I Bid on a Cabin Upgrade and “Won”! (First Time EVER)

When I got an email asking if I wanted to bid on a cabin upgrade for my cruise, I honestly didn’t think much of it.

I’ve been cruising for years and I’ve never once had an upgrade bid accepted, probably because I always bid the absolute minimum possible.

I still wanted to give it a go – but I just wasn’t getting my hopes up.

The cabin I had booked originally was an oceanview cabin, and although I was happy with that, I knew that having a balcony of some sort would be great.

Especially since I’d been on this ship before and one of my main memories was how the air conditioning didn’t work and it was really hot in the room.

I also had memories of it being generally quite scruffy so I hoped that things would have improved since then. 

When I saw that I could bid on what was called a “suite”, that really caught my attention.

Even the minimum bid wasn’t cheap and it did feel like a lot of money to risk. I also knew that if this worked, it would probably be the only chance I’d have to stay in a cabin like this.

So I went for it and decided to let the universe decide.

The upgrade system works by asking everyone if they want to upgrade, then giving it to the person who bids the most.

The cruise I was on was in winter and in northern Europe so it wasn’t an itinerary that most people would particularly want a balcony cabin for.

When I did get that amazing email that said that I’d “won”, I did wonder if maybe that’s why my offer was accepted this time.

I also had a little nagging doubt in my mind that I’d overpaid for the original cruise, and this “upgrade” wasn’t really much of deal at all…

In reality, I think it was a bit of both. It certainly wasn’t the big “win” that the email would have had me believe. 

Have a look at the video from my original, disastrous cruise booking on Ambassador Ambience, and you will see why I was keen not to stay in an inside cabin onboard:

Because I bid on a cabin type and not a specific room, that meant that I didn’t get to pick my cabin’s location.

I knew that the suites were only in a certain part of the ship, so that did narrow it down a little, but I still had no control over what would be around my cabin.

I hoped that it wouldn’t be noisy and that we wouldn’t feel too much movement if the seas got rough, which – spoiler alert – they did. 

I was assigned cabin 11162 and found it on the deck plans straight away. It was under the pool deck, which made me a little bit nervous, but overall, I was happy.

Embarkation was easy, and wandering down the corridors, it reminded me just how old this ship was.

She was built in 1990, and it’s really quite rare for a ship to still be in operation after 35 years.

Usually, after 25 or 30 years, ships are scrapped, and there was a plan to scrap this ship back in 2020, but she was saved. 

That said though, nothing looked broken or bad, and I hoped the same would be true in the cabin. 

We were handed our cruise cards at the terminal, and we used them to unlock our cabin door.

My first impression was “Whoa, this room is huge”. I did a very quick lap, making sure I saw every corner of the room.

It felt like there was a lot of floor space, a lot more than you’d usually find in a cruise ship cabin.

On one wall was a big bed, and I loved how it faced the window.

That’s normally more of a river cruise ship thing than an ocean cruise ship, and I was excited to hopefully see something exciting out of the window. I did see this gorgeous sunset one evening…

On the right-hand side was a massive desk that stretched almost the full length of the room with a big mirror above it.

This room didn’t need any help feeling spacious, but this certainly did make it feel even bigger.

We had room in the middle of the cabin for a little table and two chairs, and then still had space for a sofa.

I’m pretty sure this cabin was bigger than the flat that I used to live in – and that’s your Britishism of the week.

We call one-storey apartments flats, and I used to live in a first-floor flat. 1st floor to us being the first floor up, not the ground floor. (Bonus Britishism for you there). 

It didn’t take me very long to notice the welcome chocolates on the table, and I wondered if, because this cabin was classed as a suite, it would have any other perks beyond just being a really big cabin. 

Above the chocolates, the ceiling looked like this. It had a square part that was higher than the rest, which I’ve never seen in a cabin before.

I’m not really sure why it’s like that, but it was a little quirk that I enjoyed. Perhaps that’s one reason why it felt so spacious.

We boarded this cruise in London Tilbury, and I headed straight out to the balcony to see what the space was like out there.

The balcony itself wasn’t huge, but I wasn’t expecting it to be.

On modern cruise ships, suite balconies are massive, but only about 1 in 4 cabins on this ship have any balcony space. That is very standard for a ship of this age, so I was just grateful to have it. 

Our balcony was sheltered and built into the ship, this style is better for rough weather than for sunbathing, and that would suit our cruise perfectly. 

Coming back inside and heading what felt like a mile across the cabin, I explored the wardrobe area closer to the door.

I personally love it when cabins have a space like this. I know some people don’t like having their clothes on show, but the separation from the main part of the cabin is something I always appreciate. 

I could have fitted every item of clothing that I own into this space, but I didn’t have a lot for five nights. There were so many coat hangers and drawers absolutely everywhere. 

I think this cabin might hold the record for the most drawers I’ve ever seen in a room.

There was a huge bank over by the wardrobe, more under the TV, more near the mirror and more on both sides of the bed.

There was so much storage space that I had one drawer just for my hat, because why not? 

On the side part, too, there was a fridge with more storage and an atlas and binoculars for us to use during the cruise. 

The part that I was most excited about by far, was the bathroom.

Generally, cruise ship bathrooms are pretty standard. They have a shower, a toilet and a sink.

You might find that the shower is in the corner or maybe the toilet is off to the side, but that’s really as exciting as they get.

This one really was exciting, though. On the left-hand side was the toilet in its own little space.

You might be wondering what is in the little pile behind the toilet, and they’re just little sanitary bags, such a fancy way to present some bags. 

In the middle above the sink, we had a few items provided, like a toothbrush and a shower cap. These are a perk of being in a suite, and you don’t get those in the other cabins.

