What is a guarantee stateroom any why should I care?

“Guarantee” or “GTY” indicates that while you do not have a specific stateroom number assigned to you but you are guaranteed by the cruise line to be in the stateroom category selected, or better, for the price you have been quoted on your invoice. Your agent has no control over these stateroom assignments; it is strictly at the discretion of the cruise line.

There is a popular rumor that you’ll more likely to receive an upgrade, and Cruise Critic has an article on this topic. This article does a good job of covering it, however I believe it doesn’t put enough emphasis on that you lose almost all control over stateroom location. I spend about 50% of the total time when a client is in the office going over stateroom selection, I consider this perhaps the second most important element in client satisfaction when cruising. (The most important is selecting the correct cruise line.) Also would say that over 50% of all complains about cruises are directly or indirectly related to stateroom selection/location. The husband and wife who were on bunk beds; the early-to-bed seniors located directly over the disco; the motion sick honeymooners who were on the most motion-prone area of the ship (high, forward)… etc…

What’s more all rooms by the same name are not created equal, such as these 14 Unusual Staterooms and 6 Cruise Cabins to Avoid. 

These all drive home the same thing — location, location, location… Location is very important… And going with a “guarantee” room will virtually guarantee you don’t have enough control over location.

For these reasons, it is with extreme reluctance will I recommend a client choose a “guarantee” stateroom.

P.S. They don’t always say it but most prices online are “starting from” prices and those are often a guarantee stateroom, or when you call the cruise line directly they’ll often start with the lowest price to get you into a specific category, such as balcony. But in many cases these are guarantee staterooms.

P.S.S. Some cruise lines indicate they are a guarantee stateroom by the suffix “X”, such as BX, IX, OX, etc…. Although this is not universal across all cruise lines.