules about "you will get your room on x day up until embarkation" but still, they should't do that. People pay good money to sail with them, 4 sometimes 5 figure$ and it's poor customer service that they would do this.

imo they should get rid of the all gty rates. Let ppl pick their rooms in advance even at a higher price, it's not like ppl are indecisive about sailing with them.. don't go with the "we'll pick your room" bs.

Keep us updated on how things went.
 
This really piss*s me off about DCL. I know the rules about "you will get your room on x day up until embarkation" but still, they should't do that. People pay good money to sail with them, 4 sometimes 5 figure$ and it's poor customer service that they would do this.

imo they should get rid of the all gty rates. Let ppl pick their rooms in advance even at a higher price, it's not like ppl are indecisive about sailing with them.. don't go with the "we'll pick your room" bs.

Keep us updated on how things went.
Well as much as I am disappointed I still have not received a room assignment I certainly would not want to have them take away the option of a good rate. I have done this a few times and I have never experienced as long as of a delay as this. We set sail on Friday and as of right now I have no room assignment. So I think I may just be the unlucky one right now. Most people that I have spoken to that have booked on this cruise that did the GTY or GT rates were assigned about 14 days out. I think that is reasonable but I do agree that it is unreasonable that I might not know my room by checking in at the port.
My husband wants me to go in and check in and get our room number while he waits outside with the luggage. He is so uncomfortable about not having a room number on the bags. I'm thinking that he has to be with me to check in though, right? I remember when they check in they take your picture.

I was looking forward to trying the "get to the port later and just walk on board to your room" this time. But with, as of right now, not having a room I am going to get there early and hope they let me through security with a PAR of 2pm.

Anyone know if the baggage porter will know our room number by scanning our bar codes?

Its still possible they could populate my room by the time we get to the port so that is what I am hoping for at this point! I check back and report if they do! Thanks everyone for the encouragement and I assure you I will have a good time no matter which cabin we get!!
 
Well as much as I am disappointed I still have not received a room assignment I certainly would not want to have them take away the option of a good rate. I have done this a few times and I have never experienced as long as of a delay as this. We set sail on Friday and as of right now I have no room assignment. So I think I may just be the unlucky one right now. Most people that I have spoken to that have booked on this cruise that did the GTY or GT rates were assigned about 14 days out. I think that is reasonable but I do agree that it is unreasonable that I might not know my room by checking in at the port.
My husband wants me to go in and check in and get our room number while he waits outside with the luggage. He is so uncomfortable about not having a room number on the bags. I'm thinking that he has to be with me to check in though, right? I remember when they check in they take your picture.

I was looking forward to trying the "get to the port later and just walk on board to your room" this time. But with, as of right now, not having a room I am going to get there early and hope they let me through security with a PAR of 2pm.

Anyone know if the baggage porter will know our room number by scanning our bar codes?

Its still possible they could populate my room by the time we get to the port so that is what I am hoping for at this point! I check back and report if they do! Thanks everyone for the encouragement and I assure you I will have a good time no matter which cabin we get!!

Yes they will be able to identify your room number by scanning the barcode.
 
I guess I don't understand why the bag thing is such a big issue. They have 4 ships, they do this hundreds of times a year. I'm sure they deal with this exact issue all the time. They know how to get you your bags. They wouldn't do this if they didn't.

You're going to be on the ship in a room. I get wanting to know the room number, but it's not a huge deal.
 
I guess I don't understand why the bag thing is such a big issue. They have 4 ships, they do this hundreds of times a year. I'm sure they deal with this exact issue all the time. They know how to get you your bags. They wouldn't do this if they didn't.

You're going to be on the ship in a room. I get wanting to know the room number, but it's not a huge deal.
just a comfort thing and not really a big deal to some but for us we wanted to know prior to boarding! And I really wanted to talk to someone who actually had not received the room prior to boarding. And we have had Disney take an extraordinary time to find our luggage one trip so I don't like the feeling of not getting my luggage! Its all good!


WE DID JUST GET OUR ROOM! Got a 5B Mid on 6th deck. Very happy with the placement as we booked a 6A GTY (white wall verandah) so we got a nice little upgrade! Guess it was worth the wait! And now hubby will be happy I can put a stateroom on the luggage tags!

Thanks everyone for putting up with me through my neurosis about room assignment!
 
I understand the concern about the bags and not having a room number. It is not exactly the same circumstance but think about all the people who have a stateroom assigned and then check-in for that stateroom and then go one more step and go to the supervisor's desk to upgrade. It really is the bar code that matters, not the number written on the tag. Otherwise you would hear lots and lots of stories about how "we upgraded at the port but then had to hunt down our luggage".

Even if you have a cabin number and don't upgrade, sometimes things happen. One thing I've never had a problem with is luggage. Our worst experience was several years ago, on the first cruise after the re-imagining of the Magic. (Maybe other people's stories of misfortune will make you feel less stressed about your own? Maybe this will backfire and will just give you more to stress over but it has a happy ending!)

