You have booked yours Carnival cruise holiday, and now you are reconsidering the cabin category you have chosen. Maybe you’ve changed your mind and are willing to pay more for a room with a window or balcony – or maybe you’re curious if you can get a nicer room without paying full price. Can you upgrade your Carnival cruise stateroom online or with a phone representative?

The most obvious method of upgrading your stateroom is to call the cruise line or your travel agent and ask to change your reservation to a more expensive room. Before final payment, you can even do it yourself online by canceling the old room and rebooking a new one. You pay the current price for the new cabin and possibly a change fee, depending on the restrictions of the promotion you booked.

After final payment, it gets much more complicated (and more expensive) as the cruise line’s tiered cancellation fees apply. In that case, you would have a better chance of getting these fees removed by contacting a travel agent or a telephone representative.

But what if you want a nicer cabin for less than full price? Let’s look at how you can upgrade your Carnival Cruise Line online and over the phone.

Why would cruise lines like Carnival offer discounted upgrades?

Today’s competitive cruise market means that cruise ships are sailing at or close to capacity. Consequently, cruise lines are leaning towards strategically managing upgrades using computer algorithms to fill the last remaining cabins in the most profitable way.

The the key to doing an upgrade offer through these complicated systems is not who you are or who you know but what room you give up by upgrading. The computers look for rooms that sell more easily than those that are empty.

Here’s an example to help you see how cruise lines juggle rooms for higher profits. Let’s say you’ve booked a well-positioned one inside the cabin a year ago at a bargain Black Friday price. Two months before your cruise departs, windowless rooms like yours sell for double what you paid.

If the cruise line can get you out of the room you booked, they will make more money from it. They get what they want by offering you a paid upgrade to a slow seller – maybe something like a balcony room with a blocked view. As long as you are happy to pay for an upgrade from no view to partial view, it is a win for both you and the cruise line.

Family: Why it pays to upgrade your cruise cabin

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Elusive deals that let you upgrade your Carnival cruise stateroom online

So how do you find these deals to upgrade your cabin before you sail? Carnival hints at potential upgrade offers with this statement on its FAQ page: “Options to purchase an upgrade are available prior to your cruise, subject to availability.” Unfortunately, there is no further explanation of how to access these capabilities.

With a little digging, I discovered a few methods Carnival uses to offer room upgrades online. My aunt recently received an upgrade offer in an email that she initially skimmed over. Days later when she realized what it was, she used the link in the email to try to claim her offer. What she got instead was “This offer is no longer available.” It turns out that anyone who has a reservation can visit this link (carnival.com/PostBookingSales) whenever they want, enter their information and hope the upgrade fin is kind.

I tried it and was rewarded with the same message my aunt received from her email offer. A quick online check of unsold rooms on my sailing turned up just over a dozen rooms left 35 days before departure. Because I have one balcony cottage already, I’m not likely to jump on an upgrade for the last remaining suite (currently selling for over $3,000 per person) even if it were offered.

The lesson here is if you know higher category cabins are still available on your sailing, be careful with your email and keep trying the link above.

The other possibility I discovered is to navigate to your Cruise Manager, where you purchase beach trips and onboard extras such as Wi-Fi and beverage packages for your booked cruises. On the left side of the page you will find a heading labeled “My to-do list”. Normally, this list contains messages such as the date of your online check-in and a link to print documents (that’s where your luggage tags are, by the way). If you have upgrade offers to claim, they may also appear there.

I watched an online video of a Carnival cruiser using the to-do list link to claim an upgrade from an inside stateroom to a mid-ship balcony for a total of $374 (for two passengers) on a six-night cruise. This video was a bit out of date, but recent social media posts report that upgrades are appearing there. Some Carnival Cruisers claim to show up exactly 45 days before departure. Others swear by checking weekly.

Family: 5 reasons to turn down a cruise cabin upgrade

Unlike Virgin Voyages, Royal Caribbean and CelebrityCarnival does not use a third-party agent to manage its unsold inventory of rooms through a bidding process. In these schemes, passengers booked in cabins considered to be hot last-minute sellers may be offered the chance to bid on one of the last remaining “better” rooms.

Instead of bidding, Carnival offers different specific cabin options, each with a fixed upgrade price that you are free to accept (or decline). If you accept, your booking will be changed at once. No waiting or wondering if you won the bid.

Remember that in any upgrade system, including Carnival’s, “upgrade” is a relative term. For example, you may be offered an upgrade from a balcony cabin on deck 6 to one on deck 8. If you prefer to be on a deck sandwiched between two cabin floors to avoid noise from the restaurant, pool and bar above or below, you may not consider this as an upgrade on every ship. However, cruise lines almost always see taller decks as upgrades within each category.

The key to determining the value of an online room upgrade is to do a quick study of the ship’s deck plans, followed by a math check to make sure it’s a deal you’re willing to take. The consensus among cruisers who have done online upgrades is that you need to act fast. Someone else is probably out there looking at the same offers and ready to click.

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Other ways to get a Carnival Cruise Upgrade

The Carnival website says upgrade requests cannot be accommodated on the day of sailing, “as we are sailing at capacity.” That means the days of standing in line at the onboard guest service desk, hoping for a last-minute upgrade, are probably over.

Carnival has long given travel agencies with upgrades they could use to give their best customers higher level cabins. Establishing a relationship with a travel advisor can eventually result in a free or discounted upgrade for you. Even if you don’t fall into the “best client” category, if you’re serious about upgrading to a better room, an agent can at least waive change or cancellation fees.

Loyalty to the cruise line can also get you a nicer room. Carnival cruisers who make it to the Diamond level Very Important Fun Person (VIFP) Club rewarded with a one-time upgrade in one category, including a balcony to a suite.

Sometimes the best approach is to look for deals with built-in cabin upgrades, so you upgrade at the time of booking rather than after you’ve made a deposit. I found an offer for VIFP members at all levels that included a three category upgrade within cabin types. It is an automatic upgrade at the time of booking so you can choose a better room within your selected cabin class. In other words, you will not be upgraded from an interior cabin to a balcony, but from a simple interior to a significantly better interior cabin.

Who gets the last remaining rooms if automated online upgrade systems don’t fill them?

It is always possible to call Guest Services, your travel agent or your Carnival Personal Vacation Planner (PVP) to request an upgrade. The worst that can happen is that they will offer you a better room at the current price. One has to assume there is a bit of human selling involved when it comes to filling the last few rooms on a ship. Travel agents and PVPs may even hold waiting lists for popular cabins on popular sailings, always hoping for a call that creates an open room that they know they can sell if they can convince you to move up.

Status in the VIFP Club and in the Carnival Player’s Club for casino players also likely plays a role in last-minute upgrades, so who you are matters little.

Also remember that cruise ships almost always hold back a few rooms of each cabin type for emergencies. I’ve been on many cruises where passengers were moved to another room on a supposedly sold-out ship when a burst water pipe flooded a cabin or a thermostat broke.

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