What you do get in the other cabins though, or what you did get anyway the last time that I was onboard, were creepy handles on the drawers…

I really hope that they’ve changed them in all the cabins now, but they weren’t in mine anyway, and that was almost worth the upgrade in itself.

On the right-hand side was my favourite thing of all, a bath. Not just any bath, a real adult human-sized bath!

I had a bath on a cruise recently with Fred Olsen. I felt like Buddy the Elf when he tried to use the elf-sized bath – it was tiny. This one, though, was full-size, and I didn’t waste any time trying it out. 

I had a bath everyday of the cruise, and I did learn how to fill it up faster as the trip went on.

The first time I tried, I just used the tap, which I think is a very normal thing to do. That said though, it was so slow that I ended up filling up the bath with the shower, which worked much better. 

This is the kind of thing that’s quite common on old cruise ships, but it really doesn’t bother me, It makes no difference to me how I fill up the bath.

Other than that I’d have to run it before I got in because sitting in the bath with the shower running isn’t as relaxing as it sounds, it just splashes you in the face.

As always, there are some really dramatic reviews online, but I do think it’s important to remember that a suite on this ship costs the same as an inside cabin on a more premium cruise line. 

Looking around the cabin, it definitely was showing its age in a few places. Things like the lights on the ceiling, the light switches and the plug sockets definitely looked old, but they weren’t broken.

The whole cabin felt clean, which is more important to me than the older details.

I don’t think that the cabin looked bad at all, I liked the colours, and it was so exciting to be in such a big cabin.

I noticed that there was an old-style hairdryer on the wall, the kind that feels like somebody is lightly blowing on your head from across the room, but there was a newer one in the drawer too. That’s what I used.

My guess is that it is just too expensive to remove them, so they leave them. Or maybe it’s so you can use two hairdryers at once. I didn’t try that, but I wish I had.

We would end up with a broken toilet at one point, but that was completely my fault. More about that later. 

When we decided to head to bed, I noticed that there were two covers on the bed.

Two quilts are very popular in a lot of countries, like Norway, Sweden, and Germany. Not so much in the UK, which is why I was surprised to see it here. Ambassador are a very British cruise line. 

I don’t mind either way, though, and I slept very well.

We could hear a little bit of noise from above, which I’m guessing was people moving around chairs or tables or something, but it never kept me awake, and it wasn’t for very long. There was no music or anything like that. 

I was able to wake up and have a cup of tea, which I loved, and it was the perfect way to start the sea day.

(Things were quite rocky and thats the British “quite” not the American “quite” but I took a seasickness pill and felt totally fine). 

I actually quite enjoyed watching the horizon go up and down, watching the coat hangers wiggle, and the toilet rolls rolling around.

Rough seas are always a risk when cruising in winter, but things did get calmer quickly.

After the first day, we never felt the movement again, and being able to go out on the balcony to get fresh air was such a treat. 

Every day, some sort of chocolates or snacks would appear, and we would also have our room cleaned twice a day.

Both of these are suite perks, and if you are in a standard cabin, they clean your room once a day.

Once a day is plenty, I don’t clean my own house every day, but the twice-a-day service did come in handy when I broke the toilet.

I won’t go into too much detail, but I managed to crack the lid of the toilet. Normally, what I’d do in this situation would be that I’d tell the housekeeping team, either by finding them out in the corridor or by giving them a call on the phone.

It was right before our fixed dining time, though, so we had to head straight out, and I figured I’d find them and get it sorted when I came back from dinner.

You can imagine my surprise then when I came back from dinner and there was a new toilet lid there looking back at me.

It did make me really question if I had actually broken it, but yes, I had. The crew found the problem and fixed it, while I was at dinner without me even telling them about the problem.

That is amazing service, I was, and still am very impressed. 

The twice-a-day service definitely was a big benefit, as was having this extra seating area.

I didn’t realise how much I would use it, but because this was here, we’d often go up to the buffet, which was just one deck right above us, and then bring our food back here if it was busy.

We did that a couple of times with breakfast and afternoon tea and sitting here watching the view was so relaxing.

It was great for me as a place to work too. The suite cabin does come with a basic WiFi package for one device, but I do need more to work, so I upgraded to the premium package and was able to keep up with all the meetings and work at The Cruise Globe. 

It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it. 

Have a closer look at my cabin here:

When I originally booked this cruise in the oceanview cabin, I paid £599 per person for a 5-night cruise. That’s roughly $800. I paid £330 to upgrade to a suite, but that was for the entire room based on two sharing, so my part was an extra £165. I then added on the WiFi, drinks and gratuities, bringing my total to £870 per person, which was $1100. 

Not a bad price at all, but I did book just a few months before the cruise. When I went to have a look at the prices a few weeks before I sailed, the prices had dropped quite a bit.

The price that I paid for a suite was just £80 less than I would have paid if I booked on the website later.

Hindsight is 20/20 though, and nobody can really predict how prices change, as it all depends on availability. 

Although I “won” an upgrade by bidding on it, what I basically did was I won by paying last-minute prices, even though I didn’t book last-minute. That was a pretty good deal for me. 

To find out what I got up to outside the ship, including the food I ate, the entertainment and the ports we visited, check out this video next. 

Before You Go

On Ambassador cruises, you are expected to table share, which is something I don’t like to do. Find out if it is possible to avoid table sharing here:

Is It Possible to Avoid Table Sharing on a Cruise Line Where It’s The Default?

Find out whether a P&O or an Ambassador cruise would suit you best here:

P&O vs Ambassador: Which Cruise Line Is Right For You?