We checked in as normal, boarded when they called the first boarding group and went to upstairs (this was in Miami) to swipe our KTTW cards and board. Well, it was right at that swiping in when things really went awry. They called for a supervisor who came over, looked at the screen and then took our KTTW cards and asked us to step to the side. We were standing in that little spot, so close to boarding but not quite for over half an hour. All that time we just stood there watching hundreds of people board (yes, and getting looks from people like "what have you done wrong"). All that time, they never really told us what was happening, every once in a while someone would come over and ask who we were or why we were standing there. We would identify ourselves and they would nod their head like "oh yeah, you guys" and walk away. One person asked us why we didn't speak to one of the desk agents before we tried to board (when we said we had no idea what they were talking about and asked them to explain because they were treating us like we were trying to sneak onto the ship, they said they'd be right back and walked away.) Finally the original supervisor and someone from Guest Services came to us and told us the cabin we had - AND checked into, was not available - seemed they still had workers on board and one of them was in our cabin. They said it shouldn't have let us check-in so apparently they took our cabin out of service between the time we checked in and the time we tried to board. So we actually boarded the ship without a cabin assignment! As this was a two day cruise and we were scheduled for the next two sailings as well, we didn't want to be changing cabins every few days (they didn't think our original cabin would be available for the next sailings but thought it might for the 3rd; their intention was to find us a cabin after each cruise - when they knew if the workers would still be there or not and tell us when we checked in where we were going. So imagine having to pack after each of the cruises when you specifically planned to be in the same cabin so you didn't have to do just that; on top of then not knowing what cabin they were going to stick us in). So it took several hours with Guest Services to straighten it out and actually get our cabin assignment for the 3 cruises.

But I told you it had a happy ending. Just before the lifeboat drill, we were given a cabin - one we could stay in for all 3 cruises. It was still on deck 2 just further aft than we usually book. And even with all that mess, our luggage ended up showing up at the correct cabin door, just after the drill.
 
I understand the concern about the bags and not having a room number. It is not exactly the same circumstance but think about all the people who have a stateroom assigned and then check-in for that stateroom and then go one more step and go to the supervisor's desk to upgrade. It really is the bar code that matters, not the number written on the tag. Otherwise you would hear lots and lots of stories about how "we upgraded at the port but then had to hunt down our luggage".

Even if you have a cabin number and don't upgrade, sometimes things happen. One thing I've never had a problem with is luggage. Our worst experience was several years ago, on the first cruise after the re-imagining of the Magic. (Maybe other people's stories of misfortune will make you feel less stressed about your own? Maybe this will backfire and will just give you more to stress over but it has a happy ending!)

We checked in as normal, boarded when they called the first boarding group and went to upstairs (this was in Miami) to swipe our KTTW cards and board. Well, it was right at that swiping in when things really went awry. They called for a supervisor who came over, looked at the screen and then took our KTTW cards and asked us to step to the side. We were standing in that little spot, so close to boarding but not quite for over half an hour. All that time we just stood there watching hundreds of people board (yes, and getting looks from people like "what have you done wrong"). All that time, they never really told us what was happening, every once in a while someone would come over and ask who we were or why we were standing there. We would identify ourselves and they would nod their head like "oh yeah, you guys" and walk away. One person asked us why we didn't speak to one of the desk agents before we tried to board (when we said we had no idea what they were talking about and asked them to explain because they were treating us like we were trying to sneak onto the ship, they said they'd be right back and walked away.) Finally the original supervisor and someone from Guest Services came to us and told us the cabin we had - AND checked into, was not available - seemed they still had workers on board and one of them was in our cabin. They said it shouldn't have let us check-in so apparently they took our cabin out of service between the time we checked in and the time we tried to board. So we actually boarded the ship without a cabin assignment! As this was a two day cruise and we were scheduled for the next two sailings as well, we didn't want to be changing cabins every few days (they didn't think our original cabin would be available for the next sailings but thought it might for the 3rd; their intention was to find us a cabin after each cruise - when they knew if the workers would still be there or not and tell us when we checked in where we were going. So imagine having to pack after each of the cruises when you specifically planned to be in the same cabin so you didn't have to do just that; on top of then not knowing what cabin they were going to stick us in). So it took several hours with Guest Services to straighten it out and actually get our cabin assignment for the 3 cruises.

But I told you it had a happy ending. Just before the lifeboat drill, we were given a cabin - one we could stay in for all 3 cruises. It was still on deck 2 just further aft than we usually book. And even with all that mess, our luggage ended up showing up at the correct cabin door, just after the drill.
Thanks for the story! That must’ve been such a stressful time for you. And it does make me feel better to know you got your luggage through all of that mess. I hope Disney made you feel appreciated if you were patient. I would have been so stressed not being able to get on board.
 
OK I'm a lesson in a crazy person with a GTY reservation! They just changed our room again! I have to stop looking and just look right before we go to the port! I like the second room as well but I don't trust this is the last time they'll change it. I figure the room I was in was a connecting room and when they went to put another group in their GTY assignment they were able to give a family a connecting. At least I hope that is what happened because it would make me feel better! LOL.
 
OK I'm a lesson in a crazy person with a GTY reservation! They just changed our room again! I have to stop looking and just look right before we go to the port! I like the second room as well but I don't trust this is the last time they'll change it. I figure the room I was in was a connecting room and when they went to put another group in their GTY assignment they were able to give a family a connecting. At least I hope that is what happened because it would make me feel better! LOL.

Please don't take this as snotty as it not intended to be... I know this doesn't fix the room assignment, but can you pack in a way that if push came to shove, you could carry your luggage on if you needed to, in an effort to keep hub's nerves intact and not have to worry about if/when the bags show? I think that could be a solution WORST CASE! I am sure they will get you a lovely room and hope you have an amazing trip.
 

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