TheseAbbreviations on DCL About This Page:

[modisney]

What are these abbreviations I see, VT and Gty or something like that? Am I missing a discount opp? I always book the first day thinking that's the best rate plus I get the room I want. What Re the advantages to these other bookings and are they something throughout the cruise industry or unique to DCL?

[PixieMichele]

These staterooms are referred to as GTY, which means "guaranteed stateroom category" so you select a room in a category you want (IGT means inside, OGT is Oceanview, and VGT is verandah). You are guaranteed a room in the category you select but your stateroom will be chosen by DCL at a later date. These must be paid in full at booking, no refunds or changes are allowed and some other terms and conditions apply but I'm on my phone and it would take forever to type out it's a good way to save quite a bit of money!!!

[Dave Marx]

There's one other type of GTY. When looking to book a specific category, you might be offered a GTY room in that category. For example, Cat 5C GTY. That means you're guaranteed a Cat 5C stateroom, or better. This type of GTY generally goes by normal booking/deposit/cancellation rules. This is the oldest form of GTY with Disney. Folks sort of treat these like a lottery - they hope that they will actually be assigned a room in a better category. These days,if a 5C GTY is bumped up, it's probably only going to 5B, which is hardly an improvement. In the old days, the bump-up, if it happened, would be at least a full number higher, since they didn't have A, B, C, etc. until the Dream came along.

The OGT, VGT, and IGT offers Michelle described are relatively new, and do come with special booking rules. Read carefully before you commit.

[ilovedisney0_0]

I am curious as to how you even go about booking a GTY. Every cruise I have booked, I must choose my stateroom number. I am not complaining , because overplanning everything makes me happy . It's just that I have read about GTY throughout the years, and never seen that myself.

[Dave Marx]

For regular GTY, it's a matter of stateroom inventory at the time you make your booking. When the number of available staterooms in a category is very low, they may offer GTY. You just may not see it in the categories you're researching, or you may be booking so early that there are no shortages.

It's kind of like the airlines over-booking or not allowing seat assignments - they know there will be cancellations, they know there will be additional passengers willing to pay a higher price for that category at a later date (but not necessarily a higher price for an even higher category)... The difference, of course, is the cruise line guarantees you'll have a stateroom category that meets or exceeds your expectations - the airlines don't promise anything.

[MBUS]

We did a VGT (Verandah Guarantee) on our Canada cruise last month. Worked great, we paid less than for the inside cabin we originally booked. It meant waiting until the last minute to book, and canceling our previous ressie, but this time it worked. Got a great location and really enjoyed that verandah!

Now DH wants to make a point of taking last minute cruises when we're retired. Of course, I could have a husband with worse plans for our golden years. LOL

Beth